Bekins Van Lines Reviews

First off, it took a month to get my things. I heard nothing from the company about where my things were, and got no response to 2 phone calls and an email expressing my concern. When my things arrived, they needed to rent a smaller truck to reach my place. They wanted me to pay almost $400 for that, and I refused. Of course it took 5 minutes for them to get in touch with me then. They wanted to keep my things, and I said, well what is this paper that says guaranteed price?

After faxing a copy of the bill of lading to customer service, they said that they would inform the movers not to charge me anything. Well, today I got a bill for almost $400, with them having made changes by hand to their copy of the bill of lading, changes that I have not signed off. The guy in California, when I asked him about the pricing, said, well, it's on the guaranteed price line so it's code A. WHAT? I wanted to know why the estimate wasn't on the non-binding agreement line instead of the guaranteed price line. Oh, that's code B. ?? He insisted that he explained all of that, which I don't remember, then he went on to get nasty and say that I just didn't listen to anything, did I? That it's all about money for me isn't it? Well, duh.

Then I wanted to know why my things took so long to get here. According to him, none of it was his responsibility after it left my house. As I unpacked, I came across cockroaches and mouse droppings, as well as moisture stains and terrible smells. I found a family heirloom broken, as well as a column that isn't manufactured any more. All I can say is, everything was misleading and they DON'T care about their clients, or their clients' things. I will never, ever use another mover.

On August 1st, I got a call from the COMPUTER voice--(a human never ever contacted me in any way from Bekins) calmly informing me that my "spread dates" hah changed and they were now August 3rd-August 8th! The cheery computer voice hoped this "wasn't an inconvenience"..Well needless to say, there we were in our empty townhouse, with nothing--no dishes, mattress, nothing for another week! So, we bought an air mattress, and tried to keep our spirits up.

On the morning of the 8th I got up early, as I had been informed (again, by the computer voice) that my things would arrive on the 8th. At 8:15 I called the drivers cell phone number--I had demanded this from our agent in Madison the days before, and WOKE HIM UP..So much for morning delivery. he called me at approximately 1pm and was two hour away. At 6:45pm, he and ONE other guy showed up to unload our 7500 pounds of furniture and boxes. Not only were they DAYS late and HOURS late, but these two guys couldn't have been more rude.

They dropped my things, banged my furniture around, and when I got concerned kept telling me "it will be alright..". My boxes were crushed, and much of my china, and a halogen lamp were absolutely shattered. Our furniture was on its side, unwrapped, and our Kayak was smashed up against the back of the truck. As you all know, they won't do anything until you pay them, and at that point I just really wanted a bed to sleep in and a dish to eat out of, so I paid them, thinking how much worse could it get?

At 1:45am, when my beds weren't put together, I was informed that my "space on the truck" was empty. I said, "but there are numbers in the inventory that I haven't crossed off?" and was told that "well, everything was off the truck, so I must have not been paying attention, and they were SURE everything was there".. Well, everything is NOT here. We are missing two irreplcable prints (not to mention the $300 frame job on each) and two Tiffany bowls, and the list is growing very day.

I have yet to reach a sympathetic human at the Bekins office, and have been told that a "claim form" has been issued and that they will track my inventory with the paperwork from the driver when he gets around to sending it in..No one from the calims office has ever contacted me, or apologized in any way, and I was forced to pay the total bill regardless of the late delivery and mismanagement of my things. Isn't there any way they are accountable for this situation?

Just about every piece of furniture that I own was ripped, scratched, dented , and/or dinged. Just about all my furniture is either new or 8 months old. I also don't find it very professional having a twelve year old unloading my furniture and putting his dirty hand all over my walls that were freshly painted. The wood floors I was so happy to have now have dents and scratches all over them. My clothes that I have spent hours on ironing are now wrinkled from being thrown in the bottom of boxes, a lot of my boxes are crushed.

They also shrink wrapped my outside grill which is broken from being turned upside down but they didn't shrink wrap my brand new leather couch that still has the tags on it. Makes no since at all.

approximately $600 and I will never use Bekins again.

and paid handsomely.

It was now Feb. 1, 2005 and the new owners of the house were going to be moving in that day. FYI: We had made these moving arrangements far in advance and confirmed the moving date a month ahead of time. To shorten this saga a bit...the 2nd van arrived & with the help of the local Bekins personal (who were very helpful, while the new owners are waiting with their furniture van & helpers to move into the house. The van was loaded 3 hours later & taken to the local Bekins storage area, to be delivered to Arizona at a later date.

There was a major discrepency about the delivery date of the 1st van - we made several phone calls to Illinois to straighten it out & thought we had arranged everything with the driver. It wasn't supposed to be delivered until Feb. 7th and they were telling us that the van would be delivering our things on Sat. Feb. 5th...and if we didn't accept that date, they would put it in storage and charge us for that time, plus the loading & unlodading fees. So we move up the delivery date to the 5th. After the 1st van is unloaded we realize that we only have parts of things, like out of 3 beds, we don't have all the pieces to just one bed and we have table legs but no table to use for meals...so we sleep on the floor and eat all our meals out (all of our boxes are still in California with food, plates, etc.) The 2nd van is supposed to deliver the rest of our household goods on Feb. 8th, but 3 times it gets rescheduled.

