Our experience with Mission Minded Moving and Junk Removal was unacceptable from beginning to end,…read moreparticularly considering that they were entrusted with delivering expensive, custom-made building materials to an active residential construction project.
Mission Minded was scheduled to deliver an order of 35 custom residential windows to our job site. They arrived approximately two hours after the scheduled delivery time without a phone call or any other communication advising us that they were running late. On a construction site, scheduled deliveries are coordinated around manpower and the work being performed that day, so a two-hour delay without notice is not a minor inconvenience.
Unfortunately, the problems continued once unloading began. Our crew ultimately had to tell the Mission Minded employees to stop helping with the unloading because of the manner in which the windows were being handled and placed. Windows were being unloaded onto the neighbor's side of the property, leaned against a freshly painted fence, and handled without apparent attention being paid to which side of the units was intended to face up. These were not scrap materials or inexpensive stock windows. They were custom-manufactured residential windows that needed to arrive at the project in the same condition in which they left the supplier.
We then discovered that two large custom patio doors, with a combined value of approximately $15,000, were not even on the delivery truck.
The Mission Minded employees told us they would leave, retrieve the missing doors, and return to the job site by 4:00 PM. They departed at approximately 1:45 PM, and the doors were located only about 28 miles away. Based on their stated return time, we arranged for our carpenter to remain at the project so the doors could be received and properly unloaded.
Four o'clock came and went. No delivery and no phone call. By 4:30 PM there was still no communication. It was not until approximately 5:30 PM that we finally received a phone call informing us that they would not be returning that day and would instead deliver the doors the following morning. We had now kept a skilled carpenter standing by unnecessarily, into overtime, based specifically on the delivery company's representation that they would return by 4:00 PM.
The following morning also came and went.
It was approximately noon when the missing patio doors finally arrived, this time being transported in a pickup truck with an enclosed trailer. Upon arrival, the doors were lying on their sides and their packaging/shipping boxes were visibly torn and damaged.
At that point I refused the delivery.
As a contractor, I have an obligation to protect my client and stand behind the materials incorporated into their home. I cannot reasonably provide my client with a warranty on approximately $15,000 worth of custom doors after receiving them in visibly damaged packaging and observing the manner in which they had been transported. Whether damage to the doors themselves was immediately visible is beside the point. Once high-value building materials have been mishandled to the extent that their packaging is torn and their proper transportation is in question, I am not going to transfer that risk to my customer.
What made an already frustrating situation worse was the response from the delivery employee. When I told him that the customer service throughout this delivery had been very poor and that I intended to discuss the situation with the owner of Mission Minded, I was met with attitude rather than an apology, concern, or any attempt to resolve the problem professionally.
Delays happen. A missing item can happen. Even mistakes in scheduling can happen. Any one of those issues could have been handled professionally with timely communication, appropriate care of the materials, and some accountability.
Instead, during a single order we experienced a two-hour late arrival without notice, improper handling of custom windows, two $15,000 patio doors missing from the original shipment, a promised same-day return that never happened, hours without communication, an unnecessary overtime expense, a promised morning delivery that did not arrive until approximately noon, damaged shipping packaging, questionable transportation of the doors, and an unprofessional response when legitimate concerns were raised.
For a company being trusted to transport high-value, fragile construction materials, that level of service and handling is simply unacceptable.
Based on our experience, I cannot recommend Mission Minded Moving and Junk Removal for the transportation or delivery of high-value windows, doors, or other fragile building materials.
