Atlantis Van Lines
Moving ripoff overcharged us, rude lied, tried to high jack furniture, uncooperative unlicensed at time of pickup

It all started when we were referred to atlantis van lines thru 123movers.com i spoke with nick valle on several occasions who at 1st gave me a quote of. 42 per lb at 10,000lbs. We were not quite ready to move but he contacted us everyday for about the next 3wks. I got quotes from other moving companies that were much higher. Finally on 10-7 he gave us another quote of 3250.00 he sent me a confirmation email. We were moving from plano, tx to brunswick, ga. I finally booked our move for 10-9-05. The movers arrived on 1-9 but the weigh station was closed so they would be back on mon 10-10. Nick told me if i have any problems with the movers i was to call him right away and he would take care of it.

Now the movers arrive monday morning on 10-10,2 guys one who gave us the name mickey mike & his brother had hired 4 guys from our local unemployment office to do our move. We had everything in boxes ready to go when "mickey mike" said everything even our dining room table & chairs had to be boxed. I thought that was totally ridiculous. They started retaping every box we had that already had been taped (i am sure to charge us for extra tape). I called the main office to talk to nick where i was told i cant deal with him anymore that now i have to deal with eli the dispatcher (i never spoke w/nick again). Of course i complained to eli where he didnt care, all he saw was the extra dollar amount for the extra packing. They also want to "shrink wrap every piece of furniture for 35.00 a couch and i had 4 couches.

I refused told them my contract states all furniture would be covered w/padding. They now wanted to shrink wrap our mattresses and box springs again for 35.00 a piece and we had 7 mattresses and box springs. I refused told them to shrink wrap only the mattresses which turned out to cost us 70.00, (by the way their shrink wrap turned out to be saran wrap.) now we get to our china cabinet and my big screen tv. (you will love this), he said they both would have to be "crated" so you think of a wood crate, i dont think so. They took 2 wardrobe boxes cut them in half and taped them around the tv, they did the same with the china hutch. They charged us for 2 crates 190.00 for the container fee and then another 150.00 for packing/labor. I was livid, i again called eli he said they wouldnt move them without the "crate" and then said do you know how much a wood crate would cost laughing at me.

I never got my free boxes, i asked mikey mike to leave me my free boxes he said they needed them for their next move. Then they said their truck was full and didnt even get all of our stuff on the truck. Now we have a garage full of stuff that we have to somehow drive from georgia back to tx to pick it all up. But the kicker is, that we had to meet 10,000 lbs that was the base amt but if the truck weighed below 10000 lbs we still had to pay the full 3250.00. Nick didnt tell me that, he said we only pay for what the truck weighs. And it even says that in our confirmation email that on long distance moves they only go by weight. When they weighed the truck, it only weighed approx 8500 lbs, now i asked eli when they will pick up the rest of our stuff since we were underweight, he said we would have to renegotiate the contract. At this point the drivers were gone and we didnt think we would ever see our stuff again.

We have 30 days free storage, so nick tells me there is storage in dallas, tx for 30 days, (it even says this in our email estimate) when we called eli to find out where our stuff was he said he didnt know that they hadn't decided where to store it yet. They picked up our stuff on 10-10-05 we requested on 10-31-05 for our stuff be delivered to st simons island, ga. Eli said it would be 3-14 business days. So expected delivery would be 11-18-05, and yes eli we did count veterans day so our furniture should have been delivered on 11-18. On 11-16 we talked with eli again who said they haven't had any truck going from colorado to the east coast so our furniture would be late but didnt know how late.

Finally on 11-18 we talked w/"shi" who said it would be 7-10 days. We are all pissed now. Now around the 11-25 day we are told our furniture is on the truck on its way to n carolina for a delivery there, then would head to georgia that it would be here in a couple of days, that would put delivery at about 11-27 now we are getting excited, again the next day talking to "shi" who said there was a problem with delivery and would be at our house tomorrow on 11-28, i talked with "shi" on 11-30 told him we have contacted the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies that our stuff better be here immediately or there was going to be alot of trouble. I told them they are in breech of contract our stuff should have been here 2 wks ago and they owe us money for all the crap they put us through, then "shi" says well since you said we owe you money then we are going to turn the truck around and we won't get it until we pay them, i told him to get our stuff here now. He had the owner roy call me back he was concerned about us getting the FBI involved and the police then says he will give us 25$ a day over the 14 days, this was hardly sufficient. He said they were only 6 days late because they didnt work on thanksgiving and they dont count weekends, i told him that was crap because our stuff should have been here prior to thanksgiving and wasnt our problem then i hung up, he called us back 2x that day.

Finally our stuff gets here on 12-1-05 but they wont unload till they have cash in their hand and they didnt show the 200.00 deposit we made applied to our account. They started to drive away until my husband stood in front of the truck until the police arrived. Then they wouldn't move their truck to let us out to go get cash at the bank. The police got here to make sure we did get our belongings, we give them the cash but they didnt have change so we had to find someplace to get change, because at this point they weren't getting another penny more.in all of this mess we contacted the atty general in georgia, they took info and told us they wanted this in writing & they suggested we contact the federal motor carrier safety admin, which i did and that is when i found out they had their license was revoked on 7-25-05 and was reinstated on 10-25-05, so they were unlicensed and uninsured at the time they picked up our stuff and then they transported it across state lines, a big no no because that would mean they somehow didnt go thru check points.

I contacted the BBB in denver, co they have 39 complaints against them and are no longer a member of the BBB, but their recording at their office says they are. Our total bill went from 3200.00 up to 3854.00 after all the unneccesary extra packing material. We paid a 200.00 deposit which we paid on credit card (thank god, because i will tell you why in a minute) then we paid them a 1927.00 check (which cleared) when they picked up our stuff. When we showed them proof from the email from their company of the 200.00 deposit they didnt care they said that wasn't a valid receipt. They still made me pay the extra 200.00, (because eli said they never got it) i called my bank, they did get it, so i disputed the 200.00 credit card charge. I want this company to know i will not stop just because we got our furniture i will never allow them to do this to anyone again. This company needs to be stopped and put out of business.

Erika
Saint Simons Island, Georgia
U.S.A.

Company: Atlantis Van Lines
Country: USA
State: Colorado
City: Denver
Address: 3837 Monaco Pkwy
Phone: 8779413080

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