Urban Moving Systems Inc. Weehawken Nj, ...outraged by such an unprofessional job

The service that Urban Moving Systems, Inc. provided us with on Saturday, October 23, 1999 was absolutely unacceptable in comparison to any other services that we ever had. We have never experienced this kind of problem before as customers and we were quite dissatisfied and outraged by such an unprofessional job the company did, which resulted in our severe lost of time and money, and completely ruined our plans.

We were to move from West Patterson, NJ to Boston, MA. We were guaranteed a good condition of the furniture and a safe trip, while, in fact, none of that was provided.

The following is the description of all the complains that we would like to file. They are mentioned gradually according to the time of the procedure, rather than the order of importance.

1) The movers were late for 1 hour: the service was guaranteed to start at 8:00 AM, and the movers came at 9:00 AM.

2) The beds were disassembled and we were charged $150 for it in the end, and had to pay for it, even though we never wanted this service, never ordered it, and it was never included in the original estimate. No one in the company ever told us about disassembling and the charges for it. We could have easily done it ourselves, but the lead mover did it without even asking and negotiating it with us.

3) The movers did not appear to know directions from West Patterson, NJ to Boston, MA, even though they provide moving services from NJ to Boston, as their advertisement in Yellow Pages clearly states, and they are located in Patterson. We had to spent some time explaining to them which routes to use. They even had to follow us at first, so we could show them the way. When we ordered a service, the clerk told us that they would have
directions planed out, because that what they always do.

4) On the way to Boston, the tracks tire came apart, and we had to wait 3 hours till it was fixed. The movers were absolutely confused, not knowing what to do, asking us where we were and if we could reach some road service for them.

Apparently, the company does not have any road service membership, like AAA. When they tried to call their own office, they could not reach it for some reason, while we called it right away ourselves, succeeded and described the situation to the clerk. He gave us the number to reach the road service and tell them the size of the wheel. When we came to the track cabin to give the phone number to the movers to call, we found them sleeping, which truly amazed us.
The situation was rather disasterous.

5) During the lunch time, one of the movers found out that the left stop light was off. As a matter of fact, it was off all the time, right from the very start. So they spent about 15 minutes after their lunch, figuring out what to do with it. They did not manage to fix it, so they asked us to go right behind them, so that we don't have problems with the police. It was pretty hard and dangerous to follow the track, which cannot signal for
the left turn and we did it almost all the way to Boston, not mentioning other driveres on the road, who could have found themselves in the dangerous situation because of that. It was extremely unsafe driving.

6) After we came to the destination apartment in Boston and everything was moved to the apartment, we found, that the piano was damaged. Two corners of it were cracked, scraped and overall deformed. The legs of the piano were displaced, not entirely, but quite noticeably, really affecting its position on the floor. It was the most expensive piece that we had, and
the one we cared most about. We payed additional money for it to be wrapped which did not prevent the movers from breaking it anyaway. We had also been told by the office clerk, that there would have been a special stand/holder for it, which, in reality, was never brought and used. The file cabinet was damaged as well, as we have recently found out.

The issue has been addressed to the company several times now. The brief description of the damage was put on the order invoice and signed by the lead mover. We have sent the photographs of the damage and the estimate prepared by the Boston Piano Service representative to the Urban Moving Systems, Inc. According to the estimate, the cost of the damage is $500.
Recently, we have recieved a letter from the company, saying that we are offered a reimbursement of $50.

Thank you for your web site.
We will greately appreciate any help or advice.

Sincerely,

Mikhail Pesok & Olga Sumina
mpesok@ccs.neu.edu