A Bit of Background
In the past, we have always moved ourselves. In fact, within the past few years we have driven two 26-foot trucks and one 15-foot truck to our new house with furniture and items that we packed and loaded ourselves. However, because we were under time pressure due to selling our house, we reluctantly decided that paying someone else to move us made sense ON THESE TWO CONDITIONS: 1) our belongings had to be loaded on to ONE truck and not unloaded or moved until they were taken off the truck at our new home; and 2) our two ceramic kilns and two ceramic printers had to be crated for that move. Those conditions were non-negotiable due to the fragility of the large amount of artwork and other breakables that we have collected over the years, as well as the delicacy of the very expensive kilns and printers. Those were the conditions that I presented to Ryan, a sales rep for International Van Lines, when I called their Florida office on or around May 26, 2016.
Our Agreement with International Van Lines
Before I called International Van Lines, I spent considerable time preparing an itemized list of all our belongings. When Ryan answered the phone to discuss our move, I went over that list with him item-by-item, along with our two main conditions for the move, as discussed above. The inventory included everything in our house, my art studio (in the garage), our garage storage area, our patio, our yard, and two off-site storage units. Moreover, Ryan went on-line to our realtor’s site, where a 3D walk-through of our house was posted. Ryan and I then walked through the house together—Ryan virtually and Lisa literally—including the main house, studio, garage, patio, and yard. We discussed each item that we had just inventoried, including the ceramic kilns and printers in the studio.
I also told Ryan about our two off-site storage units, including the exact number of boxes that were stored there, the two large pieces of workout equipment, a TV, and miscellaneous other items. I told him that one storage unit was 5’ x 10’ and the other was 10’ x 10’, and Ryan calculated the units as having 8’ ceilings and assumed they were both filled to the ceiling, even though they weren’t really that full. I agreed with Ryan that a little over-estimation was better than under-estimating the job.
Ryan calculated that our belongings would require an entire 53’ truck. He was very clear that we would have the whole truck and that, after loading our belongings at our current residence, the truck would proceed directly to our new state of residence with no other stops, arriving there three to five days after pickup.
In regard to our new house where the items were to be taken, Ryan and I discussed the driveway conditions. I told him that we have a long gravel driveway, and that I thought that, based on past experience, a large truck could make it down there and back. However, not being a truck driver myself, I expressed some uncertainty on that point. Based on that discussion, Ryan suggested including a “long carry” in the contract. He explained that a long carry, though more expensive, would prevent the need for a shuttle, which was very costly. Since the last thing we wanted was to have our possessions moved multiple times, we agreed to pay additional upfront costs for the long carry.
Finally, Ryan said that, based on the amount of stuff to be moved, we would need four packers at our house for three days. That seemed entirely reasonable to me.
Based on Ryan’s repeated assurances that all our conditions, requirements, and needs would be met, I agreed to hire International Van Lines to complete the move. We settled on dates to complete the packing and loading and paid a large upfront deposit to reserve the truck.
It should be noted at this point that I was never provided with a contract or any other documentation showing what Ryan put in writing, versus what he promised me. I was only told later by various employees of International Van Lines that very little of what Ryan promised me was recorded in the work order.
Looking back on the move, I can now say that NOTHING Ryan told me was true.
What Actually Happened
Initial Packing
Instead of four packers for three days, we had two packers for less than half a day, showing up at our house at 3:30 PM on Saturday, June 11. By the time they finished for the day at 7:00 PM, the packers realized that the job had been grossly underestimated by Ryan. So, they called in people they knew to help pack the following day, Sunday, June 13.
However, on the second day, even six people were not able to get all our things packed or loaded into the truck. Many of our things were left unpacked and unloaded, including most of the garage/studio contents, patio furnishings, and the contents of both off-sight storage units.
