SIGNATURE VAN LINES Dishonest, scam artists, damaged items, threatened, unprepared for task, fraudulent Yellow Book Ad, Overbilled Mount Pocono Pennsylvania

My Mother did what most of us do, she looked in the Yellow Pages. What a horrific mistake! She needed to move approximately 45 miles from one small house in Pa.to another. Charleen from Signature Van Lines told her that the move would be $1200.00 but maybe a couple of hundred more depending on some things that she would want wrapped special.

They said they would be there between 8am and 12pm. No show until around 9 pm. They showed up in a rented Ryder truck without any moving blankets so all of her furniture was wrapped in paper and tape. She was there alone and didn't know what to do as she had to be out of her old house that night for a real estate "walk through" by the new owners in the morning. So they loaded it.

Upon arriving at her new residence they demanded $3600.00 cash to unload her furniture at 12:30 am in the morning! They said they could either bring it back the next day at 1:30 and if she wasn't there with the cash it might be another 10 days with a $250.00 per day charge for them storing it for her.


After much heated discussion with my brother (he met her at the new house) they drove off with her furniture as she only had a Cashiers check for $1200.00 and no cash. They showed up the next day at 1:30 with an entirely different crew which consisted of the same type of mess of help as the night before (two helpers with no moving experience, hired temp. for the day) and only one guy that represents "the company".

Once again he demands that the money be presented prior to unloading the truck. So what to do? We didn't have anything in writing as proof of the original quote. Just a truck full of my mothers furniture and some cruel crook that takes advantage of innocent older women saying that she can't have it without paying $3600.00.

She gave him the original Cashiers check and an additional one for the difference, they unloaded the truck, she signed the papers that he brought and they drove off into the sunset.

This has us all sick to our stomach's, but at least she has her furniture as I have read accounts of this companys business that people still haven't found theirs or can't get them back even after they have.

What should we have done? With only verbal agreement of the original terms, could this have been handled different? Hindsight is always bittersweet, but if these complaints help someone else, we feel better.

Donna
SOMERSET, New Jersey
U.S.A.