Run away and save your selves! you are better off throwing away your stuff, than hiring these guys for the move.
Muhammad Ali
Submitted this review about
Americas-Moving-Services
Review made Live: 9/10/2009 2:25:00 PM
I don't know who gives them these excellent ratings and reviews, I unfortunately chose this company for my moving after reading these same "excellent" reviews, and trust me, the experience was even worse than what the opposite of the these reviews could be. A lot of my stuff is still missing, and I have never received even a single call or e-mail back from these guys, about my claims or lost/stolen items despite my umpteen attempts to contact them and leaving voicemails. I spoke to some guy named Eric Snyder, who charged me the advance money on the credit card, and he kept telling me that "if you need anything or any help, let me know" and when I needed his help after my stuff was in the truck, Eric Snyder said that "he is the middle man and that I need to talk to the owner of the truck". And since then whenever I call him, he is unavailable. America's Moving Services is just responsible for collecting the advance money, and after that they hand you over to the other shady companies that no one has ever heard of and since you haven't signed a contract with these people they make their own rules as they go along.
America’s moving services subcontracted AJ MOVERS for the move, which is an extremely unprofessional company. The attitude of the driver, his manager/ owner displayed high degrees of unprofessionalism and it was obvious that the so-called company consisted of the driver, and the mover.
The driver (Mark Jones) showed up 29 hours late for the pick up in Omaha. It took him and his helper, which happened to be his younger 16-year old brother and who admitted that this was the first time for him and he came along for the ride since he was off for the summers from school, 20 hours to load a normal size fully packed 2-bedroom apartment with me and my 8 month pregnant wife helping alongside. The movers were asked to bring 5 medium sized boxes and 2 closet boxes with them, which was included in the estimate of the move we were given. When he showed up at 2 pm he said he didn’t find a place to buy them enroute and wanted us to give him directions to home depot or Lowes so that he could go and buy it for us. The movers then left and didn’t show up again till 7 pm to finally start the move! We were told that they will wrap and cover all the items like, table, sofas etc, but none of that was ever wrapped or even covered by anything, so most of them were scratched terribly and covered by thick layers of dirt, since they were uncovered, dragged in and out in several positions, and placed by the road for hrs, and the rest of the items were broken, yes even the flat screen TV (all we can see on the TV is green color now). The movers did not have any packaging material, they didn't even have the packing tape. The movers used our packaging tape and material to wrap the glass tops of our coffee tables and dining table. The TV was covered with a dirty blanket and then squeezed in between mattresses to keep it “secure”. Before putting our stuff in the truck, the truck was already stuffed with some others family's suite cases, furniture, and other moving items. While putting our stuff in the truck, the moving guys moved out all their belongings out of the truck, and placed them on the bare ground uncovered, and left them unattended for several hours by the side of the road. The same happened while moving our stuff out. Imagine what would be the condition of that stuff that has been dragged in and out of the truck several times recklessly, and has been placed on the ground at different places in different conditions.
At the time of delivery, the driver showed up 3 days late again to the destination, with all the squeezed and crushed boxes and asks for $2200 cash at 8pm on the 3rd of July, and tells me that, if I am unable to arrange all the cash, I'll be charged $900 each day. Now 4th July was Saturday, and 5th was Sunday, So all the banks and other money transfer places had to be closed. Even then, me my 8 months pregnant wife kept looking for some place that can help us in getting cash for checks for several hours, in a new city where we knew no one, and the driver was calling every 10 minutes, telling us what the new total amount was after adding up additional wait charges. We were stressed, exhausted, and helpless for several hours, and I just had one question to the movers, that why can't they charge me from my debit/credit card now? When they did it before while charging the advance.
We drove around for several hours trying to arrange for “ransom” for our belongings. Now since the movers had our stuff they used it to their advantage and tried every possible way to extort unnecessary and unjustified money out of us.
We basically paid all the money for damaging and loosing our stuff, and for mentally torturing us for several days. The amount of mental torture that we suffered from is unexplainable. After when I arranged cash, the driver tells me that my apartment is on the 4rth floor, and I'll have to pay another $180 for the elevator charges. And this is when our building has total 3 elevators, one of them is specifically for moving purpose. Also, in the contract there was no mention anywhere of any such “elevator charges”.
Anyway, after moving in our furniture items like bed, in the house, the driver “Mark Johns” said that its not his duty or his responsibility to assemble the items which he has disassembled. Although it was clearly a part of the contract I signed with the Americas Moving Services.
Later when I realized that some of our stuff was still missing, I went down stairs to the truck and told him about the missing items. He said that “everything that you owned is out of the truck”, and also told me that I am not allowed to look inside the truck due to the privacy of the other peoples stuff! (The same stuff, that for hours was on display by the side of the road). He forcefully assured me that all that I owned had been moved to my apartment… and while he was saying this, at the same time, I spotted couple of items in the truck that belonged to us! The items included Harman/ Kardon IPod speaker, wall hanging mirror, and two brand new boxes of china crockery. Etc.
Surprisingly, while returning those items to me, the driver was not ashamed, sorry, or even embarrassed for his previous statements. Still he didn’t allow me to further look in the truck for my missing or forgotten belongings, instead he again assured me that if he finds anything that belongs to me, he and his company will mail it to me, which of course never happened.
In the move we have lost one hand carry suite case which had my wife's expensive hand bags, purses, and clutches along with some other valuable items like jewelry etc, one black fabric and chrome steel chair, Golf stick and a medium brown moving box which had miscellaneous items in it.
We have yet to receive any news of our missing items since neither America’s Moving services or AJ Movers, the moving company they sub-contracted for our move have contacted us or bothered to reply to our phone calls and emails.
The list of the major damages we incurred during the move includes a center coffee table, a nightstand, glass lamp, serving bowl, broken books shelf case. My 2 year old 42 in lcd tv shows bright parrot green color in place of blacks and shaded areas in the screen. And the list goes on if I include all the lamps and some items in the boxes like picture frames etc.
To this date, damage claims and lost items are another thing. I haven't received a single email reply or a phone call by America's Moving Services. I have called them and the AJ movers several times, left many voice mails, e-mails but no reply. Eric Snyder is always out for lunch or never available, the truck driver (Mark Jones) phone number in no longer in service anymore. AJ movers never attend my phone calls, and replied to my numerous voice mails or emails I have left in the last 2 months.
If any other individual or family has had the same experience with them, please feel free to contact me, because I am soon going to take legal actions against them if they don't give me my missing items and damage claims.