The packers did not come prepared to crate the kilns or the printers because no one told them that needed to be done. Eventually, I had to find someone else to do that, hiring first someone to pack and ship the kilns to our new state, then hiring yet another company in our new state to pick up the equipment from a loading dock and take it to our new house. It should also be noted that, though IVL denied vehemently that crating the kilns was part of the contract, Ryan admitted in a later email that he knew crating the kilns and printers was a requirement of the job.
No one who came to our house knew anything about two off-site storage units, though everyone admitted that the items in storage were included in the inventory. Since Ryan walked through our house virtually, he certainly knew that there weren’t two large pieces of workout equipment there, nor were there 110 packed and numbered boxes. Those items were in the storage units, and Ryan was well aware of that fact, though he, apparently, failed to document it anywhere or mention it to anyone (or everyone else just denied knowing it).
The First Truck
We did not have the entire 53’ truck. The truck arrived on Sunday, June 13 already approximately 1/3 full of other people’s things. Thus, there was not enough room on the truck for everything at our house, much less the contents of the two off-sight storage units. Moreover, it was never the truck driver’s plan to go directly to our new house; rather he had planned, and did in fact go, to an entirely different state first. The driver also told us that no one at International Van Lines had ever told him that we needed the entire truck or that he was supposed to go directly to our new home with no other stops in between.
Charged $4000 Over Estimate After Loading Truck
Because Ryan so grossly underestimated our volume, AFTER MOST OF OUR BELONGINGS WERE LOADED IN THE TRUCK, we were charged $4,000 over the quoted price. Of course, at that point, with our belongings already on the truck, we were trapped into the paying the extra cost.
Unloading the First Truck And Demand for Another $2,000.00 (Trucks 2 through 5/6)
Even though only some of our things were on the first truck that left for our new home on June 12, we felt obligated to travel across the country to meet the truck. When the truck arrived on June 17, the driver refused to try to take the truck even part way down the driveway. We discussed with him many ways to turn around, or back in and pull out, or pull in and back out. Nevertheless he flatly refused to even try anything at all.
We then inquired about the “long carry” terms in our contract and were told that no such terms existed and would have been, for some unexplained reason, “inappropriate”. So, once again, what we were told by Ryan when we agreed to hire IVL was simply not true or not being carried out.
Because IVL would not honor the "long carry" terms to which we had agreed, we were told that we would have to use a shuttle. That meant that all our belongings would be unloaded off the 53' truck into a smaller truck, then unloaded again into our house. It would take 4 -5 truck loads to transport all our things, and we would be charged an additional $2,000.00.
Furthermore, we were told that, if we refused to pay the additional $2,000.00 upfront, in cash, they would take our belongings to Dallas and leave them there. Once again, our belongings were held hostage by International Van Lines and used as leverage to force us to pay them additional money.
Hours later a smaller truck was brought in to transport our things in four or five truck loads—exactly what we had hired International to avoid. The shuttle process took, literally, all day. We finished at 9:00 that night, and we would have finished many hours later if I and my 75-year-old mother and 79-year-old father had not worked for many hours unwrapping furniture and removing tape from, and folding, blankets. By the end of that ordeal, my parents were exhausted. The entire time I and my parents worked, the truck driver just sat in his vehicle.
The Ceramic Equipment
Because the first truck that International Van Lines supplied already had someone else’s things on it, a large number of items were left in our garage and on the patio, and the two offsite storage units were untouched. We were now days away from closing on our house sale, and we had no way of getting our things out of the house.
Four of the items still in the garage were the ceramic kilns and printers that needed to be crated. Sean, a dispatcher for IVL, called me, stating that he didn’t even know what those were, that they looked like robots to him, and asked if I would find someone to crate them. So, in the middle of dealing with getting the house ready for closing and this move that was already way off track, I had to find someone to handle this crucial part of the move that International had agreed to handle for us. Thus, our second requirement for the move was not met.
