Reliance Relocation picked up my furniture in March and I still don't have it back (it's November as I write this), nor have I ever known where it all was (never told, despite innumerable requests).
I've been afraid to publish anything about this because of Reliance's continuous threats to sell my stuff and they're otherwise complete control over everything I own.
They tripled what I had to pay them after they picked it up so that I couldn't afford to pay to have it delivered. They made me pay rent (way high, $400 per month) or else, as they threatened, they'd "sell it all in two days." I haven't been able to check on it since they wouldn't tell me where it was being held (I still don't know though another trucker brought it the state to which I moved, per FMCSA's, DOT's intervention) and would never give me a c"cost to date" which i could pay to get my stuff from them. I had another moving company contact them to get the stuff and move it me, but, they would not tell that company where the property was — only that it was in Illinois (later, after the government got involved, they said it was in New Jersey). That thirty-year honest experienced mover said she'd never dealt with such crooks, that they were a "farce."
It started with getting an estimate via the web. Now I've learned that any estimate over the web is non-binding, subject to a physical inspection, though, here, I had given Reliance a professional's inventory. They tacked a fee of nearly $4,000 on to their final bill, and would not detail what that was for.
The tripling, they said, came because the weight was more than estimated and that they'd used $5000 more in boxes than their estimate had included. They did not answer when I offered to go through the boxes and sort between mine and theirs to confirm that I had actually packed 98% of the stuff before they got there and that even their pick-up chief said he's used only $85 dollars more worth of boxes. Reliance is not interested in the "proof" or truth of anything.
Finally, as time went on, I did some research and came across a person who had been ripped off by Reliance, contacted her, and got info on a PI and an FMCSA agent that was checking them out.
The FMCSA agent was helpful for information, as was my honest mover contact, and I found that Reliance had lied and lied to me about the proper process and that their actions were against the law.
The FMCSA made Reliance take the 110% to deliver legally mandated dispute compromise and I got the cashier's check. Well, the deliverer (supposedly unconnected to Reliance) said I had to pay cash to them besides the cashier's check for Reliance because my apartment was more than 75 feet from the truck. The FMCSA agent said they were entitled to some more money if the distance was more and asked if I could pay them $200 more; at this point, i said yes. Apparently the agent could not get them to respond.
I never could get them to calculate it for me and got no confirmation of the amount until that company's dispatcher said it would be $400 more (the driver had said 4 to 600). But no exact measurement was made, nor was I told how they got to that number. The dispatcher did not return my calls and, when I finally got him on the phone, two days after their driver said he would get the dispatcher to talk with New Jersey, he said I could only talk with Josh in New Jersey now, that his delivery people were gone and that my stuff was back in storage (if it was ever moved, I don't know). They could get it back to me when they were back in the area, but he couldn't tell me when that would be.
I have to try to get the police involved because this is theft and extortion; it certainly is what the law calls a "hostage load" (property held with no info to the owner demanding the owner pay more). A person MI has gotten the police on it, so, now, we'll see how California police act.
The "hostage load" law can impose a $10,000 fine and two years in prison.
Let's hope that law is implied for each count of fraud so that Reliance, Josh Avramovich (sp?), Asi, Yosef, Kevin, Henry, and both locations, Houston and New Jersey, are closed.
Stay away!
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