Local Motion

To whom it may concern:I would first like to apologize for any inconvenience experienced as a result of this claim. It is our policy to settle all claims within 90 days of submission. While we do try to resolve all claims as soon as possible, sometimes situations arise that are beyond our control...

and cause delays. I will contact all necessary parties to ensure that we get this situation handled correctly and in time with our policies.

To Whom it may concern: The original estimate for this move was for $766.35. This estimate did not include any down time the movers would incur because of closing issues. The customer was aware of this and knew that if there were closing issues, it would incur additional charges. Once the...

movers arrived, they were able to assess the move firsthand and try to get a more accurate estimate. They estimated the cost to be $1253.10. The customer agreed and signed the paperwork stating that this was acceptable. The movers ended up with 2 hours of down time due to the closing. The total cost of the move was $1424.35. Because of the situation, the customer was given back a credit of $177, one hour of time for the closing issue. I feel this to be more than fair as the total cost is then only $44.25 more than the last estimate the the customer had agreed upon.

I am rejecting this response because:We were never asked to view the trucks to make sure that all of it was delivered.  We had verbalized our concern over a missing case of wine and they had stated that we have 9 months to file a claim on the item if it is still missing but they encouraged us to look first. They transported liquor when they shouldn’t and we filed a claim back on 12-26-17, which we have not been reimbursed for any of it. I have contacted the state department of transportation regarding terms and conditions under a contract they have with them. I called Eagan police and we are in the process of getting a civil court date. The carrier/local motion shall be liable for physical loss of or damage to any article.  We do not have any copies of paperwork that we signed off on being ok w the transportation company and local motion is a disgrace.  We have contacted attorney general, Lori Swanson and also submitted paperwork to her. Local motion stole on our property and violated many codes, including code of conduct, code of terms and conditions for transportation and a code of ethics.  We will not stop until we have justice.

I am rejecting this response because: These statements are inaccurate. I have attached the two estimates provided by email from Local Motion for the completion of our move. You can see that the estimated times in the response Local Motion provided do not align with the information Local Motion provided us prior to selecting them to complete our move. In addition to the moves taking longer than estimated, Local Motion did not move a substantial portion of our items. This resulted in us taking on additional costs and performing the tasks of the job we had hired them to do. Not to mention scrambling last minute while closing on two homes to do so.  In the end, we agreed to do business based on the assumption they would move all of our items for the agreed upon price they had provided ($2,087). Instead we have been charged more ($2,591.50), had to complete the work we paid them to do, and had to incur additional costs along the way. Prior to selecting Local Motion, we had reached out to a number of other companies to get estimates for our move. If we had been known we would be charged more than the estimated price to not move all of our items...we would have selected another company to do business with.

To whom it may concern:   It is quite distressing to have such invalid statements said about our employees, regarding their honesty and integrity. In my previous response I advised that the customer file a police report if they feel there is a need. After the completion of the move, our paperwork was initialed AND signed by the customer stating that all items had been delivered and the truck was inspected to their satisfaction. After receiving written statements from our employees, and the daily inspection of the truck, we found no evidence of any wrongdoing and therefore cannot warrant any further action(s) regarding this situation.

I am rejecting this response because:  It was my mistake for not reading the entire piece of paper that the movers presented to me when they were there to load my furniture.  There was conversation related to the number of boxes but no mention made of the adjusted price.  Even if it had been mentioned, we would have had no other choice but to use Local Motion since we were boxed up and ready to go.  Had I known that Local Motion didn't know how to make an estimate without seeing it first hand, I certainly would not have used Local Motion.  I, and everyone that I have spoken to about this, believe that we were misled.  When I talked to Bill on Monday, he claimed that the phone estimates where usually within 5-10% of final cost.  This was certainly NOT the case. I couldn't be more unhappy with how this was handled.  While I am only a person of one, I will do everything in my power to see to it that other people don't get caught in the same "trap" we stepped into.  I'm an honest person with integrity and think Local Motions way of doing business is shameful.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/02/11) */
To Whom It May Concern,
First I would like to apologize that we were unable to provide the same stress free moving experience that we provided during the first service for the consumer.
In an industry with as colorful a reputation as the...