I called Bekins and the insurance adjuster and filed appropriate paperwork. An adjuster made a decision regarding our claim without ever coming to our home to inspect the damages we alleged. They refuse to pay for anything except the broken desk and have not offered a formal reason for the denial.

my request for additional money has been denied.

compensation of the $1,000 in additional expenses we incurred.

I hired an attorney and received almost $8,000 from Bekins.

me.

were indignant and refused to send or provide any further information.

detailing the damages and asking for assistance in this matter.

refused to reply to either my attorney or me.

I was outraged. ONce the mover did show up, he was very unproffesional. His wife and baby wre in the truck with him and it was only him unloading two couches, bed, dresser...he was struggling and looked like he was just throwing stuff around. Oh and when he opened up the truck my $3,000 couch was ON ITS SIDE! My $250 bike was also bent. And he would not unload the truck until he was paid with a money order. I had to pay him...I just wanted a bed to sleep in! AT this point I was so grouchy form not getting any sleep, I didn't care. But later after I noticed the broken and missing items I tried contacting corporate offices who said they would put an agent to "work on it". After months of calling and getting a total run around I get this pathethic letter in the mail apologizing, saying "in the future we will try to make sure this doen't happen."

We waited patiently for our furnishings and now we had to sleep on an air mattress once again. We placed a claim to Bekins on October 24, 2003 and was denied everything except $50. We had expensive, top quality BeautyRest mattresses that cannot be replaced for $50. We called Howard to complain and he said, "Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you high and dry. I'll go to bat for you. Bekins' truck leaks and they will cover it. I'll speak with Jeffery tomorrow." I just received a call from Howard today (Dec. 23) and he said that there's nothing he can do for us since my husband signed the papers stating that all the furniture was in good condition. How's that for sleazy?

Still have the damaged goods because they said to hold on to them and not replace them. My tv is sitting on the floor and my children's broken Keyboard is still under the couch - they never came to look at it - they probably never will - until I throw it away! I don't know what to do? I will NEVER use Bekins again! My husbands company established an account with them when we moved becasue there were going to be a lot more people moving - they will not be letting of their employees use Bekins either!

My infant daughter's bedroom set was only months old. This was an investment for all of my children and it was intended to be handed down to future generations. The crib was disassembled by the movers for their benefit. They lost parts and reassembled the crib incorrectly. The crib is now unsafe for a child. We had contacted the owner of Sea Cure a day after the move and he would not even send a repairman to fix their obvious damage.

Now I have things missing that were not inventoried by either and no proof that I had these items moved by Bekins. The driver also listed my furniture with scratches on all sides and leather furniture was marked as having scratches and tears! The couch that was mentioned was 2 weeks old when it was moved by Bekins and there are no tears on them even now. The driver put that all my furniture had scratches, dents, tears, nicks, cuts and fading so that when it arrived at the destination and had damage done by them then we would have no claim because he had already listed the damage.

After the furniture finally arrived at my condo, I noted damage to my antique oak cedar chest, my antique oak dining room table, my oak end table and to my sofa (I witnessed the driver damaging it in Houston); also a table was delivered without its legs. The movers had also moved items that hadn't been packed as they were sold to the buyers of my Houston home. {the guys who moved me out of storage a) were professional movers and b) upon seeing how the storage was packed, asked me to stand at the storage unit's door and inspect the items BEFORE they put them on their truck... there is NO DOUBT that Bekins did the damage.

5/9/2002 I filed for 'debtor's disclosure' through the court... Bekins ignored that also.

I am curious why, a company can ignore the courts and their customers; and why a company can advertise FAIW insurance, damage your furniture, and offer far less than the estimate for repairs on the wood furniture alone would be.

I was told by the salesperson that Bekins would send someone over to examine the damages and pay for full replacement. How can i resovle this problem if no one person in the company will call back or respond to my letter.

The movers complained the entire time, making comments about how they got drunk the night before. All this, and I paid them over $5000 in cash. I also purchased full-value insurance for my property with 0 deductible for an added fee. In summary, Bekins movers were verbally abusive and careless, damaging my property. The Bekins claims department has failed to make good on its written agreement to pay my claim of over $1100.

More distressingly, over a period of more than six months, we have attempted to get Bekins to finally settle the balance of our claim, a mere $55.00 item for a broken antique table leg, which we had repaired, and which we had documented with photographs and a repair estimate from a reputable company. To this day, despite repeated phone calls and letters to Bekins, they have refused to respond and to pay the $55.00 item. One can only imagine what might be the case if the claim were substantial in nature if the company is unwilling to make payments which are clearly due in these small amounts. We have never in our lives experienced with any company of any kind the consistent and callous disregard of customers as we did with Bekins.

I asked about compensation for the delay. "Well if you need toilet paper or something, make sure you save the receipt". What about the $125 a day that we were told about. "That doesn't apply to you". Well, as I sit here in my empty house (except for my air mattress and laptop, I can assure you that I am disgusted with Bekins. I have been in business for years and am appalled at this company's lack of concern for their customers as well as their poorly trained representatives.

Bekins should not be allowed to get away with not compensating me for my losses, particularly since I paid for the premium insurance. My family is planning on moving again in less than 6 months, and if this matter isn't resolved by then, I will never recover my losses from Bekins.