Complaint Review: Nationwide Relocation Services - Fort Lauderdale Florida

The following is a copy of the complaint letter sent to this company, which I've started calling "Nationwide LOSER Services", certified, and I've received a return receipt, but they never so much as bothered to respond.

1/2/2002

To: NRS/Moving Cost Inc.

1700 NW 64th Street

Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33309

From: Ed & Cris Erdman

XXXXXXX (to protect us)

XXXXXXX (ditto)

Re: Claim for our move/Moving Unlimited, Inc.

Dear Sirs,

As you know, we were moved on 12/7/2001 by Moving Unlimited, Inc. This letter is to document our claims in regards to this move, as well as to document that we have tried to reach your claims processor, Jody, without success. I called the day of the delivery (12/10/2001) and left a message, and also 12/11/2001, leaving a message (all I can ever reach is voice mail). Jody called on about 12/13/2001 and spoke with my wife, who is Brazilian and said unpacking, which is NOT covered, when she meant unloading, which of course IS covered. She called Jody back on the same day to clear up the mistake, but only reached voice mail. I called 2 days later, again leaving a message and getting voice mail, and I called another 2 days after that. I have never received a call back from you since. Thus I am documenting my attempts to reach the claims processor to handle this, without success so far.

What happened was on 12/10/2001 the movers delivered our things. Larry, the boss (owner of the company from what we were told) seemed very concerned about making sure he was going to get paid. He had us do the charge right then, and as soon as that was taken care of, he left, saying he had paperwork with urgent time constraints to do. That left one man, Daryl, who needed a tooth extracted and who was in pain, to do the bulk of the unloading (this was after they put all the boxes in the garage). Daryl was overwhelmed by the job, so we had to help to finish with the unloading, which was NOT our job but for which Larry made sure he was paid. We did not request nor receive any UNPACKING, let me be clear, but we did pay for but not receive full UNLOADING. For this, we each spent about 2 hours doing moving of things from the garage to inside the house that the movers should have done for us, and that Larry told my wife they were to do. This is a total of 4 hours unloading that needs to be removed from our bill. If the owner didn't want to do it, that's ok, but we certainly do not owe payment for work that was not completed as agreed. So, if they get $50 an hour for unloading, we would have removed $200 from the bill. Let's put it at this for the time being.

The second claim is one of our dining room chairs has a gouge in it. As you can see from the attached receipt, the chair was less than 8 months old when it was gouged, and the cost of it was 129.99 (519.96 / 4, because we bought 4 chairs as you can see on the receipt), plus 8.25% sales tax for approximately $10 more, so call it $140 rounding it off.

One of the movers, Larry, used our phone for long distance calls despite having a cell phone for his business use. These calls are not our responsibility, and I want reimbursement for them. I've circled the calls made by Larry on the attached phone bill. They total to $6.

Finally, one of the computer monitors, a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u model, was damaged in the shipping. The company, Mitsubishi, has graciously agreed to replace it under warranty, but I still have to pay shipping costs to send the old one in. These costs are $110.36 as you can see from the attached receipt.

These are our total claims. The total claim value listed is $456.36. Please give this matter your prompt attention.

Thank you,

Ed Erdman

NOTE: Sent 12/28/2001

Since they would not respond, I disputed the claim amount with the credit card company. Of course, they DID bother to respond to that, basically claiming that we lied about damages to the goods, and that we had other insurance anyway (the other insurance part is true, but that doesn't free their liability so far as I know. The fact that they denied any damage at all tells you something), and also claiming that we did part of the unloading because we "wanted to". Yeah, I really wanted to go and do work that I was paying these movers to do, makes sense to me. You betcha. Bottom line is these brokers will be glad to take your money and get their commission, but God help you if anything goes wrong, cause they won't be around to help you. The lesson learned here is either get a U-Haul and do it yourself, or cut out the middle man and their fees which are basically useless and go with a reputable mover, if one exists. Moving Unlimited definately isn't the answer.

As a side note, Moving Unlimited sent us a customer satisfaction form. I was thrilled to fill it out complaining about what I listed and return it. The response I got was eye-opening to say the least. I won't post it as it is basically boring and also illiterate, but suffice it to say that they bragged about firing Daryl for telling us what he was getting paid, and mocked him (he is black) saying that he gets his clothes at the Salvation Army and that he can't read or write. Guys, you aren't far from that level yourselves. (Example: "I, Ruth, is the owner" ..of the company).

Ed

Janesville, Wisconsin

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