Atlantis Van Lines ripoff dishonest extortion unprofessional hostage holding Denver Colorado

Dear Atlantis Van Lines:

On April 29, 2004, I submitted a request for an estimate at vanlines.com for a move for our 4-bedroom/2-bath/2-car garage house from Rifle, CO to Broomfield, CO. Within the next couple of days, we received two separate bids for the job from your company, each with different hourly rates and suggested manpower. As you recall, we settled on 3 men with 1 truck at a rate of $90 per hour. Your estimate was for 6 hours drive time and 2 1/2 hours of load/unload time, all based on the knowledge that we had a 4-bedroom, 2-bath house with a 2-car garage. The price estimate was for $765. You said the movers would arrive in Rifle at 11:00 am on Sat. May 29, 2004.

On May 28, 2004, the people who bought our house in Rifle requested that Atlantis Van Lines pick up their belongings from a 2-bedroom apartment in Denver, and bring them to Rifle. Given the fact that Uhaul had given away their truck to another customer, we agreed to this. This would legitimately add 1-2 hours of loading time and 3-4 hours of drive time to the original estimate of $765, bringing the final estimate to no more than $1305. Atlantis Van Lines agreed to arrive at the apartment in Denver at 9:00am on May 29, 2004. However, they did not arrive until after 10:00, therefore delaying the move even more.

On May 29 2004, the scheduled date of our move, your movers arrived much later in the day than had previously been expected. Although there were some last minute changes as described above, and we were aware that you would be arriving approximately 3-4 hours later than the original 11:00am estimate, your movers did not arrive until 6:00pm due to their own slow progress and unreasonably slow driving. It had taken them 8 hours to load a 2-bedroom apartment and drive in very good weather from Denver to Rifle (183.83 miles).

When they arrived, the truck that they had brought from your office in Denver was clearly not large enough to accommodate our needs. The 2-bedroom apartment move from Denver to Rifle had completely filled the truck. However, seeing that we needed to move that day to be at work in Broomfield on Tuesday June 2, we had little choice but to continue with the move as best as we could. Your movers left our home in Rifle at approximately 8:15pm, a little over 2 hours after arriving, with little more than half of our belongings. We had six people helping in addition to your three movers to expedite the moving process. My husband and I left Rifle an hour later, at 9:15, and made it to Broomfield by 1:00am, even with the onset of a snowstorm. Although the moving truck would clearly go slightly slower than us, there should have been no reason whatsoever why they couldn't have also made it by 1:00am-1:30am, as they faced the same conditions we did.

After repeated calls to your central office in Denver, we received a call from the Office Manager, Roy at approximately 10:30pm, who informed us that the movers were stuck in the snowstorm and would not be able to unload our belongings until the next day. Given the fact that we would have greatly disturbed our new neighbors by moving into an apartment in the middle of the night, we agreed to this without hesitation. Roy assured my husband that he would be in the office by 7:00am the next day and that he would call us then. He also assured my husband that we would not incur any additional costs due to the unpredictable inclement weather in June. My husband asked why he had sent a truck designed to move an apartment to a 4-bedroom house. Roy's response was that perhaps we had additional stuff. Given the fact that we had only one bed to move and that we had sold a great deal of belongings in a garage sale the week before, my husband disagreed. (We prepared accordingly for moving from a 4-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom apartment.)

My husband and I slept on the floor of our new apartment, and awoke the next morning around 6:30. As of 9:15, we had not yet heard from Roy, even though he had promised to call us around 7:00am. At this point, we had no idea where our belongings were located, when and if the movers had made it through the storm, and most importantly when they would be arriving at our home to unload. At 9:15am, we repeatedly attempted to contact your office to find out about our belongings to no avail. We were told repeatedly that Roy, the manager was out of the office, not available, eating breakfast, eating lunch, did not want to be disturbed, etc, and that he would call us at his nearest convenience. At 11:00 am, Roy called to report that the movers had driven through the night, that they were sleeping, and that they would arrive "at some point during that day." This was simply unacceptable, so, after much debate, he agreed to confirm their arrival by no later than 3:00pm.

