Last March my husband and I along with our two small children were relocating to Odessa, Texas from Anderson, Indiana. My husband had recently lost his job and had been offered a position in Odessa. We had planned to rent a trailer to pull behind our SUV, and my in-laws were going to drive up to Indiana and load up their truck and drive to Texas with us.
A week before we were to leave, something came up and my in-laws were not able to help us, so they offered to arrange for a moving van to load us up and meet us in Texas with our belongings. My mother-in-law, Annie, called around and finally found a great deal with Budget car and truck rental. They said that they would find a moving truck that was on it's way back to Texas and would move us for a discounted rate. They didn't give us the name of the company and said they would have them call us the day before they arrived with an estimated time of arrival.
The driver of the American Knights truck called the day before the move, and said they would be at our house by 9am. Keep in mind that not only were we leaving for Texas the next day, but that we had to clean our leased apartment, pack up our kids and get ready for a 3 day road trip with a 3 year old and a 6 month old. We waited around all day, and finally recieved a phone call at 4pm from the driver saying he would be at our house within the next 2 hours. They finally arrived around 6pm and proceeded to load our things.
Annie had been told that the load would be priced by weight, however the driver told us that it would be priced by square foot. After finally settling that argument we finally got the truck on it's way by 11pm. This caused my husband and myself to be at the house cleaning until 3am. We had not yet found a place in Texas to live, so we told the driver to plan on delivering our things on the following Friday. We told him we'd call him with an address as soon as we decided on a place.
We finally arrived in Texas and found a house we decided to buy, we called the company and gave them the address. The Thursday before the movers were to deliver our things, we hadn't heard a thing from the driver. My husband called the company and was told that the truck had broken down and it would be Monday before our things would be delivered.
This happened 2 more times and Annie finally ended up calling and telling the owner that the move hadn't saved us any money at all because we were having to stay in a hotel and eat out for every meal for over two weeks. He agreed to give her a discount and said he'd e-mail it to her and she needed to sign it and fax it back right away. The e-mail we received said that they were giving us a $950 credit (which was the remaining balance) and that the amount due was $0. She quickly signed it, even making a note at the bottom of the $0 balance, and faxed it back. Three days later the company contacted us, saying that their was a mistake and they would no longer honor the discount. We showed the document to our lawyer who said it was indeed valid, and that if they should continue to refuse to release our belongings, he would have the driver of the truck arrested, and the truck seized. The truck by this time had arrived at our new home and the driver refused to release our things. I gave our lawyer the phone number of the owner, (who had been calling me to harrass me about the discount).
A few minutes later the driver received a call and said that he would release our things, but we had to sign a paper first. We refused to sign it, and the driver said that he would leave and take our things back to Houston where they would be auctioned off immeadiately. We reluctently signed it fearful that our things would be gone if we did not. I asked the driver to have one of the carbon copies of the paper we signed and he not only refused to give us one, but wouldn't even let me look at it.
My lawyer had called and requested that a police officer go to our house incase things got out of control with the driver. She arrived just as they were beginning to unload the truck. As I explained to her the situation in my driveway, we heard a loud crash coming from the truck, we looked over to see my son's crib and our two night stands fall off of the truck and land on the pavement below. She gave me a look of shock and all I could say was, "yeah, that's our stuff."
During the next 40 minutes or so, I inspected our things as the movers unloaded them into our house. I started noticing damage, really really bad damage. Nicks, scratches, cracks, water damage, and even the entire side of our computer desk was broken in half. Not to mention the damage done to the crib from falling off of our truck. The movers left quickly after all of our things were unloaded.
As my husband and I tried to assess the damage and go through our belongings, we noticed things missing. We got to counting boxes and discovered that 4 of our boxes never arrived.including the box that held our brand new Wii. We had packed our things in hard plastic bins and noticed that 2 of these had been shattered and were being held together with packing tape. We noticed that the heirloom cherry wood four poster bed that had been carefully wrapped with moving pads and plastic had been unwrapped and was completely unprotected when it arrived in our home. We noticed water damage on my antique dresser that was a gift from my parents, and that my son's brand new dresser also had water damage on it and the vaneer was bubbled and warped. The list goes on and on. We felt completely violated and disheartened. We didn't have many things that weren't hand-me-downs, and the new things that we had saved for months to buy, were suddenly junk.
Over the past couple of months we have tried assessed the damage. Annie, and myself continued to receive vulgar and harrassing phone calls from their company for weeks after the move was completed. I contacted the BBB and Attorney General of Texas to try to prevent this company from doing this to anyone else. I filed a complaint with the company's claims department and sent a total of damage costs along with pictures of the things they ruined. I received a call from the company this morning, threatening me to withdraw my complaints and comments "or else". I responded by telling them it is my first amendment right to tell my story and warn others of the unethical and illegal behavior of their company, and I will not be bullied into submission.
Lindsay
Odessa, Texas
U.S.A.
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