A1 Van Lines, Unprofessional, Theives, dishonest, flat out horrible company! Chattanooga, Tennessee

I am sorry about the experience all of you have had with A-1 Vanlines but it may make you feel better to know they got a little taste of thier own medicine. A local news reporter in Chattanooga did a report called " Investigative Report into Moving Company Draws Fire" I think he called it that because from the video it looks like he was shot at. You can see it all and what these hoodlums at a-1 vanlines look like because the sheriff took some new pictures of Joey Choran and Carmen Boebel.
Go to www.newschannel9.com and click on the link and see for yourself.

I am sorry about the experience all of you have had with A-1 Vanlines but it may make you feel better to know they got a little taste of thier own medicine. A local news reporter in Chattanooga did a report called " Investigative Report into Moving Company Draws Fire" I think he called it that because from the video it looks like he was shot at. You can see it all and what these hoodlums at a-1 vanlines look like because the sheriff took some new pictures of Joey Choran and Carmen Boebel.
Go to www.newschannel9.com and click on the link and see for yourself.

I am sorry about the experience all of you have had with A-1 Vanlines but it may make you feel better to know they got a little taste of thier own medicine. A local news reporter in Chattanooga did a report called " Investigative Report into Moving Company Draws Fire" I think he called it that because from the video it looks like he was shot at. You can see it all and what these hoodlums at a-1 vanlines look like because the sheriff took some new pictures of Joey Choran and Carmen Boebel.
Go to www.newschannel9.com and click on the link and see for yourself.

I am sorry about the experience all of you have had with A-1 Vanlines but it may make you feel better to know they got a little taste of thier own medicine. A local news reporter in Chattanooga did a report called " Investigative Report into Moving Company Draws Fire" I think he called it that because from the video it looks like he was shot at. You can see it all and what these hoodlums at a-1 vanlines look like because the sheriff took some new pictures of Joey Choran and Carmen Boebel.
Go to www.newschannel9.com and click on the link and see for yourself.

I too utilized the services of A-1 Van Lines and I am a very disgruntled customer. As far as the quote that I received, I had no problems in that area. I should have been alarmed when I asked about anticipated arrival times, that I wasn't given an approximate time. I was simply told they'll arrive when they arrive. Given that I was moving 1200 miles away, I was trying to guesstimate my approximate arrival time at my destination and ensure that I would not loose my hotel reservation.

When the drivers arrived, I too was expecting an 18-wheeler displaying the company's logo, as a competitor that was used by one of my neighbor's days earlier - not a Penske rental truck. I asked the driver about the truck, he responded by saying that the company was not that large. The delivery staff was nice, although I felt that they should have utilized someone who was able to lift (the driver stated he was recovering from a recent back injury) instead of my children having to helping them load the truck. The other area of concern was the amount of time that it took them too load everything. It took them 5 to load all of my belongings that were already packed and ready to go. The only items that had to be secured were my glass top tables and couches, which only took 20 minutes to wrap.

All of my beds had already been taken apart and the mattresses placed in mattress bags prior to their arrival. Based upon passed experiences with local moving companies, it should have only taken them two hours at the longest to load the truck, due to the number of boxes and amount of furniture I had.

My major problems began when I was ready accept delivery. My belongings were stored in a storage facility for several months, of which I was led to believe was owned by A-1 Van Lines. First of all, they would not commit to a delivery date upon initial contact. The first date I asked for they refused to honor because they wanted the remaining balance of my storage fees paid before my delivery would even be scheduled. Once I took care of my balance, I suggested a second date. I was told at time, they would have to check the schedule and get back with me.

Given that I like having a paper trail, I followed up all of my conversations with an email; needless to say, it took me a week to be told that they could not meet that delivery date due to other deliveries being scheduled on that date. I then suggested another date and was told they would have to once again check the schedule. That took another week to be declined; then they (A-1 Van Lines) suggested another date because they had a load headed to Columbus, OH and would be able to deliver my belongings to me on their way back. Why did I have to be inconvenienced so they could kill two birds with one stone? I had paid them all that I owed them and should not have had to wait three weeks for my belongings to be delivered at time that was convenient to them.

