Atlant Van Lines Scam, hostage Hollywood Florida

I called dozens of companies to get estimates and finally settled on Atlant Van Lines. I am moving from Virgina to Florida. I tried to be upfront and accurate as to what I was moving to avoid any surprises.

Don't believe anything these guys say.

THESE GUYS ARE SCAMMERS AND LIARS.

What happened to our family is classic 

I was given an estimate by Arthur at ATLANT. I wanted to make sure that my estimate was as accurate as possible so I called Arthur 4 different times to give an updated inventory of what i was moving.

We agreed that I would have 110 items (half were boxes) for an estimated price of $2600.

On moving day the movers were supposed to be at my house at 9 AM but they didn't show up until 4:15 PM.

No one ever called me from Atlant to say that they were going to be 7 hours late.

They finally showed up in a Budget rental truck.

3 guys showed up and 2 of them spoke no English the other one spoke very little English.

About 3/4 of the way through the move the main mover who spoke some English said we were in good shape and that we were only at 480 cubic feet.

This is part of the scam where they use cubic feet in their scam talk . They know that normal people can count boxes and pieces of furniture but aren't very good at calculating cubic feet of their items.

In the end after they have your possessions hostage on their truck the start the extortion part of the scam.

So it's 2 AM in the morning and some guy who doesn't speak English is telling me that I now owe $6500.

I told him he was crazy. I had gone over the estimate and I did have 140 items instead of 110 but I didn't even move some of the larger items that were in the estimate.

I told him to take our stuff off the truck. That I couldn't afford an additional $4000 above the quoted price.

He was arguing with me in a foreign language (Russian I think). 

I showed him my estimate for $2600.

He told me that the software used to make the estimate always estimated low and he had these issues before.

Even though we had all of our items packed and had spent hundreds of dollars on picking supplies he tried to charge us an additional $1000 for packing supplies. 

And he was charging us additional based on the number of stairs we had!!

He told me to call ATLANT in the morning and they would sort it out.

I went upstairs to get my college-age son so we could try and stop the truck from leaving with our stuff while we called the police.

But when I came down to try and stop the truck it was gone with all of our belongings including medicine we need.

I called my ATLANT rep Arthur first thing the following morning and of course he didn't respond to any of my 5 calls.

Arthur ends his voicemail message with "have a blessed day". Part of the con game I'm sure.

Finally later that day at 2PM I got a call from someone at Atlant who just give me some "scam speak" like "we just charge you for what the movers loaded" and "there's nothing we can do about it". She told me that she would have  manager call me to discuss further. But guess what? No manager ever called me back to discuss.

I told her that I needed my possessions ASAP. She told me that if I didn't have the $4000 that I now owed them that my possessions would be unloaded and stored in a "warehouse somewhere in Florida" until we resolved the claim.

So now ALL of my possessions, all of my children's items, kids college books, important papers for my business and my blood pressure medicine are in some warehouse in Florida and I now get to fill out Atlant's claim/complaint process just to get my own stuff back.

Heres what you need to know about ATLANT

They showed up in a Budget rental truck-UNPROFESSIONAL

They showed up 7 hours late -UNPROFESSIONAL

They gave me an estimate that was apparently understated by $4000- SCAM

They loaded up our life possessions and are holding them hostage - SCAM

They really push the insurance -SCAM

They collect a deposit -SCAM

They promise they are professionals yet send non-English speaking people to move us  -SCAM

They send non-English speaking movers so they act as if they can't understand my complaints -SCAM

They try and charge for extras not in the estimate like packaging and stairs climbed- SCAM

They demand full payment at 2AM for a made up exaggerated amount - SCAM

They flee in the night to avoid the being questioned by the police- SCAM

They use cubic feet instead of number of items to confuse the person moving -SCAM

The rep I worked with won't return phone calls -SCAM

Management won't return phone calls as promised -SCAM

More from others

ripoffreport.com/r/atlant-van-lines/hollywood-florida-33019/atlant-van-lines-atlant-vanlines-classics-van-lines-extortion-scammers-demand-cash-to-ge-1275650

ripoffreport.com/r/Atlant-Van-lines/Hollywood-Florida-33019/Atlant-Van-lines-A-5-star-Moving-Joke-Hollywood-Florida-1310021

complaintsboard.com/complaints/atlant-van-lines-scam-ripoff-lies-c808184.html

complaintsboard.com/complaints/atlant-van-lines-they-overcharged-me-and-lost-my-stuff-c789457.html