United Van Lines Reviews

Planning a long distance move was complicated with many things to juggle. We rented a truck to move the things we had accumulated in three years from NY. The plan was to pack the truck on day one and drive to MD to meet the United Van Lines crew the next day who would take our combined belongings out of storage and move it to KC, MO..

The Penske truck we rented was 7 hours late in being available to us so we had to load the truck and drive all night to get to MD. The truck had a speed regulator that prevented us from going over 45 miles per hour. We hit morning rush hour outside of Baltimore where a wreck occurred and we were several hours late meeting the United Van Lines crew in Gaithersburg. They were understandably upset at the delay but it was out of our control.

Because of the location of our storage they had brought two rather small trucks to load our things on, explaining that a large van could not have been situated in the parking lot easily. They were going to load our things and take them from Gaithersburg to Frederick and transfer them to the large van which would later hold another family's belongings for delivery before reaching KC. I wasn’t thrilled with this arrangement but felt I had no choice at that point. I am 73, I had already been thru an ordeal and I just wanted to get my things out of storage! We had one large unit and two small, admittedly a lot but for two households not that much!

During this process the driver, Peter was less than agreeable. He complained about the volume of boxes, the size of boxes and the fact that some items, brooms, vacuums, etc. were not carted. I packed and stacked everything in those units myself and when I did so I fully expected I would be moving them out myself, one car load at a time just like I moved them in, anticipating making a local move in the DC area. I didn’t expect to be moving half way across the US and didn’t expect someone else to be doing the move. I packed things in manageable sizes for me! I was paying him to do the job so I felt he was out of line.

Because it was more volume than he had anticipated, in spite of my being very clear that the move was two combined households, he refused to move one thing until we agreed to pay an additional $3000.00 above the $11,000.00 we had already paid. I had to make the arrangements for a certified check to be mailed to our new address right then in the parking lot of the storage unit before he would commence to remove things from storage, delaying things even further.

Because of the loss of time we had to prolong the process another day. They took one load of things the first day and returned the next day to remove the remainder of our items from storage. He assured me our things would be transferred and locked securely in the van. The second day everything was out by noon and we were on our way. My son and I drove to KC in the Penske truck pulling a trailer with his car.

Five days later Peter arrived in the large van telling me that our items had not been combined with another household as that move did not occur. I was relieved as I had been concerned our things would get mixed up with someone else’s. The certified check which I had arranged to have delivered to our new home had not arrived yet. The delivery service delivered it to the wrong address the day before and I had been frantically trying to get it rerouted. Again, Peter would not unload one item until he had the check in his hand! It arrived after noon after many frantic and unpleasant phone conversations. Then, and only then, did the unloading commence.

Peter had many pages where he had supposedly recorded the numbers of the boxes he had placed barcodes on. He supposedly checked them off as they were taken off the truck and placed in our home. At the end of the day he gave me the pages to initial signifying my having received my possessions and before I did so my son went out to the van to see that every item had been removed. It was empty so naturally we assumed, there is that word!, that we had been delivered everything that had been taken out of storage.

The home we had moved to, sight unseen except for a video the realtor provided us, was smaller than anticipated. The rooms filled fast and in the chaos I told the crew to just put the boxes in the detached garage and I would take them out when I could make room and figure out where things would go. When I went to the garage I found boxes stacked unevenly, heavy ones placed on light weight ones, things were leaning, it was a mess. As I unpacked things I found many items had been broken. I had packed every box myself.

I have moved over 40 times in my life. I KNOW how to pack. Everything that was remotely breakable I had wrapped well in bubble wrap and had paper stuffed around them in the box yet things were smashed. Some things I could repair and did to the best of my ability, but many had to be placed in the trash. I should have taken the time to take pictures of each box and item but I was exhausted and focused on just getting settled and thought surely “thus will be the last thing that is damaged” but as time went on I realized the volume of things was significant. Still I did not have an itemized list and had no intention of making an issue of the breakage.

It was the things I wasn’t finding that disturbed me. With each row of boxes that were exposed I kept looking for certain items that never were found. The most glaring item was a step ladder. Three stairs with a tool tray attached which was extremely handy. I owned two of them, one of which Peter had asked if he could use it as he unpacked the storage unit and I had given him permission to use, not take! It was only after the very last box was opened that I called the gentleman I had originally made the arrangements with to see what I needed to do to process a claim for the list of then 62 items, now 77, that are missing, among them family photos that can never be replaced, bronzed baby shoes that are priceless, and high school and college yearbooks! The list is heartbreaking to me and my son. Items we have cherished for years, are gone!

