AUTHORIZED MOVERS INC. Broke contract, delayed goods, damaged goods, lost goods North Miami Florida

PLEASE DO NOT USE AUTHORIZED MOVERS!! DoT 1123936

Firstly the numbers and then after that the details if you are interested

Contract stated pickup 06/27 - 06/28/07
Actual pickup 06/29/07 (after we had to leave)

Contract stated delivery 07/09 - 07/11/07
Actual delivery 08/18/07

Initial estimate : $3,425
Additional "charges after pickup": Additional 500lb weight although no legal document to support this and $300 long haul as they had to park their truck further away when they picked up late plus other charges.

Additional costs to get goods delivered: $1,200 lawyer fee as I could not get anyone from Authorized by phone or email
$1,600 Additional hotel costs as we did not know when our goods would arrive and had nothing for apartment
$1,000 in bedding, kitchenware and camp table once we moved into apartment and had 3 weeks before goods arrived.
Hours spent chasing Authorized, AMSA, DoT, lawyer and my credit card company at least 50 hours
Family impact: I had a pregnant wife, 18 month daughter and cat going through this with me. I was not fun!
$3,000 rough estimate of goods lost and damaged.

Initial quote :$3,425
Final bill inc replacement: $10,400 and counting

YOU DO THE MATH DO YOU WANT TO USE AUTHORIZED??


The Detailed story
I made the mistake of thinking I was going to save my company money by not going with one of the big movers. In my case it was a big mistake and the ramifications continue more than 6 months later.

At the end of June my newly pregnant wife, 18 month daughter, cat and I were relocating from Memphis, TN to Seattle, WA. Having never needed the services of a moving company before checked out some options on the web and found one company that seemed respectable. They quote and at that stage I noted they supplied a 14 days window of delivery. When I queried this I was told that was standard practise which seemed unusual. I spoke with another company (Authorized Movers inc.) and they assured me this was not so and could give a 2 day window for delivery. They were more expensive but I the cost of potentially 12 days of additional hotel cost far out weighed the few hundred dollars difference. I check Authorized out and they were recommended by both BBB and AMSA. This I toook to mean something but that was my mistake.

Authorized were very professional up to the point of pciking up my goods and the contact stated a 2 day delivery window and a 2 day pick up window. I was told I would be contacted with the exact pick up time a day or two before. They did call and stated 4 - 6pm on the second day. This was later then I had haoped but still within the 2 days. At 6pm of day 2 they had not showed up so I tried calling them but with no joy. Fortunately I had the cell number of the driver that called me earlier. He told me they were not going to make it. The next morning we had to leave at 6am to drive to Cincinnati so this was not an option. He gave me his supervisors number and after several discussions agreed they would do as contractually agreed and pick the goods up. At 11:30pm they arrived but as it was too late to load agreed that I would leave then the key to the apartment and the second location (a storage unit) and they would load in the morning, weigh the goods and fax me the BOL the next day.

At the point of pick up I was supposed to have paid 50% of the cost which I did through their own payment system (Google Purchasing).

I left for Cincinnati and called them on the way to make sur things had gone ok. They again stated they would fax the BOL.

The delivery was supposed to be 2 weeks later and by this time I was getting very worried. I was yet to receive the BOL as promised, had called them more then 30 times and sent many emails asking for an update and also confirmation of delivery date as we were in a hotel but were also paying for an apartment that we could not use with our gear in-transit. I never recieved a reply to my vm's I left and only on a couple of occasions I managed to talk to anyone.

