Vega-Line Moving (Vancouver BC - Calgary AB) December 10 2010.
Long story short -- Horrible experience on the delivery, damaged goods and all around gong show. More horrible experiences attempting to deal with customer service after the fact. Long story -- I signed up via the internet emailing back and forth with Mark to arrange the details of my move. Everything seemed to go great, we set up a pricing scheme and pick up and delivery times for my goods. The pick up (in Vancouver) was awesome, guys showed up 5 minutes early and were very cautious with my goods (even providing extra padding protection free of charge for some items). The delivery (in Calgary) is where everything broke down. I originally asked for a delivery on a Saturday, which was "no problem" and I was given a time window in which the movers would show up to deliver my goods. I showed up at 8am on Saturday, full well prepared to wait the day as that was the window I was given by Mark for the delivery. About 2pm I called the moving company to see when I should expect the movers. Of course, no one in the office works on Saturday so I got a machine. I ended up waiting until 5pm that day and NO ONE showed up, NO ONE called, nothing. Monday rolled around and I managed to get a hold of Dianne (I believe) who was actually quite helpful in attempting to sort out the mess. Sadly she had to coordinate with someone in Calgary and that was where the gong show seems to have manifested in full. We scheduled a second delivery date and I was again given a window in which the movers would show up. The second delivery date comes and at 1pm I called to ensure everything was on schedule (having learned not to trust others), at which point I was dealing directly with the Calgary office. I was asked if it would be okay to deliver my goods on another day .... again, no phone call initiated by them, nothing. So I told them that it would not be okay, I have a job and can't continually take time off to accommodate their schedule (which they don't even seem to know!) so the individual I was dealing with (I can't recall her name) begrudgingly concedes to have my items delivered as previously agreed to (later that same day). Sadly for me (and I have no proof this is where all the damaged occurred, but seems a logical deduction based on the flow of events) my items were delivered as promised (though much later in the day). I say sadly because of the condition in which my items were delivered. The movers were obviously in a rush, despite this move being scheduled, they were not aware of it so I understand why they weren't overly happy and were in a hurry. However as I alluded to before I assume this is where the damage to my items took place, out of their need for speed. I had a relatively new and quite expensive bed frame (about $2000 purchased two year prior) which they managed to mangle quite nicely. They snapped a supporting board for the frame and did some serious damage to other portions (the bed frame is OAK so doing the damage they managed would have constituted quite a serious smashing). So I got all my possessions, some in more pieces than when they were picked up. Off to deal with customer service to see how we can fix this. This is where the majority of my angst arises. I emailed customer service, and got no reply for about three weeks (in their defense this was over the Christmas holiday season) so I sent a follow-up email which was responded to. I was asked to send pictures ASAP (this annoys me, as it took them 3 weeks to respond to my email, and only after a second was sent, it could just be my interpretation of the usage of ASAP though, I'll concede that) of my damaged items so my claim could proceed, I did so the same day. I put all the pictures in a ZIP file to make things easier and set it off. One month later I received a reply stating that I needed to resend the pictures in JPG format (I originally sent them in that format, but inside a zip file). Again ... this is ONE MONTH later!!!! So fine, I forgo the zip file and send the pictures again. Time to turn the hourglass and play the waiting game (I'm getting used to it at this point). Six weeks (yes, one and a half months) later I finally lose it and resolve to cleanse my hands of the situation. I send a final email stating that this companies rendition of "customer service" is absurd and that I'm sick of attempting to deal with them so I will just take my story to the internet in the hopes of saving other people the experience I have had. I get a reply the same day offering me $100 with the stipulation that " Your acceptance of this award will be with the understanding that it does “finalize” the matter and you will not pursue it any further (via verbal or documented transmission or reports). " That obviously wasn't worth it to me as I'm here now writing a short novel about my experience. Well, that's about it. As I said in the preview, all in all a HORRIBLE experience on the delivery and customer service (using this term as loosely possible). Hope this saves you from making the same mistake I did.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,500.00