The most horrible moving experiance I have ever heard of or had to deal with, and it is not over yet. It all started as a very professional sales person by the name of Rumi called me to give me an estimate for a household move to San Diego from Seattle Washington.
I walked room to room through-out my 1700 SQ Ft home discribing in detail the contents of each room. Discribing in detail and approximate weights or measurement of items to be moved.
We held a moving/yard sale and sold most of the big heavy items discribed to Rumi, IE; wood table and six chairs, Wood china cabinet, and alot of other items from the Garage. The not to exceed Price of 4600.00 was agreed upon and a deposit of 1200.00 was placed on my Bosses credit card.
I had received two other offers and estimates all around the same price plus or minus a couple humdred dollars. I had asked that a packout be done because I would be in San Diego for the load out but my wife would be there to allow them access to the household goods. $1442 was included in the price for Pack-out.
Avalon Van lines showed up as the packout and movers of our home at a little after 11:00am on 6/28/06. They departed my home at 2:30am on 6/29/06 leaving behind cigarette butts everywhere, empty soda cans, and trash from the truck from another location filled our trash cans. They were not at all prepared to pack out our goods. They barely had any boxes on the truck to do the job and no packing material to protect the items being packed. They used our plastic 20gal trash bags to pack crystal, dishes, plates and extremely valuable items with no protection between them.
We submitted a letter after the packout to World Moving Services discribing the load out that we paid $1400.00 for and how displeased we are about the experiance and how unprofessional the movers were. I was never told that World Moving Company contracted out a move to a carrier for transportation of our valuable items. There are so many loop holes that they can hide behind, when it is their responsibility to ensure a safe transportation of the goods and a reliable carrier that they have direct control of moving those items.
My wife had called me on my cell phone, (in Tears and supreme frustration with having to deal with this mess) to let me know throughout the load out the way the movers were hap-hazzardly handling our items and that absolutely no care was being taken to protect these items of sentimental and monetary value. The last thing she told me on our last conversation was that the movers had finally finished and that it would be a stroke of good luck if any of our items make it to San Diego in the condition we had of these items.
On July 5th I get a call from Yon, the driver of the moving truck with my household goods saying he is ready for delivery to our home. Problem is we could not move to our new home until after the 10th. That was when our escrow closed until the 10th of July as stated in our contract. He then proceeded to inform me that all I had to do was call three days in advance for a delivery schedule.
I called on the 7th asking for a 10th of July delivery date and that was confirmed through World Moving by Talking to Avalon Dispatch that they would be able to deliver on that day. I again asked for the origial weight ticket because now there was the issue of I was extremely over weight of the estimate and I was told by World Moving that a weight ticket would be forwarded to me as the truck was weighed after the shipment was loaded.
When I called for the scheduled delivery of my home items I asked if World Moving had a copy of the bill of lading and a certified weight ticket yet and they informed me that they had not and would get Avalon Vanlines to get this to them. Today is August 9th and I received a fax last night with weight ticket from June 24th and one from July 9th the dates are not even when my shipment should have been in there control. Whose job weight is this?
When Avelon called for delivery of my household goods they informed me that there is over weight charges that I would have to pay before they would deliver my goods. I told them I would call them back and called World Moving and I asked World Moving for an amount to have for this occasion and they informed me 3700.00 should cover the balance due that was 400 over the amount in my not to exceed contract. Since it is 10:00am Saturday July 15th in the morning and the Credit union closing in 2 hours I run down there and get a certified check for 3700.00 paid to order of Avalon vanlines.
Take into account that I have not seen a weight ticket or bill of lading for this move or anything on paper and I am doing this on the fact that if I don't have something for the delivery I am not going to see my stuff until Monday the 17th of July. I had spent the better part of the preceeding week trying to find out where my household goods are and why they were not delivered on the 10th as scheduled, (3 times for confirmation of this date).
Here it is five days later and Avelon is telling me that it will be 1662.00 dollars more ontop of the 3700.00 certified check, I informed them (in a rage that they are to deliver my goods today or I would file charges with the Police about their Grand Theft and extortion.
The 26 foot truck was loaded to the ceiling with everything stacked ontop of each other in no particular order or concern for the safety of the items loaded.
Over 250 pictures were taken of how items were packed and the condition received. The supervisors at World moving that I sent another letter and pictures discribing our receipt of goods were appalled at what they were looking at. Today is the 9th of August and I still have not received resolution from World Moving Company or Avalon Van Lines. It may be that they have noticed the false documents provided to me or what. It all seems unreal and I can't express the loss of valuable items enough in words or the frustration, anger, heart-break, and sickness of how our life was abused by this event that no one should ever have to deal with or live through.
As stated before this is not over and I am positive I am in for more surprises from these people. My advice is don't ever consider using anyone of these two companies for business and warn whom ever you talk to about this experance I am enduring. No One deserves this kind of service from anyone that is pacticing business and being paid very well for that service.
Robert
El Cajon, California
U.S.A.
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