OMG…. Where do I start…. oh, I know where I’ll start - I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THEM … e.g.…DO NOT USE THEM…THEM being any body or truck associated or affiliated with National or Colonial Van Lines or RELO (in New Jersey). They make all kind of promises that they don't keep. If you stop reading here the moral of this story is: when relocating/moving the most important thing to remember is to contract with a carrier that does not broker out the work such as a Summit Van Lines.
National Relocators lured me in by specifically giving me false data about their “binding estimates” and the fact that they wouldn’t charge any extra charges like “those other carriers that start out low “(like Summit Van Lines who had good reviews) “and wind up with a lot of add on charges”. According to my sales rep (Eli – who I never heard from again after he made the sale) with the “binding estimate I’m pretty much assured of no extra charges”...lies.... I got charged an additional $700 on the pickup and an additional $300 for footage from my daughter's apartment to the truck being over 300 feet (which turned out to be a lie ,,,, refer to utube video ‘move from hell part 3’. Keep in mind my daughter moved from a small one-bed room with less than 3000 pounds of stuff. We were in search of a “turn key”, of sorts, to do the moving and packing/unpacking. In the end I paid close to $5000 in money and the stress and frustration was in the millions. Had I gone with Summit, which was less than half National’s price, even if they charged me, extra, I still would have been in a better position – monetarily and peace of mind.
As for the pickup I’ll spare you all the gory details just suffice it to say they were late picking up my stuff and didn't even have the tools to disassemble furniture. They borrowed our tools.
I’m going to skip to the delivery, (too much to tell in-between…changing pick-up/ deliver dates etc. ) which was absolutely atrocious. Upon arrival the movers actually whined when they saw that they had to move the items to the 4th floor – (uhh did we not pay for movers??). The driver, 'Jennifer’, was the owner of the "rig" and she acted as if her precious "18 wheeler" could not be parked anywhere. It was as if they weren't aware of their options and this was their first move. The street was plenty wide enough btw; the apartment manager informed us that she had never had a problem. Ok, they finally park and open up the truck doors and it was shocking (view utube ‘move from hell ‘part 2 for a picture) how they had the stuff packed/thrown in there. It was as if they were carrying anything but flat cargo (nothing 3D which, of course what most furniture is). At one point my daughter was so frustrated she lashed out at one of the unloaders and he laid into her - curse words and all - in addition to incompetence so unprofessional.
As they unloaded and brought our belongings upstairs I noticed that everything they delivered to the apartment was damaged. The mantra for the driver (Jennifer) was “it happens” and “file a claim”. It immediately became apparent tome that first, she was a broker and second, filing a claim would not affect her bottom line, which was why the truck was so full. All of our items were damaged or ruined. It was quite unbelievable. I swear it was as if I was in the twilight zone - surreal. My daughter’s floor lamps, mirrors, stainless steel garbage cans, faux flower plants in nice pots; all of the lampshades were punctured. Her sleep sofa was ruined. The thing now topples over when sat on for some reason. The coup de grace was when they informed us they had forgotten where they had placed the nails and small parts to put the bed back together. When I realized they weren’t aware of where they had placed the nails I started frantically opening boxes (they were paid to unpack) in fear of them leaving without assembling her bed – an IKEA bed with a lot of parts. Well, that was exactly what happened. Although the unpackers appeared a little bit concerned and appeared to bear some responsibility for losing the screws the driver (Jennifer) dismissed it and announced they had to get back on the road. But, interesting enough, her only concern was me signing her delivery documents, which I respectfully declined. Sooooo, we were left with a disassembled bed, which we ultimately wound up throwing away. My daughter is currently sleeping on the floor on top of her mattress.
I was so distraught and downtrodden I even put it on utube and I very seldom even access utube; somehow it gave me some solace. So, if you want to see pictures click on link below.
http://youtu.be/k-faHaJhUas
