After more than 10 months and a disastrous move, United Van Lines finally settled with us. We moved…read morein July 2006 from Northern Colorado (Fort Collins) to Kansas City. We were a 2 family move (us and the retired in-laws). .
The agent, Armstrong Moving & Storage, (Headquarters in Austin, Texas but locations all over the country) handled our move on behalf of United. As a double household, we required 2 trucks. Our move also required 1 month of storage while we awaited our new home. Storage was to be provided by Armstrong in Northern Colorado.
The pickup seemed routine. We posted a family checker at the truck to check off items as they were loaded. When they finally delivered our things, only half arrived. We were told it could be 2-4 weeks. We had no bed frames and other essential items. After angry calls, the second load was delivered by a Mayflower truck on a Sunday morning days after it was due. The driver was assisted by two children.
We paid to have our furniture (beds) disassembled, things packed, inventoried and moved and reassembled in the rooms where they were to be moved. Unpacking was to be done by us. Many of our belongings were left in the driveway and garage to be carried in by us. As the summer heat was at full tilt, it was too hot for them to lug the packages up 2 flights of stairs. Or they were too lazy to do the job that they were paid to do. None of the reassembly was done as promised. All the hardware for the beds was lost.
But that wasn't the biggest problem. After the second truck delivered what was to be the remainder of our load, we were still missing 120 inventoried items. This was almost 10% of our shipment. Further, they destroyed at least 8% of our good including expensive Ethan Allen furniture, 2 dining room tables, one made of solid oak and several lamps. We think they dropped a palette in the warehouse. Many of the valuable things like sterling silver, cameras and electronics were missing. We think that there was some theft at the warehouse.
Most of the boxes were not properly labeled by the "professional packers" so that content could not be correlated with the inventory sheets; simply box number and nothing else. As a result, we were unable to track our losses and make a full claim. Only when we missed items were we able to add it to the loss list. Among the packers who showed up on move week were several part time people -students who had no more of a clue how to professionally pack than my dogs.
Armstrong was totally unresponsive. In fact, they fired our sales agent (our primary contact) immediately following our pick up. When we tried to contact him they told us that he no longer with the company due to some unfortunate choices (whatever that means). As such, we had no "go-to" person. We were bounced around between claims agents, dispatchers and warehouse personnel. Armstrong eventually told us that we needed to work directly with United Van Lines and that they were no longer going to intervene.
At first, United insisted on receipts for all the things we claimed were missing - a lifetime of belongings from all over the world. We eventually had to get an attorney involved. Finally after much heartache and aggravation, they paid up over 2X the cost of the move; almost $50,000. The only reason we accepted this amount was to put an end to the ongoing agony. However, every day, there are more items that we miss that that were not on the loss list.
We have also discovered mouse infestation evidence in one of our couches. A substantial accumulation of mouse droppings inside the couch and chewed material at the bottom of the couch were discovered after the claim was made. As there is no other evidence of mice in our home, we conclude that this occurred at the storage facility.
Our family are experienced with moving. We have moved over 18 times over in 40 years including 2 round trip moves to Europe. We should have been more careful and made sure that the packing was properly done. Moving is never an easy task and there will be some breakage. But we have never experienced anything close to this disastrous move and such an irresponsible moving organization. While we will now be able to put our life back together (minus many sentimental items), the settlement will not make up for the stress, anger, heartache and inconvenience that we experienced as a result of these two companies.
I will avoid these two companies in the future and forewarn anybody else who is moving house: make sure you carefully read the contract, keep ALL your records, keep detailed notes of telephone and in-person conversations including names, dates and times, closely check box labels and inventory sheets for proper content descriptions, inventory in and out make sure that you get the delivery drivers to document and sign for shortages and visible damage and take out full insurance. And if you don't get satisfaction, there are attorneys who will make them squeal.
