I entered into a contract with Nationwide Relocation Services on June 16, 2009 for our move from New Jersey to Florida. A deposit for this service in the amount of $959.66 was charged to my Citibank account. There was a two day pickup window 6/29/2009-6/30/2009 and a delivery window of seven days 7/2/2009-7/8/2009. Upon speaking with the representative from Nationwide I explained that July 10th was my wedding day in New Jersey and was assured that we would have no trouble receiving our belongings in the time frame stated in our contract. We made our travel plans accordingly and were planning to drive to Florida and fly to New Jersey on July 9th.
We were told that we would receive a phone call twenty-four hours prior to our pick up date. July 29th came and finally, after numerous calls to Nationwide inquiring when the movers were coming, we received a response around 9:30 p.m. We were informed that the original company was no longer available and that another company would now be coming between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. At approximately 3:30 p.m. a company by the name of A-Topps arrived.
The truck sounded, at best, in need of servicing and when stating concerns that we were unsure of how this truck would make the distance we were told to be rest assured the truck had a new engine and that “it just needed to be broken in.”
As the truck was MORE THAN HALF-WAY PACKED, we were then told that the contracted dated of delivery would not be honored and that they would be arriving on July 10th, our wedding day. I have several witnesses that are able to verify that the truck was more than half-way packed before being told that our belongings would arrive after the contracted dates, as well as witnessing the driver stating at the start of the move that the contracted dates would be guaranteed. Upon speaking to Nationwide, several times, we were told that this was not their responsibility and that we could either be in Florida at whatever date the movers chose or we could pay for storage to the tune of $1100.00. Upon hearing this information, I told the driver to unload the truck. He stated that he would, for approximately $700 or that they would take our belongings as collateral. We proceeded with this company only due to extortion. As we have no friends or family in the area, we would now have to hire someone in Florida, at our additional expense, to receive our furniture.
As this was my first encounter with a moving company for a long-distance move, I can not say that I am familiar with what is standard. However, I would venture to guess that having my mattress wrapped in saran wrap and strapped to the back of the outside of the truck for 1,200 miles would probably not be considered to be the norm. Furthermore, the two gentlemen that could not fit in the cab of the truck were essentially “packed” as cargo. Again, I am no expert, but I find it doubtful that this would meet the standard for this type of service. To add insult to injury, the services provided are based upon weight of the cargo. At the weigh station, neither of these gentlemen removed themselves from the truck.
We hired someone to be in Florida to receive our furniture on July 10th. We were promised that disassembly and reassembly of all furniture would be included in the cost of these services. When we arrived in Florida, we found all of our belongings were stacked from floor to ceiling in the living room and nothing reassembled. We understand that the person we hired to be here to receive our furniture did not know where everything went, but I believe it is reasonable that anyone contracted to reassemble furniture would know that legs belong on the table and chairs, mattresses belong with the appropriate frames, etc. To make matters worse, many irreplaceable items were broken and missing. A box containing a sofa cushion folded in half and wrapped in tape with a vacuum cleaner and a now broken lamp seems like a mismatched combination. We were aware that we would pay for items that were packed by the moving company, but found it excessive that many small items were packed individually in a large box, a box we packed in yet another box at an additional cost or as previously stated, packed mismatched and subsequently broken. This would help account for the additional charge of approximately $900.00 in packing supplies.
Countless attempts to come to a resolution with Nationwide were made to no avail. Once the deposit was received customer service was no longer an issue on behalf of this company. If the services guaranteed were not able to be performed in the time frame contracted, we would have selected another company. This was, after all, our wedding day and that was made clear. Furthermore, the failure to meet the terms of the contract should have not caused us additional expenses i.e. having to hire someone to receive our furniture in Florida, accepting the offer for $1100.00 in storage fees, paying $700.00 to have the movers unload a more than halfway loaded truck and hiring another company or forfeiting our belongings, to name a few. Again, this is extortion.