Surprisingly, they arrived early at 2:30pm. At that point, they informed us that the charge would be $1,890, almost triple the original estimate. This was also unacceptable. Their untimeliness the day before and the unexpected snowstorm were not reasons enough that we should have had to pay for their time throughout the night. At that point, I refused outright to pay such an exorbant price for the move. The foreman of the movers then ordered the other movers to transfer any belongings that were previously unpacked to be put back into the truck. He said that, without his boss' approval, he could not unload any of our things. Our futon mattress/couch was already unloaded into our new garage, and two of the movers laid down on the mattress, apparently awaiting a call from their boss to continue with the move. There is now a large stain on the mattress resulting from it being laid down on a dirty garage floor. I consider this behavior to be at the very least unprofessional, and simply unacceptable.

We tried relentlessly for over an hour to get a hold of Roy. We were again given the same excuses as before over and over again by the receptionist. Finally, after informing the receptionist that the movers were holding our belongings hostage, Roy returned our calls, and attempted to reason to us over the phone that we should pay for their hotel bill over the night as well as the additional time incurred due to the driving conditions. He also told me, in an unnecessary, condescending voice, that I should discontinue calling his office and demanding that he speak with me because he was "at lunch and did not want to be interrupted. He said, I'm allowed to eat, aren't' I? I found this to be an absurd statement given the fact that it was now after 3:30pm and we had been trying to get in touch with him to settle this matter since 9:15am. I was also told that the original estimate was just an estimate and that it means nothing.

Finally, we agreed to pay a lesser charge of almost $1,500 for the move, which was still twice what we were quoted.

However, we were not finished with our move. At that point, we had to go to UHaul on the next day, which was the Memorial Day holiday, and attempt to rent one of their trailers to return to Rifle to pick up the other half of our belongings. Because of the holiday, it was quite difficult to get a trailer on such short notice, and we had to wait virtually the entire day to get a trailer that was large enough. We drove back to Rifle, loaded the other half of our belongings by ourselves, and drove back to Broomfield, the entire process taking well over 8 hours between driving time, loading and unloading. Not only did we incur charges for the trailer rental and gas, but we also had to take 8 hours of our time and delay the start of our jobs by one day.

As you see, we hired your company to move us from a 4-bedroom house in Rifle to Broomfield for approximately $765. We ended up getting half of a move that took 2 days to complete for $1500 and still had to return ourselves to complete the move. If we had just done the move ourselves, we would have saved ourselves time and energy by making one trip. My husband and I would respectfully ask that, at a minimum, your company reimburse us for our UHaul rental, gasoline, and damages to three pieces of our furniture that you moved, insurance for which was included in our original estimate. An itemized statement is attached for your convenience.

Sincerely,

cc: Better Business Bureau, Colorado Motor Carriers Association, vanlines.com, and Public Utility Commission

Itemized statement of additional costs incurred:

1. Uhaul Trailer (12x6), 24-hour rental: $40.33 (see attached copy of receipt.)

2. Gas in Rifle, Co, 21.358 gallons: $46.11 (see attached copy of receipt.)

3. Damages due to carelessness:
1 large solid wood dresser, estimated weight 150 lbs. @ $.30/pound=$45.00
1 futon mattress, estimated weight 40 lbs. @ $.30/pound=$12.00
1 1982 big screen TV, estimated weight 300 lbs. @ $.30/pound=$90

I have pictures of all of the damages. I will be glad to email them to you for your reference.

Total additional cost of move: $233.44


Items omitted from additional cost of move:

1. At least 8 additional hours x 2 people
*According to Atlantis Van Lines hourly rate of $90/hour for a 3-man crew: $480.00

2. Time lost from work:
*My husband's hourly rate is $27/hour x 8 hours (1 day): $216.00
*I am a teacher on Summer vacation, so my time has been omitted/donated.

Jennifer
Superior, Colorado
U.S.A.

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.