I itemized each item as I was directed to do and submitted it days before the deadline for being allowed to make a claim. A few days later I received a determination letter telling me the entire claim had been denied. We would not be compensated anything as our move was a “direct move” and not combined with others belongings and I had signed each page saying I had received my items. Our move was anything but direct, our items were transferred, out of our sight and in the process apparently picked thru and stolen!

As for signing off, everything was out of the van, I trusted we had been delivered everything. I guess I should have stood in the van and required the crew to wait until I found the bar code number assigned to each box before they could unload. Can you imagine how much longer the process would have been had I done that? I thought I had paid for someone else to do that! I would NEVER hire United Van Lines to move me across the street let alone across country. I will never pay anyone to move me again. I have always moved myself and I will continue to do so if I ever need to do it again, hopefully this will be my last one. Learn from our experience!

When the items were first picked up, they apparently used a third party and tried to have family who were overseeing the pickup sign an additional moving contract and pay for the move. I had -already- signed for the contract and paid for half the move! The items were stored as I did not have a living location when I first arrived to Missouri. But when I tried to schedule a delivery, they were delivered a month late because he said he needed time to sort my items out from another household. That should have been my second red flag. When the items arrived, I had discovered the boxes missing. He gave excuses on why they were not there. It took me ages to unpack to discover what all was missing. I am still discovering things that were lost during that move.

Upon delivery, we discovered 25 of the 489 items inventoried were missing: for instance, of five beds we shipped, only two came back with enough parts to build them, rendering them unusable. Additionally, 11 items -- including high-value items -- were damaged during the move. The movers on site were aware of the missing and damaged items and spent considerable time searching for these items to no avail. According to the terms of the "Full Value Protection," we itemized all missing and damaged items and submitted them for compensation, and to substantiate our claim, they sent out several inspectors.

Clancy then set our claim to their UVL parent, who sent out another inspector (supposedly an expert in "antiques" misidentified generations-old family heirlooms we shipped from Europe as "American made”). UVL then offered only 8% of our claim as their final offer. While we may have accepted a more reasonable settlement, 8% is ludicrous. To offer "Full Value Protection" for $160,000 and then offer a tiny portion of this is fraud, in my opinion. I would recommend you not use Clancy nor United Van Lines, nor UniGroup: they lost more than 5% of our items, damaged others, including High Value items, and then fraudulently offered "Full Value Protection" which they did not intend to provide.

Our couch was missing screws from when the cushions were taken off, it rubbed the material off the corner, were missing boxes, my white dresser and black cube organizer rubbed on each other and now have paint on each other. And united wants to compensate me $235, after they hired someone to ruin/break all my stuff. Worst experience ever. I even have photos to show the dresser was put together in the same nursery they moved it from, I have photos of the tv 2 weeks prior, the couch is just a year old in April.

The truck was on time with a new set of teamworkers that efficiently and effectively unloaded all our boxes and hauled in furniture and placed it in the appropriate places at our request. We couldn’t have ask for a smoother experience than they provided. Door to door and not 1 item broken or missing! We had 30 days to fully unpack and call them to pick up the empty, broken-down boxes and packing paper. It was amazing and we are very satisfied and highly recommend this company.

I then spoke with dispatch, where the dispatcher informed me it will be 2-3 weeks before delivery. I am 39 weeks pregnant. If I had known any of this, I wouldn't have spent a time with them. Now I am moment from going to the hospital, and all of my supplies and everything I own is MISSING with no end in sight. Yuri told me he doesn't care about my personal problems as I was BEGGING this man to help me rectify his lies and poor business practices. I'm now to the point that they are dodging my calls and texts, a delivery date has not been established, and I'm pretty sure they stole everything I own.

I saw that he kept walking to his car and hiding things under his shirt, but I never imagined that he was stealing my things. I gave them 2 stars instead of 1 because the rest of the crew did a great job, the loaders, truck driver Jeremy and unloaders were great and hard working. Sadly the theft took away from what could have been a great experience. If you decide to hire them I suggest you have cameras to watch them and don't leave them alone if you have expensive items, if you pre pack do not label your boxes with what is inside instead make a list elsewhere and just put a number to identify your boxes. We reported it, but the company doesn't seem to care too much. They advise us to do a police report in Texas when the guy lives in California. I'm extremely disappointed that after paying so much money they hire thieves.

I highly recommend whatever is precious to you move yourself if you use this company. The delivery crew was so rude and disrespectful of our things they broke after moving across the country unscathed! Slamming lamps down and breaking their base, marking walls as they went downstairs to repair, Leaving your clothes in the dinning room and dishes in the bedroom, each box clearly marked where they went.