one we work in, we take matters of performance in the field very seriously. While we do strive to provide the same Team Members to our repeat customers, circumstances beyond our control sometimes make it impossible. The Travis' are two of the best movers we have and to say that not everyone can do what these gentleman do is an understatement. However, the two Team Members who were provided for the consumer's second service are both fully trained and capable movers, who completed the service within the estimated time frame given by our Moving Consultant.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to determine the time it will take to conduct a service, and it is even more difficult to determine what exact factors cause a service to take as long as it does. While the consumer may think that eliminating the stairs at the unload location will make a service take a similar amount of time despite the additional furniture and boxes, they must also take into account their level of preparedness. According to the notes taken by the Team Leader on the day of the service the consumer was "Very Unorganized", and the consumer told the Team Leader they were unable to get as prepared as they would have liked because they had the flu. This is very understandable, as I don't know anyone who has not been subjected to the ravages of the flu season at some point, but we cannot give special consideration for this circumstance nor can we ignore its effect on the time it took to conduct the service. Unpacked, loose items take considerably longer to move than items that are packed and ready in boxes.
We understand the consumer's irritation at comments from our Team Leader that were construed as rude or disrespectful and would like to assure them that that was not his intention. The Team Leader is a very inquisitive person and did not understand that questions about rent and cost would be an uncomfortable subject as they are not uncomfortable for him. The Team Leader has been spoken to on this subject and we did issue a service refund due to the consumer's feelings about these statements, as well as the time charged during these periods of conversation.
Given the fact that the consumer had more items than their previous service, was not fully prepared, a refund was already credited for the periods of conversation, and the service was completed in the time estimated by the Moving Consultant, we cannot agree to an additional refund at this time.
Respectfully,
[redacted]
Quality Controller
Local Motion
[redacted].[redacted]@LocalMotion.com
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/02/11) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I spoke with [redacted] the other day, and we discussed all these points. I guess we need to officially record everything, however.
The team lead LIED. Neither mover spent any time waiting for us to do anything. There was always either furniture or boxes waiting for them.
Our living room was filled with taped, ready to go, stacked boxes. The only thing not ready was clothing (put into special boxes they left), the kichen (which we packed another day) and some garbage, a few odds and ends which we took care of while the movers moved everything else. Also, we had to take apart my kids' beds. Also, there were some things that didn't fit into boxes that we threw into a couple big boxes the movers had ready.
Also, I didn't have an issue with the estimate being correct or incorrect or anything.
I complained about the behavior and work/lack of work that my husband and I experienced and witnessed by the movers. We saw them stop and talk and take constant breaks, and they moved slowly the whole move. They stopped and tried to start conversations with us. The team lead was unprofessional and rude. (The other mover seemed like a nice guy). Either way, my complaint was not based on the estimate. It was based on the way the movers acted on the day. Had they been working continuously and working hard and NOT taking constant breaks to chat, we would not have complained at all. The fact that the previous movers were so awesome and took half the time was meant to support my position (since it's a he said/she said type of situation. I did not videotape the move.)
I would like the tip given via credit card (in error) to be refunded onto the original card. I have the receipt to prove the tip and will take the refund of the tip onto the original credit card.

To Whom it may concern:                                                      I would first like to apologize for any inconvenience experienced as a result of these...

claims. After this move, I received more claims for reported damage than I have ever seen from one move in Local Motions history. This information was shocking to hear, and very hard to believe.  In order to comprehend such a massive number of claims, we sent our repair vendor to assess the situation. Upon inspection, there were damages that had occurred during the move, but most of the claimed items were questionable, for example, a broken pump cap from a lotion bottle to a coffee maker lid not sitting correctly. In this situation, it is very difficult to determine if the items were damaged by our movers or if they were previously damaged. However, we ended up resolving these claims with repairs and compensation. Regarding the “missing boxes”, every truck is inspected daily and if anything is found, it is noted and returned. There were no items left in our trucks. 33 large boxes are very hard to misplace, so we had determined that there was an obvious miscount on the correct number used. We will offer the credit for the 33 missing boxes.

