Never again
Melissa P.
Submitted this review about
Neigbors moving
Review made Live: 12/13/2010 10:06:00 PM
This is the most under-handed, disrespectful and downright abusive company I have ever dealt with. Below is the detailed version of my issue, for those who care to read.
On Dec. 2 I spoke with Shawn Thompson and we set an appointment for an 8 a.m. move on Monday, Dec. 13. He quoted me a rate of $74/hour for a minimum of 2 hours, plus a mandatory $74 charge for one hour of travel. He promised 3 free wardrobe boxes. I asked multiple times if there were any other charges I should know about; he said no.
I gave him my credit card for a $100 deposit, and he said he would e-mail me all the necessary paperwork, but he never did. When I finally obtained a written estimate, ite reflected exactly what he had told me on Dec. 2: A two-hour charge at $74/hour for moving and $74 for travel, for a total of $222. I knew, of course, that the bill would be more if the move time went over 2 hours. I responded to his e-mail repeatedly and asked him to confirm that there would be no other charges. He never wrote back, so I called him, at which point he confirmed there were no other charges. I believe he was being careful never to confirm anything via e-mail.
On Dec. 13, two movers showed up at my door at 8:45 a.m. Their paperwork had letterhead that read “Nice Guys Moving & Storage,” and it was filled with charges for cartons, materials, fuel and wardrobe boxes. Shawn had never mentioned that my moving job might be subcontracted. The head mover said would only charge me $3 per roll of tape used and a diesel fuel charge, which was 18 percent of the total bill.
I immediately called Shawn, who said I was not supposed to be charged for fuel or tape; he transferred me to a dispatcher named Josh. Josh said things like fuel and tape were standard charges, and that Shawn should have mentioned them. He said he would require three hours to review the records of my telephone conversations with Shawn to verify I was never told of the charges.
That’s when I called the PBC Division of Consumer Affairs. An agent said he would mail me a complaint form, and that I should go ahead with the move, but label my signature with the words “signed under protest” or “paid under protest.” When the time came to sign, the head mover became upset when I wrote “signed under protest.” I explained why I was doing it. When I tried to write “paid under protest” on the credit card receipt, he physically removed the pen from my hand and said, “You’ve already signed.”
The move itself took so long that I believe the movers were intentionally dragging it out. To make matters worse, the movers could not deliver the wardrobe boxes as promised. Instead they gave me a large commercial bin filled with used moving blankets, on top of which I had to throw my entire wardrobe. The movers also did not wrap my mattress, box spring or picture frames in any sort of protective wrapping before place them in the truck.
At about 11:10 a.m., the movers had finished loading my possessions, but they dawdled until about 11:30 a.m. They said they would follow me to my new home, which was about 30 minutes away. However, the trip took closer to an hour because the moving truck was driven so slowly. I witnessed the truck driving 20 mph on a major 40 mph road, impeding traffic. On the onramp to the highway, it drove so slowly that many cars passed both our vehicles from behind. Again, I believe the movers drove so slowly in order to rack up more time on my bill.
At noon, I called Josh to find out the progress of his review of the recordings. He said he still wasn’t finished and would call when he finished. In fact, he never called, and when I called him he transferred me to the voicemail box of someone named Nikki. I also spoke to a dispatcher named Cody, who essentially told me it didn’t matter what the salesman or the estimate said, and that I must pay what was on the paperwork I’d just signed.
We arrived at my new apartment, and the movers dawdled some more. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I went down to their truck to find the head mover smoking inside the cab. During the move, the head mover broke the lampshade of my $50 lamp. The job was done by 1:30, and the final amount of the bill was $529.92, including the $100 deposit I’d given previously I was charged $370 for five hours of moving, plus the $74 travel fee, plus another $85.92 for fuel and tape. When I asked how the company calculated 5 hours of moving time, the head mover said that was the time from 8:45 to 1:30. When I said one of those hours should be covered by the $74 travel fee, he explained that wasn’t a fee to cover travel from my old residence to new residence, but rather a fee to cover his company’s travel from its headquarters to my residence and back. I also noticed that one of the movers had scribbled out where I wrote “signed under protest” on one of the forms. The head mover also did not give me any place to record that he had broken my lamp, and refused to wait while I called his company to dispute charges.