I absolutely do NOT recommend this company. Filing out the report to damage thinking we would be reimbursed? What a joke. I will take the loss over letting them have one thing of mine again. I paid for the repairs myself and worked on letting go of the things lost. The harp however was a hard one to overcome being it isn't made anymore. So if you don't want to cry at the losses and don't like your things, and don't care if you get pennies for very expensive items, hire them. Just remember you were warned at their poor protection of caring for your items. my suggestion is take pictures of EVERYTHING you own so you have proof it arrived and cherished items moved by you.

Moving out: The move out team was very late. They got to our house and then decided that they wanted to go get some food. So even though we paid for a full day of moving, they were only there from about 1 PM until 3:30 PM. The first day was for packing. The main guy brought his two nephews with him who are both under the age of 18. We watched him back into our neighbor's fence, destroying the fence completely. He tried to say that he didn’t hit it, but because we had multiple witnesses, including our neighbors that ended up getting resolved. Because I only spent 2 1/2 hours at our house barely anything was packed. The second day was the loading of the truck day. He brought two adults therefore I was hopeful. Because they only spent 2 1/2 hours the first day packing. They were there all day and they were very rushed.

I watched them drag a wooden desk down the stairs, slamming each step as it went down, thus destroying the desk right in front of me, they just threw things in boxes without any kind of organization and broke multiple things because they weren’t wrapped or packed appropriately. They also were smoking in the truck. I was pregnant at the time and I have asthma and now all of our stuff had cigarette smoke on it. None of our stuff was marked. I’ve moved multiple times and usually boxes get some form of a barcode or a marker to take inventory to make sure that nothing has lost. It’s a miracle that nothing got left behind. Transport: everything was driven back to their main warehouse, which was in South Carolina And transfer to a bigger truck. Everything got disassembled there I’m assuming and then packed.

Arrival: This team was excellent. They were communicative. They were organized. They were polite and intentional. And they did not cause any property damage like the first guys did. They made multiple comments about how things were packed poorly. they were shocked at the state of some of our items. But they did a great job. Overall experience: I would not recommend United Van Lines. We did get a refund for the destroyed desk. But we did not get any kind of compensation or apology for the rest of the matters. Our neighbor's fence was compensated fully. But we were not compensated for the full day of packing that we paid for that ended up being only 2 1/2 hours. The smoking situation. The poor packing job. I was overall incredibly frustrated and I will not be using this company again. I tried to upload more photos with the websites and letting me.

Now on to the move. After loading (taking pictures of damage for evidence), and securing the house, we took off. Guess what? They didn't. In fact, they didn't bring it up until a local driver up here in SD found out they were not hauling it because they didn't have time. The driver when down from up here and picked up the load to brought it up on the 11th. It was supposed to be brought up on the 6th. Thank goodness for his kind heart. Some local good Samaritans pitched in from a local moving company to unload it for my blind and disabled vet husband and myself. As for United, they took no responsibility nor discounted us for the delay.

Now, the good Samaritans were specialists who took great care in unloading. Before they unloaded, they checked everything with us. Here is what we found thanks to them: Oxygen concentrator, broken and unrepairable. Computer box, stolen. Box with Playstation and games for our son and grandchildren, stolen. Collectibles box, stolen. Camping gear box, stolen. Not to mention a few other items stolen. Again, United and there insurance refused responsibility. Needles to say, there is a reason they have a low rating on sites they can't buy off to remove reviews.

Don’t let them move you. They will take your things and you won’t get a dime. I will and have never recommend them and always tell people we know that are thinking about using a moving company-don’t use them, don’t trust them, they don’t back up anything they say. It’s a shame - it’s a scam - they supposedly in writing, “guarantee” any losses, NOT TRUE!!!!

Not to mention the anxiety my son has and it was his Legos and Trains that were his calming and coping mechanism. That company couldn’t care less. They would not take accountability for items being stolen. We labeled every tote and box ourselves to make sure, they still didn’t get to our destination. My review———-DO NOT USE——-

A friend—who had other things to do that day—went and opened up the house. Of course, she didn’t know where things were supposed to go. In addition to wasting her time, I ended up having to hire people after the move to put some of the boxes into the correct rooms. It wasn’t like this move was cheap. A person who is at the head of a crew ought to be capable of clear communication in English. Very stressful experience. Also, I was made to sign a bunch of paperwork after the delivery but was not given a customer copy of any of it.