Exclusive Van Lines LLC

SCAM! AVOID AT ALL COSTS

SCAM! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Unfortunately I fell for this scam run by two “moving” companies, currently using the names Exclusive Van Lines and Bridgeview Van Lines. These people are thieves who use the moving industry as their method of theft. Based on a FaceTime walk though of all the things in my apartment to be moved, they quoted me a price of $2,900 for an intercity move, somewhat less than what other companies quoted, but not a lot less. Though my lease was ending, they wouldn’t give me a date for when they would do the move until a few days before. However as those days came and went I kept calling them, they kept promising me to call me back within a specific time, and they never did. With just a couple days left and no response from them, I was forced to scramble to look for last minute alternates. They did finally show up with one day left. I was so relived they actually came, and really had no alternatives, so that when they announced that even though I had 10% FEWER boxes than they estimated, they were going to charge me a total of $6,170, more than double what they had quoted me (and a lot more than any other moving company I had talked to months before). At this point I had no alternative, so I agreed. When they arrived at the moving destination, they demanded that before opening the truck and letting me even see my belongs that: a) I sign a document saying that I had already received all my belongings, and that they were all in good condition, b) I pay the remaining balance of $1,270 in cash, and c) that I pay them an additional $500 in cash for what they said was a long hallway (it was less than 50 feet, and they knew all along that this was going into a big apartment building). They made it very clear that they were holding my belongs hostage until I did all these things, and if I didn’t do them, I’d never see any of my belongs again. The movers put me on the phone with their boss in the Bronx, who in full Mafia style was really threatening and nasty, and dared me to call the police, and told his men to just drive away. In order to get my belongings, I had to do everything they said. My boxes were beat-up, with the fragile arrows upside-down, etc. There weren’t even box numbers or my name on anything – and so I didn’t get all my stuff (though they did give me a TV that wasn’t mine, which I had them take back – but it isn’t going to do its owner any good, since the screen was smashed in). And needless to say, several things of mine that I did get were broken. All in all, $900 of my possessions were lost or broken, and the “insurance policy” that they claimed to have offered me a total of less than $150 to compensate for everything they had lost or broken. So I paid $6,670 for a job with a guaranteed price of $2,970 and the worst moving experience of my life – these people intentionally underquote to lure people in, and then hold your belongs hostage as they extort you for way m Read more