Days of haggling, negotiation, and ignored emails and calls finally resulted in an agreement that a third party would come to our house (the day before closing!), collect the equipment, crate it, and ship it to our new state of residence. Ryan, however, called the third party vendor a few days later threatening to renege on the deal AFTER the vendor had already picked up the equipment. That call almost blew the entire deal, just when we would not then have had enough time to do anything about the equipment prior to closing on our house sale. We were driven right to the brink of having a real problem with our home buyers. Fortunately, I was able to convince the vendor to ignore Ryan and move on with the arrangements as agreed.
The Third Pick-Up (Sixth or Seventh Truck Load)
In regard to the other items at the house and in storage, the agreement with International at that point, as communicated by Sean, was that IVL would send another truck, which would collect the remainder of our things, including the contents of the two storage units, and take them directly to our new house. That second load was scheduled to be picked up on Sunday, June 17. At that point, the closing on our house sale was just three days away.
The second truck that arrived out our house (the sixth or seventh truck load, so far) on Sunday, June 17 was an impossibly small rental, which was already 1/3 full of someone else’s things. There was no way it could hold the remainder of our belongings. Then, much to our surprise, the driver and one assistant who brought the truck told us that Sean sent them to pick up TWO ITEMS! Additionally, they told us that they were due in New Jersey that evening, and did not have time to finish packing our things. They were not only not told how much stuff remained to be moved, but they had no idea that most of it had not been packed or inventoried, and they had been told nothing about the two full storage units.
When the driver called Sean to report how much stuff there was for them to pack and pickup, Sean instructed the driver to stop talking to us. At that point, no doubt following Sean’s inappropriate lead, the driver and assistant became extremely rude towards me. It was a long, intensely unpleasant day dealing with those two packers, not to mention, Sean.
Sean then telephoned me and stated that he had no idea how much stuff was still there—a ludicrous thing to claim, given that International had six people at our house the week before, packing, loading, taking pictures, and talking to Sean about our things and the status of the move throughout the day. They communicated to him quite clearly what was being left behind. It is simply inexplicable that Sean would send a small truck with two people expecting to collect two items.
At this point in the process Sean became, and continued to be, as big a problem for our move as Ryan had been. Logistically, every aspect of our move was handled badly, and Sean is largely responsible for that. In my opinion, his communication skills are subpar; his attitude is insulting and unproductive; he is rude and disrespectful; he does not listen; and, frankly he lacks the intelligence to understand what he is told, regardless of how simple and straightforward the information. The fact that he is, apparently, in charge of any move, much less one that was as large as ours, speaks volumes about how International Van Lines does business.
Back to the second truck. . .after much argument on the phone with Jeremy--IVL's customer relations manager--and Sean, we finally agreed to allow the two packers to pack and load as much as they could and take our things to an undisclosed storage site at International’s expense, where the items would be picked up some time later and transported to our new home, along with the items in our two storage units. Knowing that we were on the eve of closing on our house, we had no choice but to agree to this absurd arrangement. Once again, International had us over a barrel. We packed a couple of boxes ourselves that would not fit on the truck and took them to one of our storage units, then we retired to our hotel room, where, it turned out, we would spend the next three weeks waiting for International to finish our move.
The Third Pick-Up (Seventh or Eighth Truck Load) And Three Weeks in a Hotel
Later in the evening on June 17, Sean called and spoke with us by phone. He told us that a third truck would be sent to get the rest of our things, including, now, three storage units, and take them directly to our new home. He asked us to give him two days to make those arrangements. We agreed. Not surprisingly, we did not hear from Sean within the next two days, nor, in fact, within the next two weeks.
Over the course of the next THREE WEEKS, we sent many emails asking Sean, Jason, and Jeremy for a date when our possessions would be picked up. Most of our emails went unanswered. We have all the emails. In our messages we explained that we needed time to travel with our dog across the country to meet the truck, so they needed to give us advance notice of when the truck would come get our things. Additionally, as Sean certainly knew, my husband had started a new job and needed to schedule time off with his employer to make the trip. Nevertheless, we could not get any response from International regarding a schedule.
Finally, after three weeks of waiting, we received a response from Sean that the truck would leave Florida on Tuesday, July 5, and arrive to load our things between 12:00 and 2:00 on Friday, July 8. We had previously told Sean that we needed Thursday evening in order to meet the truck by the weekend; our needs were, clearly, once again, ignored.
