Summit Van Lines Moving Estimate Bate and Switch & Poor Service Nationwide

Summit van lines hired to do our move from Chicago to South Florida. They said there was need for an in person estimate.

I sent photos and video with the inventory, and reminded Charles of that repeatedly - in writing. We again requested a Summit rep come to do an in-person estimate prior to the move - in writing.

Summit sent packers for only 2 1/2 hours: that was a huge part of the problem. Movers are not packers. Which the movers told me repeatedly. When I spoke to the rep the day before the packing, Jennifer, she said it would only take 4 hours to pack our apartment. I said I estimated 8-12 hours. She told me Summit was sending "their best crew", they had all my inventory information and it would take 4 hours.

Midway into the move the workers presented my wife a revised estimate, increasing the original estimate by $5K. She was told if she did not sign they would quit working. We had to be out of the apt for the new owners. She had no choice but to sign. We immediately complained to the Summit rep Jennifer.

In addition the movers refused to move a large piece of furniture because it had to be carried down the steps. They left it for us to deal with. We had to hire another moving company to carry the vitrine. We then had to rent local storage to hold the vitrine until we can have it move to Florida.  

At the end of the evening a dispute erupted between Summits paid workers and local day workers on the street next to their moving truck. Day workers had broken a $3K antique. My wife left our building at 10pm after the movers left. She was confronted by the day workers outside of our apt building and was harassed and threaten. They said Summit refused to pay them because they broke a marble top from a bureau. The screaming of the workers at my wife so loud that our building security came to her rescue as she was then in fear of bodily harm.

Summit says this is not their problem as the workers are not on their payroll. We were requested to provide proof of this incident. There is no video of the public streets in front of our building. The security guard from our building heard the commotion and came to assist me and escorted the day hire out of the convenience store, although the security guard had no authority there.

We have attempted to deal professionally with Summit on these matters only to receive a contemptuous email.. Had we had an accurate estimate we could have made a decision to use another vendor. We simply asked them to be reasonable.

Summary At this point Summit has our belongings and will not release them unless we pay them an additional $5K.