I am rejecting this response because: Local Motion has repeatedly refused to discuss/negotiate/answer questions (e.g., a request for contact information for their insurance mediator).  Up until I filed the initial Revdex.com complaint for non-restitution of the missing items, Local Motion had professed to their box count being correct and retained my payment for said boxes.  Now they say it must have been a miscount.  They also say the trucks were empty when they returned that evening.  They were not!   A large number of items that were staged for donation to charities were claimed by various members of the crew and placed on the trucks for their personal use.  So, the trucks were NOT empty when they returned to Local Motion that night when they left my new home and which was well after closing time for the office.  Additionally, there was a 1-1.5 hour lunch break between the trucks leaving the old address and arriving at the new address; I have no knowledge of what transpired during that time.  Boxes could have been offloaded during that time as there was no BOL inventorying boxes loaded onto/off the trucks. Local Motions’ claim that the idea of missing items was brought up months after the move is misleading/erroneous.  Their return policy grants customer 90 days to empty boxes/return them for refund.  My packing day was 10/11/16 and 90 days from then is 1/9/16.  The last of the boxes in my possession were returned on 12/8/16.  The first claim related to these missing items was filed in Claim Form # 53 and submitted to Local Motion on 12/14/16.  Claim Form #66 which contained an Excel spreadsheet with the list of identified missing items was submitted to Local Motion on 12/19/16.  At that time, I was told there could only be one item associated with a given claim form.  So, I replaced Claim Form #66 containing the list of missing items with individual claim forms (Claim Form #67-90) and re-submitted them on 1/3/17.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2015/03/05) */
To Whom It May Concern,
I would first like to apologize to the consumer for any inconvenience they may have experienced as a result of the claims that occurred on their move. Our focus has always been to provide a quality moving experience to...

our customers, and situations like this one are of the upmost concern to us. We do have a system in place to deal with claims that occur during a service, and the few customers that have the need for that system tend to find it accommodating and satisfactory. Unfortunately, that system does require a certain paperwork protocol to be adhered to, and in this case it appears that some of the required paperwork was not submitted by the consumer, causing some of their claims to be mishandled. I have been working directly with the consumer since hearing of this oversight to provide an appropriate resolution to the situation.
Respectfully,
[redacted]
Quality Controller
Local Motion
[redacted]
[redacted]@LocalMotion.com

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2014/12/22) */
To Whom It May Concern,
I will address the consumers concerns in the order that they were described, beginning with the statement "The company falsely estimated crew and truck requirements to complete the job." If the consumer were indeed...