Contrary to what Sean told us, the truck actually left Florida on Thursday, July 7 and arrived at our storage units after 9:00 PM on Friday, too late to collect our things. So, we had to meet the truck at 7:00 AM on Saturday, July 8.
The truck driver and his assistant were quite surprised to learn from us that there was a third storage unit from which they needed to collect our things. They called Sean to confirm that information and request the address of the third unit, about which they had been told nothing by IVL. When they left with the contents of our two storage units, we had no assurance that they were going to get our belongings from the third storage unit. It was yet another stressful, frustrating, sleepless night for us.
That brings us to Monday, July 11, now a full month after our move started. The third truck finally arrived at our new home, hours after the projected time of arrival, and International—via Sean--refused to unload the truck until we made the final payment in full. We asked to delay final payment until the next weekend when we could be there to ensure that all our things—including the items from the third storage unit—were there. IVL refused to give us the opportunity to inspect our things and demanded payment in full under the threat of taking our belongings to yet another undisclosed storage unit. In response to our request to delay payment, Mike of IVL stated, “we don’t deliver goods on credit”, thus adding insult to injury. . .after injury. . .after injury. So, for the third time, our belongings were held hostage until IVL's unreasonable and unjustified demands were met.
Lack of Inventory, Delivery of Someone Else's Belongings, Missing Items
Although IVL claims to inventory all items that they move, we found their inventories to be useless and not used by them at all to ensure that all items were delivered. We were sometimes, but not always, provided with what they claimed to be an inventory of items moved, but we could not read most of what was written on those papers, and we could not figure out any way to use them to confirm receipt of our possessions. More importantly, IVL's employees and agents never referred to those inventories while unloading our things. They simply unloaded the trucks--all seven of them--then handed us a copy of the inventory and left.
We subsequently learned just how bad their inventory control is when we found a box of someone else's things amongst the boxes IVL delivered to us. On July 28, 2016 we informed IVL's president in writing that they had delivered to us someone's else belongings. Nothing was ever done about it.
Since then, we have continued to realize how many items are missing, and we are confident that list will grow as we finish unpacking. So far, we have confirmed non-receipt of a Miele upright vacuum cleaner and three expensive pieces of wall art that were hanging in our kitchen when they started packing. We expect in the next few months to update this information with a longer list of missing items. Where did they go?
Damage to Our Belongings
We are still unwrapping and unpacking our things, and the damage tally continues to grow. So far, w have a broken picture, two badly damaged pieces of custom furniture, one of which had to be professionally repaired, and the other we will have to rebuild. We had multiple boxes full of spilled liquid. Our collectible books were just thrown into boxes, causing damage to many of them, with some of them unrecoverable. The legs were broken off a one-of-a-kind figurative sculpture. We can only imagine the damage that awaits us in the remainder of the boxes, many of which contain delicate artwork and glassware.
Subsequent Correspondence With IVL
After the move was finally over, we were asked by Josh Morales, the president of IVL to tell him what happened and to give him the opportunity to make it right. Per his request, we told him the above story, and we also told him that we planned to publish our story publically to warn others about IVL's business practices. We explained that we thought we had a moral obligation to do so. We were then presented with a $5,000 offer to settle our complaints. We refused the offer, explaining that it could not begin to compensate us for what we'd been through over the course of the previous month, the damage to our belongings, the stress and frustration that we suffered, and the money that we had spent on things like three weeks in a hotel.
On July 14, 2016, Frank Wheeler, claiming to be from IVL's "Legal Department", wrote us a nasty email, suggesting that we were trying to extort IVL and threatening to sue us. Here are his exact words: "IVL will sue you for any and all damages. If you think we can’t then do your research. We will also get the website you built removed. I will make sure that we go full force." It seems that IVL will stop at nothing to keep people from talking about their experiences with their company.
