Insurance Scams and Hidden Costs
Brad B.
Submitted this review about
Merit Van Lines
Review made Live: 9/7/2011 12:56:00 PM
I couldn't agree more with the other reviewers here. I just wish I'd seen these reviews before my move! Moving with Merit was a HORRIBLE experience. We were moving from New York to Los Angeles. We got quotes from Merit and from Flat Rate and went with Merit because it was cheaper. Well, you get what you pay for. Alan was the rep on our move and was all nice and accommodating until I signed something and the process really started. On the day of the move, his office had not faxed the insurance information to our building so we had to wait almost an hour to start. Since trucks in New York can easily get tickets when parked on the street, we'd been promised that the team would be four workers and one extra person to stay in the truck, and when they arrived it was only four people, so we were down a guy causing the move to run VERY long. I will say, the team of movers in New York was great. We really liked them, but that was the only positive point of this whole experience. Naturally, the estimate we'd been given based on all of the inventory in our apartment was nowhere near the price we had to pay for the cubic footage our things occupied in the truck. It was almost double what we'd been quoted. Then when our things arrived in Los Angeles, suddenly there were more hidden costs. First, the truck couldn't fit in our driveway because it was so large, so Alan and Merit tried to tack on more money to transfer all of our things to a smaller truck. The option of having a smaller truck come for delivery had been discussed with us but no one had EVER said it was more money. We ended up getting temporary parking permits from the city, but the entire thing was a huge headache. Only two movers arrived at our new place. The guy who'd been driving the truck and another worker. The driver seemed to not know the other worker and was incredibly rude and hateful to him during the entire unloading process. We had floors scratched and noticed that one large container full of clothes was missing. The driver confirmed that it was missing but said he could only leave us our stuff if we signed the paperwork. He said he'd otherwise have to take it back, but he assured us we could still file a claim with no issue. Alan did nothing to locate our lost/stolen items when I asked them for assistance (of course at this point, they had our money). And the result of us filing an insurance claim? Because we signed the paperwork, they will pay us NOTHING for it. The driver told us we had to sign the paperwork to keep our things upon delivery or they'd take it back, but as soon as we signed, the insurance was no longer valid. HUGE SCAM! So, that container of clothes cost us another $1500 or so. Bottom line, moving with these guys was a HUGE mistake! Don't put yourself through it!
