Complaint Review: Legion Express - Chicago Illinois

On a performance scale of one (poor service) to five (excellent service), I would give Legion Express a zero rating.

For starters, in my opinion and I am not an attorney, Legion Express unilaterally breached the Binding Estimate that was signed by me and agreed to by both parties. 

The Binding Estimate was for a direct shipment from my home in Naperville, IL to a home I purchased in Raleigh, NC.  Further, the shipment was not to be handed off to another third party motor carrier per the Binding Estimate.  According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration document Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move document, motor carriers are required by law to identify the names and addresses of any other motor carriers, when known, that will participate in the transportation of the shipment. On the day my shipment was supposed to be delivered in Raleigh, I received a call from a Charlotte based motor carrier delivering my shipment informing me there had been some kind of accident and my shipment would not be delivered that day.

In addition to handing the shipment to another motor carrier which was not approved by me nor would it have been approved by me if I had known, the shipment was supposed to be a direct haul as the miles indicate on the Binding Estimate indicate and agreed to by Legion express.  Charlotte isn’t even on the direct route to Raleigh from Naperville, IL.

From there it only got worse.  I moved 36 items many of which were large and heavy. My shipment filled up most of Legion Express’s 16’ or 18’ truck. All of the items were woodworking equipment, and several of them were on mobile bases made of 1/8” thick steel because several items weighed between 150lbs. to 450 lbs. with cast iron tops. When loaded on Legion’s truck in Naperville, IL, the heavy items were rolled into the truck’s electronic lift gate and put into the truck. I witnessed the loading, and everything was good as the truck left the house.   But when the items were transferred into the other motor carrier’s truck in Charlotte, I believe both carrier trucks were backed up together so all of the heavy items could be rolled directly from one truck to the other.  Apparently no one even gave any thought to unloading these items from a truck without an electronic lift gate.  So when the heavy items were unloaded in Raleigh, the mobile bases did not work out when trying to roll the items down the truck ramp given the slope of the driveway, and length and width of the ramp.  Literally at the bottom of the truck ramp every heavy item and its mobile base had to be carried out farther from the bottom of the ramp to unload. As a result, every mobile base had heavy items dropped on them to the point where the 1/8” steel was broken and/or bent to the point where the mobile base was no longer mobile with nothing on it. The mobile base for the 450lb. cabinet table saw was too wide to be used on the ramp. So you can imagine how disastrous it was as the two moving guys had to carry it down the truck ramp and then dropped it on the mobile base. Surprisingly, the cabinet saw mobile was the only that wasn’t broken. When I told the movers the house had a residential elevator which could be used to move the saw to exposed basement, they either did not understand what I said given their native language was not English (Russian ?) or just decided it wasn’t necessary. So while I went to get a screwdriver to remove a few parts from the cabinet saw so it would fit in the elevator, the movers decided to try and roll a 450 lb. table saw on the lawn which has a significant slope to the backside of the house. To understand how stupid this was imagine trying to roll a refrigerator, which also has 4 small wheels to make it mobile, along the grass. At one point, my $4,500 cabinet almost went rolling down a 40 foot drop off in the back of the house.        

I did file a claim for damages of equipment parts required for safety and/or functionality of equipment shipped.  I did not file a claim for cosmetic damages to cabinets such as scrapped paint, dents and dings on steel cabinets. Those items were still functional and going to be in another workshop.  It was amazing though how many how many small parts required to operate the equipment got lost in what was supposed to be a direct move from point A to point B.  For example, I even had a $1,250 6’ solid maple workbench that weighs approximately 200 lbs. show up with only 3 wheels. Damages for all items including those I did not file a claim for probably would have been less than a $1,000 on $12,000 - $15,000 of equipment shipped.  At the end of the day, I filed a claim for a little over $300 and turned down their final damage settlement offer which was less than $100. Had I accepted it, I would have given up the right to post a fact based review to internet sites. Litigation wasn’t a viable alternative for me. To file a lawsuit against Legion Express, the contract requires the lawsuit to be filed in Broward County, FL, and I would have to pay Legion Express’s reasonable legal fees, administrative costs and court costs incurred as a result of litigation. 

So at the end of the day, I learned a $300 lesson.  Fortunately, for me, I also received a proposal from Legion Express to move all of the house furniture planned to be 2 months later than the woodworking equipment move at the same time I got their proposal to move the woodworking equipment.  Needless to say when Legion Express wanted to move the household furniture, I made it clear to them there was no way I would ever consider them for any future move.  I went with North American Van Lines (Beltman Group - Roselle, IL), and I could not have been happier with the decision.  North American’s proposal was less, and they did an excellent job moving a whole semi-trailer of furniture.  Based on my experience, North American Van Lines gets 5 stars and Legion Express 1 star and 0 stars if I could.