Anyone BUT United Master Lines
Tiffany Garofalo
Submitted this review about
United Master Lines
Review made Live: 5/28/2012 1:09:00 PM
- On the day of the move, the movers were suppose to be there between 8-11. They came at 12:30
- We were told our goods would be packed on an 18-wheeler – the same 18-wheeler that would be going out to Utah and delivering the household goods to the new location. On the day of our move, the movers showed up in a rental Budget truck. The movers were also not uniformed; they showed up in gym clothes. Nothing – neither the truck nor the movers – bore the United Master Lines logo.
- When we called our salesperson – Joshua Haber – to express our dissatisfaction with the Budget truck, we were threatened with the fact that we had already signed a contract with them. The salesperson then said, “I can’t deal with you right now,†and hung up the phone. A customer service representative called us back a few minutes later. He said he didn’t understand why they would have shown up in a Budget truck and that something must have happened to the 18-wheeler that was scheduled for our pickup. He ensured us our household goods would be safe and he would try to compensate us a partial cost of our move for the inconvenience of having a rental Budget truck pick up our household goods. The promised compensation never happened; instead, our move would end up costing us an extra $2,000 over the quoted price.
- The movers informed us that we would be charged for any tape they used to wrap moving blankets around our furniture. They ended up charging us $126 for tape. To put this into perspective, if they used 10 rolls of tape @ $5.00 a roll (which is overestimating the price of a roll of tape), that would still only be $50; and to put the amount of furniture we have into perspective, we had enough furniture to modestly furnish a 3-bedroom apartment.
- We had 8 different companies come to the house for an in-home estimate. Their estimates ranged from 5,900 to 7,100 lbs. Our weight estimate with United Master Lines was 7,000 lbs. The truck supposedly weighed in at 10,000 lbs. Again, I called the company to discuss the discrepancy (the estimates I received from the other companies were binding and the companies would have had to have paid for the difference if their weight was off. I had a hard time believing all 8 companies would be off by 3,000 to 4,000 lbs and that our estimated inventory with United Master Lines could be off by 3,000 lbs). I was told there would be a conference call between me, dispatch, and the customer service representative the next day. They never called me back and I could not get back in touch with them. The extra 3,000 lbs added an extra $1830 to our contract with United Master lines. This, coupled with the cost of “tape†mentioned above, added an extra $1,956 onto our move. The original quoted price was $4,050. We ended up paying $6,006 for the entire move.
- We were told delivery would be 6-12 days from pickup. Pickup was December 19th. We were told that if we could not accept delivery on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day then it would be “sometime after the new year.†We were not available to accept delivery on those days (Christmas and Christmas Eve). When we called dispatch, we were told delivery would be between the 7th and the 12th of January. I asked, “Why?†– since this did not comply with their 6-12 day window – and was promptly put on hold for 20 minutes.
- We were told delivery would be within 6-12 days. Our goods were delivered 28 days after pickup.
- On the day of delivery, the driver of our household goods showed up in an unmarked 18-wheeler. Again, the crew was not uniformed; they were wearing gym clothes, and again nothing bore the United Master Lines logo.
- Our household goods were delivered to a storage unit. We requested to have the furniture placed in the back of the unit and the boxes placed towards the front. They did not comply with this and placed boxes in the front and back and furniture in the front and back. They also placed the furniture on its side – a dresser with drawers was placed on it’s side, our couch was placed on it’s side with all the weight resting on the arm of the couch; they even placed our large, wooden DVD cabinet upside down. Boxes were also placed on their side and upside down. They claimed to be “professionals,†but this does not seem to be the professional way to store someone’s furniture for an indeterminate amount of time. One of the movers literally threw a couple of the lighter medium boxes from the truck to the mover on the ground. One of these medium boxes was marked “Fragile.â€
- During delivery we compared the tags on each box with the pick-up inventory to ensure we received all our boxes. At the end, at least 5 boxes were missing their inventory tags. During the next couple weeks we would also realize that at least 2 boxes were missing completely.