Furthermore, I was told that the drivers should arrive around noon on Sunday, Feb. 24th; contingent upon how much time it would take them to unload the OH delivery. After they did not arrive at noon, I received a call from one of the drivers stating that they were running late and was estimating their arrival time around 6 pm. I was understanding of the delays and continued to patiently wait, after they did not arrive at 6, I was growing concerned. I received another call from the driver stating that they had encountered some traffic delays and was estimating the arrival time to be around 8 pm. Once again a no show; this time I called them to see what the delay was.

At this time I was told they had encountered snow and ice, but was approximately 50 miles away. I told them that I was not snowing in my area, but I would continue to wait. At this point, it's going on 10 pm. The driver asked me repeatedly would I be willing to accept delivery at 6 am the next morning, which I readily refused because I had been inconvenienced enough and would not be willing to take a day off of work due to their screw up. The driver claimed he was only trying to be considerate of me and did not want to awaken me if the delivery was late. Needless to say, they did not arrive until 1:30 am that Monday, which led me to believe that they were further away than what was previously communicated.

My second problem was as they unloaded the truck (which was a white truck that had the company name on the door in very small lettering); I noticed that some of my furniture was missing. The driver, which happened to have been the same person who initially picked up my belongings, remembered most of my items because my furniture was extremely heavy, stated that A-1 Van Lines had transferred their storage facility from Chattanooga (which I found out after the fact - I was not told the location of the storage facility) to Atlanta encountered a significant amount of theft during the transfer.

He stated that Carmen was aware that I may be missing some items because he helped load the truck and noticed some items were missing and for me to contact her as soon as possible to file a claim and he would also let her know that I would be calling once he checked in later that morning. I contacted Carmen as soon as I arrived to work to inform her of my missing items. She instructed me to send her an email listing all of the items I was missing and to give her a couple of days to locate them (which I already knew she would not be able to locate them as a result of my conversation with the driver).

I immediately sent my initial email listing all of the items that I readily noticed were missing and I would send an additional email with any other items that I discovered as I began to unpack, along with pictures of the damage that had been afflicted upon my bedroom furniture. Apparently, they used some kind of packing tape to secure the blankets on my bedroom furniture, which resulted in chunks of paint being stripped off of my furniture. Over the course of a week, I discovered in addition to my two month old Broyhill sofa and loveseat, two Yamaha tower speakers that were missing, I was missing my HP computer, computer desk chair, and approximately 200 books. I am an avid book collector and have had some of these books in my collection for over 10 years, many of which I cannot replace, because I don't readily remember what I had. My entire book inventory is on my missing computer, which also contains a lot of personal information that cannot be replaced.

To date, I have sent numerous emails to Carmen and have called the office to no avail; because every time I call, she's never in. Mind you, my complaints began on Feb. 25, 2008. Since that time, I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and finally received an email last week from Carmen stating that they were still investigating and would have an offer ready by the end of the week. Needless, to say, I have yet to be contacted regarding an offer. This entire ordeal has made me extremely leery of interstate movers. The next time, I have to move, if it can't fit in my truck and U-haul trailer, it will be donated to charity and I will just start all over again.

I am the Jordan that Jennifer is talking about in her complaint. First I want to apoligize for the horrible experience you had with your move, as I am sure you will not get one from Joey Choran or Carmen Boebel the owners of A-1 Vanlines. The way you were treated is an all to common practice with this ( as you say for lack of a better word ) company. I left A-1 Vanlines in April of 2007 because of business practices and the fact they had trouble paying not just me but all employees.

