Through Rent.com, we received a solicitation over the phone from a company called PROGRESSIVE MOVERS, INC. located in Paterson NJ. They offered me a rate of $70.00/hour, with 3 men, to move the contents of a 1 bedroom apartment. It sounded fair, I was given an estimate of 3-4 hours, their crew was very experienced and so on. This was told to me by a man called SAM who sent me e-mail with moving confirmation. We confirmed a move starting between 2-3pm on 30th March.
A week before our move on 30th March a person called Ralph came to get a walk through and sign some papers For Insurance. We showed this person all our stuff and repeatedly asked him if there are any hidden costs or charges to let us know after seeing the stuff. He said everything was inclusive we do not have to worry….just pack everything. He did not mention that everything needs to be in boxes….so we had packed some of our stuff in bags which they refused to carry on the moving day and we had to carry in our car.
On the day of the move, in the morning at about 10am a person from the PMI office calls us saying that the movers are below our building to pick up our stuff as the workers are not available in the afternoon. We had already booked our elevator in our building and the new building for the period as per our scheduled move so we could not change at the last moment (we even called our management to ask if it was possible to change the schedule) hwne we wanted to stick to our earlier plan they grudgingly agreed.
At 2.30 pm 3 men, ( a foremen called Phil + 2 others) came to our apartment, asked us to sign some basic procedural pages, because of insurance regulations etc.
These guys were taking forever to load some very basic stuff on the truck, frequently taking smoking breaks, walking leisurely etc. They were taking quite some time to come back whenever they went to the truck to load our stuff, which we later realized was that they were packing our furniture with tapes and ‘crates’ without our knowledge! They just put blankets on the sofa and the dining table in front of us which we assumed was inclusive. Well, as it was already running late, I figured this would cost me about a couple of hours more, but to my surprise, when we got finally to the destination, this foremen Phil gave us a bill on a scrap paper in the amount of $3,350! 90% of the contents of the house had been previously packed by me and my husband. They said if we didn't pay this amount they would not take my belongings from the truck…and take it to some storage. To my astonishment, they charged me exorbitant amounts for the tapes, crates, rent pads, , bubble wrap, shrink plastic, which they never asked, not explained that I "had to pay for", but goes to the extreme of charging $315 for a "long walk"! Ours was an elevator building with the pickup garage inside the building and even the drop garage is inside the building. This person Phil argued with us for a long time and then said that if we pay $300 they will only give our bed to sleep on. The rest would be taken to storage until I paid the balance. I could not afford it. I was being held hostage and my personal belongings, held for ransom. I have a small baby, they gave his crib and our mattress, not even the bed after we paid the $300. After a lot of discussion they finally charged us $2000 after speaking to their ‘Manager’. Their Bill charged us 9hrs of moving + 2hrs of drive, when in reality they moved our stuff for 5hrs at our previous apartment drove for 45mins and then dumped all our belongings in front of the elevator and left us stranded after taking our money – whole of $2000. Me and my husband with my 1 year old baby moved all our furniture and belongings from the groundfloor to our 7th floor apartment for 4-5hrs till midnight ! We were in such a desperate situation inspite of paying!!.They are criminals against whom in such situations a consumer has no defense or protection. Holding our belongings to ransom in their truck, they should be sued and convicted. If anyone can help me please e-mail me.
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