My husband and I were planning our move from Marquette MI (the north part of MI, the 'upper peninsula', da UP, on lake Superior, across the water from Canada) to Knovxille TN since last fall. This spring we started looking for moving companies.
Several months in advance, my husband did some web searching, phone book scouring, and a lot of phone/email quote getting. He contact at least 12 people, from at least 4 different non-affiliated companies (some people were affiliated with the same major company but had their own little subsidiar company). The quote from Stacie (male) at Moving Van Lines, INC. Was in the middle, not the super low (suspciously low) quote, or the ridiculously high quote. Every quote was based on the city and state of pick up and drop off.
So, we went with the quote from Stacie at Moving Van Lines. Gave him our pick up estimate dates, and saying that we didn't have an exact location in Knovile TN yet, and may need to keep our stuff in storage for a while... Which was fine, they offered a month of storage free with the move. We made an initial payment of around 300... More than the percentage they wanted. However, they don't actually process this charge through my card until a month later, after the second payment... Which was a pain for logistics for us.
And later, well in advance of the moving date, we gave him a drop off location, and a pick up location. We made another early payment of $500... So we'd only owe less of the total $1200 when we unloaded... And this was put on my credit cards (which I suppose is lucky, because the cards would have gone after the company with tazers and cleavers on our behalf, I think).
We were planning to move on June 20, but late in May things worked out so it would be much better to move earlier (visiting fewer relatives but arriving with more money for the move). We called Stacie early in the week to see if we could move on the following Monday, or maybe Tuesday or Wednesday if possible... He says, yah no problem. We only need 72 hours advance notice. We say we'd call him back to give him a date and time (he wanted us to choose) when we had it nailed down. He says ok.
We play phone tag for a few days, and leave him the Monday in the morning message eventually.
We were staying at my parent's house about 2 hours away, and going to head up on Friday to rebox a few things over the weekend due to a bit of water dammage in the storage unit.
On the way to Marquette, we got a phone message call from someone in their book-keeping or some other department saying that it was imperitive that we call them back for an important message. My cell phone is getting spotty coverage, so we have to turn around, and pull over in a well covered area to call this lady back.
My husband gets the fun of this call, talking with a Brandy (female)-who is really really RUDE to us. The gist of what she's saying is that there's no way they're going to be able to move our stuff from Marquette Michigan to Knoxville, TN for the quoted price, it would cost 4,400 or more!!!
She cites
-you're practically in Canada... We thought you were with in an hour of Chicago (um... Is anywhere in MI within an hour of Chicago? Not really... Only a TINY TINY bit... Check the map, silly!).
-we should have known the quote was too low (our rebuttle: um, how? We've never moved before and the quote was well within the other quotes we got-you'll love her reply!).
-so when we point out that her quote was like others, she says "well, companies will tell you anything to get your business" um... Wtf??? Did she just say that? We were a bit stunned, so we didn't say, so you're saying your company lied to us to get our business?
-she basically called us stupid.
-she said that our money would be refunded, but couldn't say when... It was up to the 'vendors' (she called the credit card companies 'vendors...?').
And that was that. She said they wouldn't be coming at either date, and they didn't.
I called the credit card companies to see how long refunds would take, and they said it depends on the company doing the return (hm... Brandi is a liar!). They said if the money wasn't back within a month, however, to let the credit card company know... I had the feeling that they'd be going after Moving Van Lines with baseball bats with nails in (or the legal equivalent) if the money wasn't returned.
So, we had to scramble for a U-Haul costing at least $200 more, and if we had known we wouldn't have to lable like a crazy person and box to perfection, we could have packed faster, used less tape, less marking tape, and moved more of our stuff instead of freecycling/donating to thirft stores...
Luckily for me-my tax refund came in, as did the refund onto the credit cards just in time to make the move feasible.
I reported them to the Better Business Bureau, and they didn't respond to the better business bureau. Every time I see their trucks now, I feel like putting the "mister yuck" stickers on them (the green guy for putting on household chemicals that are dangerous to warn kids not to eat them... You've probably never heard of him.)
So, if there's a class action against these guys, I'd like in. I want to toast their tushies.
I have a copy of the receipt they sent for a payment... I think my husband's email ate the actual stuff, but I think there's a contract somewhere in our boxes in the basement.
Angryotter
Knoxville, Tennessee
U.S.A.
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