The lowball quote you recieved happens in about 95% of the quotes they give. After doing a few of these quotes over the phone I told Joey that there is no way a person can give a complete inventory of what is to be moved and he just laughed and said he was counting on that. ( NEVER DO AN INVENTORY OVER THE PHONE. ALWAYS HAVE A REPUTABAL MOVER COME TO YOUR HOME AND DO AN ON SIGHT SURVEY.) They say if your inventory is accurate then your quote is binding, but if you are off just 1 item or 1 box they charge you for the actual weight. They say you are entitled to a copy of the weigh ticket. I was in court last week trying to help a former customer of A-1 Vanlines. They did not have a copy of his weigh ticket either. A-1 Vanlines settled with this man before I had a chance to give any testimony or I would have blasted them with both barrels. And by the way I was paid on commission and not paid on any of the overages.

When it comes to charges, if they had supplied you with a copy of " YOUR RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES WHEN YOU MOVE " as required by federal law you would have known that you are only required to pay 110% of the original estimate to recieve delivery of your goods and be billed for the rest. I asked Joey why we did not supply this to customers and he said he did not want them to have the phone numbers of who to call when they had a problem.

As for the drivers and movers, Sounds like you got a couple of the good ones, you were very lucky in that respect. They would hire these guys right off the street with no training and put them to work the same day. Sometimes they would hire these guys sight unseen since I did most of the interviewing as Joey and Carmen were very rarely in the office. They would hire these guys as independent contractors so they would not have to carry any workers comp insurance or take out any taxes and offered no benefits of any kind. Huge turnover as you can imagine.

As for the trucks. When I first started working there we got a lot of calls from Ryder in Atlanta about passed due bills that were owed for rental trucks. Carmen said they had us mixed up with some other A-1 Vanlines. I guess thats why they used Penske rentals. At the time I was there they owned no trucks and as for the website, they took a picture of the back dock at the Chattanooga address and pasted the A-1 Vanlines logo in. ( IF SOME ONE SHOWS UP IN A RENTAL TRUCK THEN CHANCES ARE THEY ARE NOT A LEGITIMATE MOVER.)

As for the locations they have. They started out in Carmen's house in Social Circle Ga. just outside of Atlanta, hence the calls from Ryder in Atlanta. Then when the heat got to be to much there they move to the Cromwell Rd. address in Chattanooga TN. The heat finally caught up with them there because they came in and moved everything out of the office and have now set up shop in Trenton Ga. I called Pryor-Bacon the leasing company they rented from in Chattanooga and their response was " I have nothing good to say about them". They say they offer thirty days of storage at no charge in a climate controlled warehouse. Bologna! The reason they give you thirty days is so they can figure out how they are going to get your goods delivered. I don't know about the warehouse in Trenton Ga. but the one in Chattanooga had no heat and no air. I asked Joey how he could call it climate controlled and he laughed and said it was controlled by what ever the climate was outside.

I can't tell you how glad I was ti finally see some one post a complaint against these guys. You can also post a complaint on movingscam.com that will probably get more attention than this one. I can not stress enough how bad this company really is. Please do your homework when deciding on a mover, you will be much better off paying a little more to get a reputabal mover then to be scammed by a rogue mover. Remember, the cheapest deal is not always the best deal when trusting someone to come and take possesion of everything you own.


Jordan

Yes, you were suckered in by a low-quote. I don't know if you thought about a do-it-yourself move, but if a full-service move is close in price to a DITY, it's not a company you should use. In your case, there is enough information out on this mover that should have dissuaded you from choosing them.

I don't know if any of the movers actually came to your house; if they did, the estimate they would have provided would have indicated what was being moved, and they keep such records on what is referred to as a cube sheet. A reputable mover would be able to provide a guaranteed not-to-exceed quote. You ended up with a less-than reputable mover, that has numerous complaints on other websites, including this one.

The most important thing a mover can do is research the mover they're using. As the title indicates, moving is not cheap - it costs a lot of money and the reputable movers (the big companies) only make about 5% profit on each move. So if a major mover is underbid by another mover by a margin of about 25-50%, you're being lied to and soon to be swindled if you choose the cheap mover. In the end, not only did you probably pay more than what a major mover would have charged you, you also lost a computer and other items, which will cost money to replace.

Cheap movers do not equate to consumer value.