DO NOT USE
Clay Scott
Submitted this review about
Allegiant Van Lines
Review made Live: 5/7/2013 9:54:00 AM
On or about 12/8/2012, I entered into an agreement wit Allegiant Van lines to perform a move from Prescott, AZ to Homosassa, Fl.
The original contract with the salesman Zack was in the amount of $3,854.77 which included the following: a 7.50% veteran discount on the calculated weight and $100 origin fee, plus the cost of a full coverage insurance policy for $696. Along with this, Zack was aware that I had a piano to ship. As part of the package Zack threw in two wardrobe boxes.
While I had an idea that the amount of the basic contract for moving may not have been right based upon the weight, I was under the understanding from Zack that, any additional weight would be charged at the rate of .55 cents per pound. PERIOD. There would be no additional charges.
About two weeks prior to the move I was contacted by Julian of Allegiant who wanted to go over the furniture list, so that he could order the appropriate size truck.
After going over the furniture piece by piece, Julian informed me that there would be additional weight based upon the furniture list that I had supplied. He requested more money as a deposit which we sent him. At no time did Julian mention any type of extra charge for packing bulky items.
The day of the move, a guy named Alex, showed up at the door in a Ryder rental truck with 4 helpers. He came into the house and immediately started having documents signed which according to him must be signed before a single piece of furniture is picked up.
Under the agreement with Zack and Julian, they were to pack the two china hutches, two mirrors and the piano. I gave the movers shipping bolts for the washing machine and told them to take the back off the hide-a-bed couch. These movers did not remove the back from the hide-a-bed couch or for that matter install the shipping bolts on the washing machine.
Bottom line, upon arrival in FL, one driver showed up with one helper who had limited English and was unable to communicate with either me or the driver. The driver stated that he was slated to have two helpers meet him at the new house to help him but none showed up, so it was up to him and the one helper to move the household goods.
The driver handed me an invoice for the balance due of $3,917.00 I looked at this invoice and told the driver that it was incorrect, as whomever wrote it up added destination charge of $400.00 instead of the quoted $100 and did not apply the 7.50% discount to the whole calculated weight and origin amount.
I showed my original invoice to the driver with the quoted information and he agreed to unload the household goods. From what little broken English I got out of the helper he kept saying that the payment needed to be made before anything could be unloaded. This helper got on the phone to his boss who finally called the driver. The driver listened to his boss and then told him that I had a contract and these items were on my contract.
During all of this I was on the phone a number of times trying to reach Zack, Julian or anyone else who would listen to reason, Of course no one was available.
In the meantime, the driver and his helper opened the back door of the semi van. Much to my horror, not only had our household goods been repacked into another larger from floor to ceiling, there was the piano laying on it’s back piled onto everything else with the heavy hide-a-bed on top of it. I asked the driver how this could even happen and he stated that he just picked the truck up from the freight consolidators in Phoenix and did not know how they had loaded it. The driver then stated that he was not sure how he was going to get it down no less off the Van as the lift gate was not operating properly.
I asked the driver what the problem with the lift gate was and he informed me that the batteries’ were dead. I then told the driver that I had a battery charger and that we could hook it up and let it start charging the batteries. He was more than willing to get any help that he could.
The driver and his helper started to unload the household goods. I directed the helper to put certain things in certain places, like kitchen goods in the kitchen.
This did not work out at all as this guy could not even speak English no less understand English.
As a result, and seeing that this was going to take forever, I helped move the boxes myself, although I had paid for a moving company to do this. The driver and the helper worked until about 11:00 pm and needed to go get some rest somewhere so they closed up the truck with the promise of returning in the morning to complete the move.
The next morning the driver and his helper were back again. To finish out the move as rapidly as possible as they had to make another delivery in Ft. Lauderdale and were already a day late.
By about 2 pm the driver and the helper were done with the move. When they brought the piano in, they first handed us the two front legs which they said “had come off.” We immediately noticed upon unwrapping the piano that both legs had been broken off in the area where the legs had been was split apart on three sides.. One china cabinet was scarred so badly from rubbing against something else that It could never be fixed. A custom made mirror was nowhere to be found at all.
The helper kept telling the driver that he needed a check in the full amount. The driver finally contacted his boss who finally got on the phone with me and he told me to make out the amount for what I believed was the right amount after applying the discount and using the $100 destination charge.
I then paid the driver $3000 which was about $250 more than I though that I should have, I also gave the driver a tip and sent him on his way.
My wife immediately contacted Allegiant to report the claim. Initially we reported the Piano and the China Hutch. We did not report the missing Mirror immediately as we still had unpacked boxes. Once we determined that the Mirror was missing we also reported that to Allegiant. We had not reported the unbalanced washing machine as we did not know for sometime that it was out of balance.
My wife contacted a person by the name of Brad atAllegiant about the claim. He stated that it needed to be reported to CSI
My wife reported these items except for the washer to CSI who informed her that the claims process would take between 6 to 8 weeks.
On 4/3/2013 having heard nothing from anyone at Allegiant or CSI, my wife contacted CSI who sent us a settlement statement. This settlement statement was in the amount of $250 and stated that settlement of the Piano would need to be handled by the Mover Allegiant. As Part of this settlement we were to sign a release.
I contacted Valerie at CSI and told her that I would not sign a settlement until such time as Allegiant came up with the settlement price on the piano.
I then called Brad on 4/12/2013 and asked him about the settlement of the Piano. He stated that he was sorry that he had not gotten back with us sooner and would refer the settlement to his manager.
Approximately 1 hour later I received a phone call from someone who purportedly was a manager and he told me that he wanted to help me out. Given my frustration with all the events with this company I explained that I wanted to know what was happening with the Piano settlement. This manager stated that he showed a past due balance of $900 for our move. I explained everything to this individual and he in turn stated that he would contact the drivers and helpers, and get back to me..
On 4/ 15/2013 my wife received an email from CSI who stated that of our claim was denied as we had a past due balance on our bill.
Understand
1. I had a contract with specific amounts on it although the weights were wrong. These included a $100 destination charge and a 7.50% discount and a full coverage insurance amount.
2. I had an agreement although it be verbally with someone at Allegiant purporting to be a boss to pay the difference after I recalculated the Invoice to reflect those errors.
3. I have heard nothing from anyone at Allegiant about a balance owed, and even if I had I would still be disputing it.
4. I have absolutely no faith in Allegian’ts ability to settle as they should.
At this juncture it would appear that my best outcome would to be to sue Allegiant for
a. Breach of contract
b. Breach of specific performance
c. And report them for ethical violations.
