VERY BAD STAY AWAY!!!!
Robert C
Submitted this review about
LIGHTNING VANLINES
Review made Live: 9/10/2009 2:05:00 AM
Great customer service when taking my order but when it came to the actual moving part that's where the problems started. 1st the moving truck was supposed to be at my home between the hours of 10 am to 1pm but did not get there till just after three in the afternoon. Being that this was my last day in california I had a plan to go do some sight seeing but because they showed up late it screwed that idea all up. So I accepted that and just went on. When they did finally get there they were just sitting in their truck eating lunch in the parking lot of my apartments when i asked why they were so late they told me that they simply could not find the apartment, (pretty hard to do if you're inside truck eating lunch if you ask me) anyways when they did get inside my place thay asked me to sign their paperwork before ever really looking at what all I had to be moved. Keep in mind the paperwork was still blank at this point when he asked me to sign. We were told at booking that we would be able to follow the truck to the weigh station, so that we would know what amount to expect to pay for our items. We quickly found out that this was also a lie because the movers would not be going to a scale at that time.
Recently, we picked up our items. This was also a disaster. We had informed the company when we made our reservation that because we lived in Canada, we would be picking up our items at a parking lot in a nearby U.S. border town. This was a huge issue for the driver. He seemed unable to agree with us on a place for drop off of items. When we finally agreed on a Wal-Mart parking lot, he was very late in arriving. First he said that he would be there at 7am. Then he said 9:30am. Finally he arrived at about 11:30am. Prior to pick up of our items, we had packed all of our belongings in large plastic tupperware - style bins. They were large 18 gallon bins. We figured this would be the safest place for our belongings. Were we ever wrong. When we met with the moving truck, we were horrified to see that many of our belongings were strewn all over the trailer and numerous bins were cracked and broken up. They had been hastily mended back together using duct tape. Sarcastically, the driver told me, "Well, you try riding back here for 3000 miles and see how you feel."
To save space, we decided to pack our clothing in large vaccum sealed space bags. We were told this was okay. When we looked in the truck, we found that almost all of the bags were torn and what looked to be manhandled. Also, our clothing was all over the trailer.
All in all, this was a very bad experience. We are glad it is over, but we will never use lightning van lines again.