When I had under taken their services I had been warned (and it was on their website) to be wary of companies that outsource the contract. That was a warn you should heed. AUTHORIZED MOVERS OUT SOURCE THEIR CONTRACTS. It was at this stage I found out they had out sourced to Moving Star in Texas and Authorized had no idea where my gear was. I was given the number of Isaac of Moving Star and I was told that my initial quote had gone up dramatically (about $1500) due to the goods being heavier and a number of other dubious reasons. I again asked for the BOL to be sent and the offical weighing document. None were provided. One of the other suspect "additional" charges was because they had to carry the goods extra distance on pickup. This was because we lived in an apartment complex. For the 2 days they were supposed to pick the goods up we had reserved the nearest parking spaces which were about 25 feet from our front door. However because they did not move our goods on the contracted days we had had to leave for Cincinnati and the spaces were taken up by other tenants. i did not see this as our responsibility.

After this I struggled to speak to anyone although I was told on more then one occasion that the goods were in Texas and or had left Texas. Not sure how Memphis to Seattle needs to go through Texas?!

The second day of the contracted delivery date passed and no contact. I was unable to reach anyone and had no idea where our gear was or when it would arrive.

At this stage we were paying $120 a night for a hotel plus the apartment rental. After another 5 days of no contact I was forced to contact a lawyer who was extremely helpful. Through legal channels she was able to find out that Authorized claimed I had not paid the 50% deposit and therefore the goods were being held back. In the 4 weeks they had our goods, numerous calls and emails I sent I had never once been told this.

I checked this out through my credit card company who i made the payment and it had been posted as requested. However Google Purchase (Authorized Movers payment system not mine) had put a stop on it. My credit card company nor I had been notified and we could not even put a stop on it as it had been posted.

In all this time this was the first I had heard and there was no way for me to have checked this.

At the same time Authorized movers lawyer stated in writing I had been abusive, unhelpful, been told the payment had not gone through. All of these are complete lies. I had been tempted to reach down the phone line and unleash venom but it seems pointless when all you ever get is a voice message plus it is never helpful when you are trying to get goods that are being held hostage.

My lawyer recommended making the payment again which I did and then phase 2 of this store starts.

In my job I travelled alot and there was only one week in the next 4 that I was to be in Seattle Mon - Thurs. I made them aware and asked if I could be given a few days notice of delivery I would arrange flights to ensure I was there for receipt of goods. I wanted to be present when a weighing was done.

On one Monday night at 11pm EST I was called to say the next morning they would be delivering my goods.As I was in Cincinnati there was no way I could get back in time so was told by them the goods would be stored locally and when I had paid the balance of the quoted amount plus the additional $1500 of "charges" I would be given the details.

After days of further discussion it was agreed I should pay 110% of quote (which is the law) plus the redelivery charge for redelivering the goods that they tried to deliver when they knew I was not there because they missed the delivery the first time.

It was at this time I found out Moving Star had sub contracted the delivery to King van lines out of CA. I have no beef with them and although they supplied one person to unload everything he was nothing but professional.

My goods arrived on 08/18/07, nearly 6 weeks late. During this time because of hotel costs my pregnant wife and child and I had moved into the empty apartment and spent around $1000 on goods as all we had were our clothes. My wife works from home and during this time her computor equipment had been with the movers so we lost some of her income even though her employer was very understanding.

It was at this stage I finally got my BOL but it was illigible so had to try to remember what we had, remembering we had to leave before they loaded.

Alot of our stuff never arrived, we were delievered with some gear that was not ours, bed matresses were moldy, torn damaged. Most glasssware was damaged. Alot of our goods did not arrive, were damaged or dirty.

My lawyer stated that she could do no more because even if we took them through the Civil court system there was no way to make them pay so I have spen the last 5 months going through AMSA and DoT. Denise at AMSA was very helpful and the case went to Arbitration. Authorized never responded to requests to go to arbitration and the have apparantly been kicked out of AMSA. Because that happened AMSA can do no more and it is with DoT. I doubt they will be any good.

I have held out documenting this as I had hoped with AMSA and DoT as industry watch dogs I would get some form of compensation at the end. It appears that everything is geared towards the movers and the consumer has little backup.

Authorized movers are thieves
kent, Washington
U.S.A.