Buy a yak
Bryan M.
Submitted this review about
Colonial Van Lines
Review made Live: 4/8/2015 4:41:00 PM
If you have access to a beast of burden (preferably a yak, but an ox will do) and a ball of twine, you would be better off moving your possessions yourself than you would be by hiring Colonial.
Colonial turned a $4400 binding estimate into a $6700 final bill through some pretty impressive fraud:
~ They charged me $621 dollars for 23 "picture boxes" that did not exist.
~ They charged nearly $400 for "dish packs" that did not exist (which is particularly amusing because they failed to even wrap many of our breakable kitchenwares, several of which broke).
~ They charged us hundreds of extra dollars by claiming that they packed boxes that we packed, despite the fact that I provided several witnesses and a Home Depot receipt showing I purchased the boxes in question months before the move and had them packed well before the movers arrived.
In addition, they were horribly unprofessional. They arrived late, and with only two people to load a 3 bedroom house. Within two hours of arriving, they literally asked my wife to go out and pick them up some take-out food. They did not finish loading until 3:30 in the morning. They caused significant damage to (a) our old house, (b) our new house, and (c) many of the items they moved.
Their dispute resolution procedures, likewise, are a complete farce. I'm a practicing attorney, and despite spending HOURS on the phone for weeks, I couldn't get even a remotely reasonable settlement offer. My only regret is that Yelp doesn't offer a zero-star option.