accurate in his explanation of the items to be moved, our Moving Consultant would not have quoted the job with a count of 25 pieces of furniture and 55 boxes when the actual count was around 60 pieces of furniture and 100 boxes. Taking into account the consumers time limitations, it makes absolutely no sense that our Moving Consultant, who has worked in the industry for 12 years and has been a Moving Consultant for 10 years, to quote that job with less resources than necessary to complete the job in the time required.
To address the claim that we "provided a totally unprofessional and unskilled crew to job site." The initial 3 Team Members have a combined 19 years of experience conducting moves for Local Motion. The 2 Team Members that were dispatched to assist in completion of the move added an additional 10 years of experience with Local Motion and none of them have been employed with Local Motion for less than 1 year.
The claims that the consumer must remove his clothing from the bedroom furniture is in regards to the liability issue of transporting an item such as a dresser with the drawers full. Our Team Leader explained that we could not provide liability on said items unless the drawers were emptied. The Team Leader also explained that we do not provide liability for claims and damages to lamp shades and lamps that are not packed as well as glass and fragile items that are not crated. At no point did the Team Leader say we do not take said items and the consumer initialed his understanding of these limitations on the Service and Charges form prior to conducting the move.
According to our Team Leader, the consumer was constantly badgering the Team to meet his unrealistic expectations. The Team Leader had already explained to the consumer that an additional truck and Team Members was required to meet those expectations. Under the conditions the consumer had placed our Team, I can understand how the consumer might negatively view the responses of the Team.
The consumer's claim that the additional truck and Team Members were dispatched due to the delays of the initial Team are completely inaccurate. The additional truck and Team were required to properly transport the amount of items requested by the consumer and to attempt to complete the job within the time constraints of the consumer. Had the consumer been accurate in his explanation of the work required, the additional truck and Team would have been assigned to the move from the onset.
The consumer was given the opportunity to submit claims for damages and did so for 3 items that have since been repaired to the consumer's satisfaction. If every piece of wood furniture was damaged then why were only 3 claims submitted by the consumer?
With regards to the many inaccuracies in the statements of the consumer and the fact that Local Motion has already repaired all damages that were claimed by the consumer, Local Motion does not feel any refund is appropriate.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 10, 2014/12/31) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Whoever drafted the response from the company was clearly, obviously not on the job site. Nor were they part of the original conversation to book the company to begin with. I clearly explained to the company at time of booking that I had a 1200 square foot, two bedroom, one den house that was stuffed. I also explained that I had a storage room on top of my garage. In addition, I explained at the time that I needed to be vacated from my property by 1:00 in the afternoon, as I had a cleaning company scheduled to come in at that time. If the company felt my "demands were unreasonable", why did the representative not explain at time of booking? The company representative left me with the feeling that he was paid on commission as he seemed only interested in getting my business as quickly as possible to go on to the next customer. I felt rushed and taken advantage of. To address the company's statement regarding the experience level of the crew. Just because the crew had a combined experience of several years doesn't make the good employees. The crew walked into my house with negative attitudes to begin with. Every time I turned around, they were complaining about something and threatening to charge me addional money. I was advised that the crew would wrap all items of wooden furniture with blankets, then with plastic wrap prior to being moved. This DID NOT happen, which is clearly evidenced by the damage suffered by my furniture. When I complained to the team lead regarding the damage to my armoire, he exclaimed that it was "my fault" because I didn't clean the clothes out. I was stunned. He never once apologized for causing the damage to my wall or furniture. The team leader obviously lied about not taking lamp shades, as I clearly remember how shocked I was that he actually said that to me. The company is correct that I only filed claims on three pieces of furniture. When I did request to file claims on other items, one member of the crew stood there and argued with me regarding their responsibility for damage. Literally insinuating I had lied about my damage. I wanted to just get them out of my house as I was tired of arguing with them. In addition, I didn't notice the full scale of damage until I started packing away items and moving items around. An example of this wound be my living room floor lamp. I paid $750.00 for this one-of-a-kind lamp and the crew placed the lamp up against the wall. When I went to move it into position, I noticed that the crew had snapped the wooden base in half and simply propped it up against the wall so I wouldn't notice. Now I find out the lamp cannot be repaired and must be replaced, which, at this point is impossible. Number one, a "professional crew", would have accepted responsibility for the damage they caused due to their own incompetence and assumed financial liability for damage. This company has done neither to my satisfaction. The company feels I had "unrealistic expectations". Please tell me, is having my expensive wood furniture moved without any damage an unrealistic expectation? I don't think so. Especially considering I paid over $2,200.00 to move a 1,200 square foot, two bedroom house a total of eight miles. I feel the company needs to physically go to the job site and make an accurate evaluation of work to be performed to avoid the stress and hassles I've had to endure with this company. I do not consider this complaint closed and I'm further considering filing a complaint with the Minnesota Attorney Generals Office.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 12, 2015/01/14) */
All the difficulties with the consumer's move start with a miscommunication between the consumer and their sales consultant about the amount of items to be moved. Our over the phone estimates have an accuracy of over 95%, and back when we did physically conduct on-site estimates they had the same level of accuracy. While a small percentage of moves do go over estimate, the factors that contribute to those overages can vary considerably and the amount of items to be moved was the direct reason that this consumer's move went over the estimate that was given. We do understand that this can be a difficult curve ball for both the consumer and their moving team, however we are required by law to charge for all time that work is being performed and cannot refund of remit in any manner charges for time that work was being performed, regardless of the estimate given.
When a consumer tells our crew that they want more than twice the amount of items to be moved in the same time frame with the same cost I would definitely call those expectations unreasonable. A reasonable expectation is that twice the items would incur twice the cost and take twice as long. On top of that the consumer wishes his team pre-wrapped his items, which takes more time than the standard procedure of covering the items with moving pads on the truck, thus leading to increased cost and less chance of meeting the expectation of completing the load by 1:00pm.
As for the attitude of our team, if someone is constantly yelling at you to work faster than yells when damage occurs as a result of working faster, you may start to resent the comments of that person and it could very well reflect in your attitude towards that person. All members of our company that had any contact with the consumer can attest to his very harsh nature and I will quote our Dispatcher, "He swears like a sailor and yells like a Drill Sargent." While our teams strive to provide a positive moving experience for all our customers, we do understand that occasionally damage may occur and we have a system in place to address that issue. The consumer used that system for the items that were damaged and signed a statement that he was satisfied with the completion of that work. No mention of other damages was made to the representative that came to do the repairs.
The consumer agreed to the terms of service prior to the move including the statement that the estimate is non-binding and that actual move costs are based on actual move times. At no point did he request that the team stop loading to keep costs down, he instead let the team finish the work before saying it cost too much.