I booked a Citymove removal well in advance. I was told at time of booking that the first time slot would garuntee them to be on time because there were no jobs before hand. I was then convinced to upgrade to 3 men instead of 2, at considerably extra cost as it would make my job faster therefore cheaper as I had 1 flight of stairs at the unload. I thought this unusual but decided to pay a higher hourly rate in the hope of more effect service.
The day of the move I recieved a phone call (which I was charged $2.00 for) to inform me that the truck was running late due to bad traffic - early Saturday morning traffic! Later I was informed there was no discount for being late as advertised because they called in advance.
The truck eventually arrived not quite an hour late the driver and his cohorts happily sipping takeaway coffees with out the slightest indifference to the delay.
The driver then 'signed' me on to commence my job at 8.20am - heres the first trick, they round up/down to the nearest half hour so 8.20 somehow becomes 8.00 and at the end they manage to finish precisly at a time that incurrs another 1/2 hour - very clever as they bill you an extra hour for nothing. they then add an extra 1/2 travel time.
They have a wrapping service that garuntees your belongings if they damge them - the catch is you must request it to be wrapped and it costs alot to wrap it. I have an antique table and chair set which is quite precious so i asked them to wrap it and told them this was the the most precious item to be moved. They didnt wrap it and ended up gouging a massive chuck out of my table and completely destryoing 2 chairs. When I complained they told me the table wasnt wrapped therefore not covered by thier garuntee. They then offered me a 30min discount as a compromise (an extra 30min they falsely added on)
The move was painfully slow I had a one bedroom unit with one flight of chairs it took over 5hrs (but they tried to bill 6.5hrs) my last move only 8 months early was from 3 flights of stairs with 2 men and took 2hrs. The whole time only one or two of the men were working not three. They were leaving most of the work to a nice but very small chap who was a traveller and seemed very new and very inexperinced not to mention not very capabable - I felt very sorry for this poor fellow. At one stage i asked where the other two were and was told they were 'packing' the truck. When I went to check I found one of them sitting on the pavement while the other had wondered off to buy food. They then seemd to take turns skulking off to eat the food whenver i wasnt there.
I have a ute and loaded pot plants and othe items hard to stack. When the driver found out he then began trying to offload as much as possible to my ute - perhaps to avoid the work?
They damaged the foyer of the building which I lost bond over as well as damaging a wall in the main bedroom and smashed a light fitting. They told me to email thier head office about it to make a claim and otherwise seemed completely unconcerned. All coreespondance was ignored for 5 weeks until - after hounding them continuilsy I spoke to a horibly rude and offensive 'James' who was apparently the 'Director'. His demenour, manner and blatent dishonesty was a very accurate representation of the service provided by his staff. It was very clear that the amount of bond I lost was not worth fighting for with this individual - not even an appology was offered.
I was moving within the same suburb it takes less than 10 minutes to get from one place to the other. I waited 40 min for them to show up at the unload. When I asked them they said they had to stop for fuel. When I questioned this they became aggressive and bad tempered.
The unload was so slow I began to move the gear myself as the move was taking forever. This actually seemed to make them slow down even more - almost as if they were glad to let someone else do the work but still wanted to stretch out the time.
Payment was a horrible process of arguing and haggling as I was hit with a barage hidden charges and fees. They tried to chagre a 5% fuel levy for more than 5km it would have been 2km at best. There were phone charges, a $10.00 credit card fee, I was charged for wrapping I did not request (I had wrapped some items myself with my own wrap - which they refused to believe even though the wrapping was different to thiers). During which time they became so intimidating and threatening I was forced to suggest we call call the police to help settle the matter.
I understand removals is a difficult line of work but I have rarely seen anything quite like this, and I have spent time in some very unsavoury developing countries. The service was to be frank, borderline criminal. It is astounding that a business that operates this way is allowed to exist.
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