We hired Hollander, who is an agent for United Vanlines, to pack and move my wife and I from Indiana to Florida. The first day when they began packing our home I had to work. According to my wife, one of the Hollander packers called her into her bedroom closet and took one of my wife's pink panties out of her dresser drawer. He asked her, "When are you going to wear these for me?" My wife, shocked, tried to laugh it off and walk away. He then took one of my wife's lacey nightgowns off the hanger and asked her the same thing. My wife responded, "Never. You met my husband. Remember?" (My wife did not tell my about this until after the move was complete since she had to get down to Florida to start her new job and knew I would fire the movers on the spot for that.)
When I returned home from work, the movers were working at a snail's pace, and every half hour they would ask me if I wanted them to pack this or that (despite the fact I told them several times to pack EVERYTHING). It took 4 movers 2 days to pack a one story, 2 bedroom, 1128 square foot house. The third day the movers packed a rental house that I owned that I had previously rented furnished as I was putting that house on the market. (I had to work that day as well.) When I returned home the movers had already left for Florida. My wife and I looked through both homes thoroughly and found numerous items left behind in corners of the attic and the shed of my rental house. We had tried to watch them as carefully as we could, but it was hard to supervise 4 movers in 4 different locations around the home.
When the movers arrived in Florida I was not there yet but my wife was. Our contract called for the movers to unload and unpack the boxes. We had paid for a complete move. The movers refused to unpack any boxes. They just stacked them in the front room. They scraped and gouged two sets of door jams (the front door and inside door going into the garage) of our BRAND NEW home by carelessly hitting it with furniture. The paint job on the new front door was shot as well. (We live 5 miles from the ocean and the movers kept saying they just wanted to get to the beach.) Due to a back injury, my wife cannot lift more than 15 pounds.in a little over a month I was leaving for a long tour of active duty military service up in Virginia (as I am a reservist). I tried to lift and unpack all the boxes I could (as well as move the furniture) in that time. Due to my wife's back condition, she was unable to help much.
Months later, I returned from training and continued to unpack the mountains of boxes from the front room. This is when we realized the true extent of our damage. They put our valuable china (Waterford, family heirlooms, etc) UNWRAPPED in 38 quart plastic bins (that we had sitting empty in the garage of our old house). They had randomly put a bag of potatoes in a box with our important papers (yes, maggots were alive and well). Glass china was put (unwrapped) directly on top of a framed fraternity composite and framed photo from my grandmother's funeral (all unwrapped). The china had shattered, in return shattered the glass of the framed pictures and scratched priceless pictures. The list goes on and on. Our list of damages came to $5,500.
I called Hollander to inform them that I had returned from active military training and we wanted to make a claim. (My wife had previously emailed and called Hollander to inform them of my active duty status since we knew we would be making a claim due to the damage to our home.) Hollander told me that our 9 months to make the claim had expired. I explained to them that under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act any federal statue of limitations is tolled whenever a reservist is put on active duty. (The US Supreme Court has even said that this Act should be construed very liberally in order to protect those who have dropped their personal affairs to answer the call of our country.) In addition, had the movers unpacked the boxes pursuant to the contract we would have inventoried the $5,500 in damages such sooner than we did since I had to do most of it myself.
Hollander has been unresponsive other than denying our claim. All we know is that our claim was a week past the nine month deadline, and Hollander will not comply with the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act and extend our deadline due to my military service. This was the move from hell. It angers me that Hollander made sexual statements toward my wife. They negligently packed and broke priceless family heirlooms and damaged a brand new home. On top of that, they knowingly disregarded the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (a federal public law) that is designed to protect a soldier and his family during a time of war. Hollander (United Vanline's agent) treated us like dogs and our property like trash. Very disappointing. United Vanlines could care less as well.
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