We moved to New Zealand in February of this year. We submitted an application for quotes at one of the moving sites and received several sales pitch emails from different companies. A number also called my mother-in-law's home (where our household goods were stored) and gave her their pitch.
We settled on Classic International Inc. At least I thought, if anything goes wrong I can file a complaint with the card company. I have successfully done so in the past when something I ordered on the internet never arrived.
When the movers arrived at my mother-in-laws house (a week late) they demanded more money, in cash or they would not take our stuff, this was above the deposit of $270 we had already paid. She paid them a further $200 in cash, plus tipped the workers $50, and told the supervisor we would pay the balance with our card. As a bonus the original estimate of $1300 had ballooned to $1700.
After they had our stuff and took it away to some undisclosed location in Chicago, they began calling my mother-in-law demanding a wire transfer for the balance and claimed they could not accept credit cards for international shipping because they needed American money. Again Classic International's web site features credit card logos on every page including the page about interantional shipping.
I smelled a rat imediately and called their NY number and told them they had my credit card number and they could either use it or return my goods and deposit or I would start filing complaints. I followed up with an email.
I had no response from them so I started searching the internet and was shocked to learn that Classic International had a bad reputation for using subcontractors and taking no action against scammers.
Instead of responding to me they called my mother in law and tried to pressure her again for a wire transfer. They also threatened that if I don't send a wire transfer they will start charging storage.
Interestingly I got our copies of the documentaion from my mother-in-law today and there is no information there as to our delivery address on them. I suspect they never planned to deliver our effects.
At this point I am trying to get our household effects returned to my mother-in-law's address and we will contract a reputable moving firm if we ever see our things again.
Starting Monday we will start filing complaints with every jurisdiction we can and see if we can get these scammers busted.
Andrew
Valparaiso, Indiana
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