Subsequently, IVL increased their offer to $15,000.00, and we declined to accept it so that we could tell our story and, hopefully, help others avoid our mistakes.
What I've Learned About International Van Lines
I believe that International Van Lines. . .
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Never had any intention of meeting our requirements for the move.
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Failed to accurately document the terms of our agreement.
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Failed to provide essential documentation to us regarding the terms of our contract.
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Underestimated our job, then charged us significantly more money after our things were loaded on the various trucks and, essentially, “held hostage”.
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Failed to honor specific terms of our agreement, including crating and moving the ceramic kilns and printers.
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Failed to honor the “long carry” agreement, forcing us to pay for a shuttle and requiring that our belongings be moved again on four or five additional truck loads.
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Left us sitting in a hotel for three weeks while they handled other moves, deciding at their convenience when they would complete ours.
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Damaged our belongings, including expensive, custom made items, through thoughtless, careless packing and moving practices.
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Failed to deliver all of our items, and delivered someone's elses belongings to us.
Additionally, we learned things about how International Van Lines does business from their own employees and agents. These stories taught us that we are far from the only ones who have had bad experiences with IVL. In fact, these employees made it clear that what we experienced was routine practice for IVL.
Specifically, we were told. . . .
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Ryan routinely underestimates jobs to get the work, then charges the customer significantly more. One of the packers who was at our house the first day told us several specific stories about this. This packer said that, after our job, he was going to refuse to work on any jobs that Ryan writes up. He said he has talked to various managers in the company repeatedly about Ryan, and nothing ever gets done about him.
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I was told by Jeremy—more than once--that Ryan earns $500k a year in commissions. That certainly explains why he would do anything, including defrauding customers, to get the job.
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One of the packers on the first day advised us not to pay anything when the first truck arrived in Oklahoma, but rather to wait until the rest of our belongings arrived; otherwise there was no telling when, or if, we’d ever get our things.
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One of the unloaders in Oklahoma said problems like we were experiencing regarding payment and delivery were “par for the course” with International Van Lines, and they were not at all surprised by our displeasure with the company or the way the move had been handled. They were used to standing around for hours while fights went on between customers and International Van Lines management.
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We learned from Jeremy that the way IVL keeps from having bad customer reviews is that, as soon as things go wrong, IVL offers people money back in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement. That certainly explains to us how IVL could do business as it does and yet has mostly good online reviews. Jeremy started talking to me about a non-disclosure agreement and a settlement offer the day the second truck showed up unprepared to move our things. Those negotiations continued until we turned down their $15,000.00 settlement offer.
Red Flags of a Disreputable Moving Company
Unfortunately for us, I learned too late that there is advice available to avoid disreputable movers. Below, for example, is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s list of “red flags”. It is uncanny how many of these provied applicable to our experience with International Van Lines.
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The mover doesn’t offer or agree to an onsite inspection of your household goods and gives an estimate over the telephone or online — sight unseen. These estimates often sound too good to be true. They usually are.
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The moving company demands cash or a large deposit before the move.
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The mover asks you to sign blank or incomplete documents.
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The mover does not provide a written estimate (can be binding or non-binding).
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The mover doesn’t provide you with a copy of the Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move booklet and a copy of FMCSA’s Ready to Move brochure, which movers are required by Federal regulations to supply to their customers in the planning stages of interstate moves.
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The company’s website has no local address and no information about their registration or insurance.
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The mover claims all goods are covered by their insurance.
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When you call the mover, the telephone is answered with a generic “Movers” or “Moving company,” rather than the company’s name.
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Offices and warehouse are in poor condition or nonexistent.
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The mover says they will determine the charges after loading.
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On moving day, a rental truck arrives rather than a company-owned or marked fleet truck.
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The mover claims, “You’ve got more stuff than estimated!” Should this occur, be sure the mover provides a revised estimate that you both sign listing the additional items and/or services as well as a price that you both have agreed to and signed BEFORE they begin packing or loading. They should also provide you a copy of this new estimate.
