I scheduled my POD for my move from DC to Chicago approximately 7 weeks ago. I was scheduled to have it picked up on 12/22 and delivered to Illinois on 1/1, available for movers to transport my belongings from the storage facility (PODS are not allowed on city streets in Chicago) to my new apartment on Jan 2. I asked at least 3-4 times when I was scheduling if they were taking the holidays into account when they were scheduling this and I was reassured that yes, the POD would begin transport on 12/23. Fast forward to Dec 20, the day after my POD was delivered to DC. I received a call that evening from their transport company stating that my transport was rescheduled, would begin on 12/26 and not arrive until January 2nd. I wouldn't be able to access it until Jan 3. They stated that they were not doing transports on 12/23 because of the Christmas holiday, and continued to repeat that they needed to reschedule because of Sundays and holidays. Given that Sundays and Christmas happen every single year, I am unclear why it took until after my pod was delivered and I was in the middle of my move for them to realize this. The transport company told me there was nothing they could do and I needed to contact PODS. When I contacted PODS, they simply repeated that they were sorry, but it was the transport company's fault. They initially offered me a 10% discount for the inconvenience, then after realizing they had already charged my credit card for the full move, told me that it was not possible to refund me anything, they could only give me $25 (that's right-- twenty five dollars) as an inconvenience fee.
If a company contracts with another company as in this case, they are still responsible for any mistakes that company mistakes. After all, PODS decided to contract with this transportation company, clearly has poor communication with them, and is therefore responsible for the delays and inconvenience this causes their customers. I signed a contract with PODS, not two separate contracts with them and their transport company. If they are having difficulties with their contractors, it is up to them to deal with that, not up to the customer to go back and forth between the two, listening to them each blame the other for their poor communication and customer service.
I will now be delayed moving into my apartment and have to reschedule movers for the beginning of the month, which is the busiest time for moving companies.
Obviously there are many things that are infuriating about this process but the biggest ones are that
1. I asked multiple times for them to double check their transit times and delivery dates to make sure that they were correct given that this was occurring over the holidays. I would have either moved earlier or used a different company had I known.
2. They waited until AFTER the POD was delivered and AFTER my credit card had been charged the full amount before informing me of the change. Even though when I was on the phone with customer service, they noted that they were made aware of the scheduling error FIVE days ago. Conveniently, unlike every other company in existence, they cannot "refund" anything charged on a credit card.
On top of all of that, when I asked if I could speak with someone who actually had the ability to do something about this issue, I was told that all I could do was file an incident report. It would take A WEEK for someone to even send me an email about it and 1-2 MONTHS for a decision to be made about whether they could refund any of my money. Super convenient given that I am getting on a plane TOMORROW to move halfway across the country.
Edit to my review 2/9/18:
- I responded to the PODS yelp account as requested and heard nothing back from them.
- I did eventually (today) get a phone response regarding my "incident report" to be told that they do not believe they did anything wrong and my request for a refund was denied. read more