Careless movers, unsatisfactory service
Seth Samuels
Submitted this review about
American Moving Services
Review made Live: 9/7/2010 1:53:00 AM
This mover's response to my review grossly misrepresents my case, so I am responding to that response, and attaching both my original review and the mover's original response below. I have also downgraded my rating of the mover's "knowledgeable" from 3 to 2, because whoever responded clearly did not properly review my case before posting, and before accusing me of misrepresenting the case. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt by downgrading "knowledgeable" and not "honesty."
First off, the response claims that I did not report any damages. This is simply untrue. I have a copy of my e-mail to Jeremy (my contact at AMS) dated 7/24/2010, and a response from Jeremy dated 7/26/2010. I am not sure why the responder thought otherwise. My guess is that normally there is paperwork involved, whereas my case went directly through Jeremy for whatever reason. As noted in my review, I was reimbursed for the table.
Second, the responder notes that AMS is, in fact, its own moving company, and not a moving organizer. This was my mistake--I made an assumption based on how my particular move was handled. It does not, however, change the fact that I was not notified that a separate company would conduct my move until after I had paid a deposit. It also does not change the fact that that separate company provided poor service--changing delivery plans without telling me and snapping the legs off my table.
Third, the responder says "Nobody told him his items would be there on his first available delivery date." This is half true, but misses the point. Perhaps I was not clear enough in my original review. It is true I was not told originally that delivery would occur on my first possible day, nor did I think it would. That would have been an unreasonable expectation. What did happen, however, is that I received a call on the 18th telling me delivery would occur on the 19th by noon. Then on the 19th, the truck broke down, pushing delivery back by a day, but no one told me. I wasted half a day sitting at home waiting. I didn't find out until I called the driver, when he was already more than an hour late. When the truck arrived on the 20th, half of my belongings were not on it. I was told they were still in the warehouse, and would arrive on the 23rd, which they did.
The responder seems to think that my complaint is that my shipment arrived in 16 days. Again, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I thought I was, but maybe not. My complaint is that I was not told about significant changes to my move--twice--and it resulted in a waste of my time and a great deal of frustration. My complaint is that when I tried to contact AMS about it, they did not respond until I followed up three days later. My complaint is that the movers were unprofessional with me and negligent with my belongings. If AMS would like to claim that I received acceptable service, that is their right, but I strongly disagree, and I suspect you would too.
To top it all off, AMS responded to my review by suggesting this is all somehow my mistake, rather than checking some basic facts.
The responder notes that I was not "ripped off." True enough, but it seems like a weird defense to say "we may be negligent, but at least we're not criminals." My negative review was obviously a high priority for AMS. I wish I could say the same about my move. What is just like my move, however, is that they got the details wrong.
Original review and mover response posted below:
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Subject: Careless movers, unsatisfactory service
Review: An important point about AMS: they are not a moving company, they are a moving organizer. Although they are up front about the cost of the move and where various fees could get added on, it's easy to miss this important point. What it means is that they subcontract the move out to other companies. As a result, the quality of your move depends mostly on the quality of whomever they hire to do it--and you won't know who that is until you've already paid a deposit.
In my case, I was moving cross country from New York to California. I was told that my stuff would arrive on Monday, around noon--about 12 days after it had been picked up. At 1:30pm Monday, with no word from the movers, I called to check on my stuff. I was told "oh, I was about to call you, the truck broke down." Maybe he really was about to call me, I don't know. But if my stuff was meant to arrive at noon, and they were still far away from my place, clearly several hours must have passed during which they could have called me. Instead, my move was rescheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, I received a call from the mover saying the truck was on the way, but "did they tell you we only have half of your stuff?" No, they had not. About a week earlier their truck left New York with half of my things, and for a week, no one bothered to tell me. When I asked where the rest of my things were, I was told "I don't know, you have to call the office." I called AMS, but it was after 2pm Pacific Time, which meant that they were closed and no one picked up, so I left a message. I got one of the movers to call his boss, who said that the truck had just left New York, and the rest of my stuff would arrive on Friday. I did not hear back from AMS, and followed up with an e-mail on Thursday. They responded that the movers would "call in the next couple of days." Fortunately, the movers called later that day and said everything would arrive Friday. Still, I was disappointed that no one from AMS had followed up on my voicemail, and that no one there seemed particularly concerned about the service I was receiving. A week later, when I discussed this with Jeremy, he said "I wish you had let me know about all this." I left a voicemail and sent an e-mail (addressed to him), so I'm not sure what else I should have done.
Once the rest of my stuff arrived, I noticed that a TV table had been disassembled at some point between when I last saw it and when it was delivered. Upon further inspection, it became apparent that four pieces of the legs were snapped off, rather than unscrewed. Additionally, four of the five caps that hold the table surface to the legs were lost in transit. Needless to say, the table is now garbage. Although nothing else of mine was broken, several boxes marked "fragile" appear to have been handled quite roughly, and arrived almost completely squished. Fortunately, I used a tremendous amount of bubble wrap.
I will say that Jeremy, my contact at AMS, was very responsive after I sent another e-mail complaining about the service, and that the movers sent me a check for full reimbursement of the table. I do appreciate that. However, to me, that was not enough to make up for the significant inconvenience caused by this move. AMS--or the company they hired at least--broke my table, treated many of my posessions carelessly, and wasted several hours of my time. Moving is enough of a hassle without your movers creating extra problems. I understand that sometimes mistakes happen and that sometimes unforeseen circumstances can complicate things. However, these were all issues of carelessness, and they are exactly the type that should be easy to avoid.
I will not be using AMS the next time I move. Instead, I will be looking for companies that actually perform the move themselves. That way, at least I'll know what I'm getting.
Response Posted by a representative of Americas Moving Services on 8/22/2010 10:09:00 AM
Response: In response,
First and foremost, America's Moving Services IS a moving company with our own trucks and drivers, we do however from time to time utilize agents as most moving companies and van lines do, in this case the agent we utilized has been with us for over 5 years and does alot of moves going cross country when our trucks are unavailable. Not mentioned by the client was that his FIRST available day for delivery was 12 days after delivery which would be the 18th and we could definately not guarantee an 18th delivery especially going almost 3,000 miles on a 3,000 lb. move and the client was 100% aware of this. Nobody told him his items would be there on his first available delivery date we always tell people there is a variable going cross country. I apologize that the client was not fully satisfied even though we did do everything we could to accomodate his requests. I did not see anything in this posting that he was ripped off, nor did we recieve any information regarding damages because we would have sent him a claims form. 16 days from New York to California is not unreasonable for a cross country 3,000 mile move.
