This is my terrible experience with Citymove and the complaint letter emailed to them today:
General Manager
Citymove Pty Ltd
Head Office
Level 1, 87-103 Epsom Road
Rosebery, NSW 2018
26 June 2008
Dear Sir/Madam,
Reference Number - 8897083279
I chose Citymove to move my furniture on Friday, 20 June 2008, because of the excellent service I received last time I moved. This turned out to be a very regrettable decision. While moving house can be stressful at the best of times, Citymove unnecessarily added to the stress. Your company advertising is misleading in stating that you “take the fuss out of moving” it multiplies it.
My move was booked in the 11am – 2pm timeslot, which I booked online. The booking system showed this time as available and for a cost of $59/half-hour. I received a call the day prior to the move and was informed that there would be delays because two big jobs had now been scheduled in the morning before mine. Because of the overbooking, Citymove used deceptive measures and pressured me to change my booking from 2 to 3 men at extra cost to myself. I booked my move well in advance on 11th June 2008, and should not have to suffer the consequences of a misleading and inadequate booking system. I had made arrangements to take leave from my job on Friday and had also booked cleaners and carpet cleaners in advance for Saturday, 21st June 2008. My lease was due to expire on Sunday so I had no alternative to moving my furniture on Friday.
During the day I didn't receive any indication of an estimated start time for my move and had difficulty obtaining information from your call centre staff. They were highly incompetent, would not provide basic knowledge of the removalist's progress, showed no compassion and lacked basic customer service skills. Because of this pathetic service, I missed my appointment with Energex and was without electricity for the entire weekend.
The removalists finally arrived at 4pm only a short time before a thunderstorm. I had the majority of my furniture on my veranda to make it easier and faster for them to move. Because of the looming storm I had to move it all inside again. If they had been able to do my job at the scheduled time between 11am and 2pm, I would not have had this extra work and they would not have had to move my furniture twice to ensure my furniture was protected from the rain, which consequently added to the time and cost of the move.
I am not complaining in any way about the work the removalists did. They acted with professionalism and integrity – the only experienced throughout the move. They did an excellent job in the adverse conditions and two of the men were injured. The injuries were a direct result of the delays caused by your company overbooking. Not only does Citymove have an incompetent booking system and disregard for its clients, it shows no consideration for the health and safety of its employees or contractors.
Your assertions in Citymove advertising of “100% Guarantee of Quality”, “Trained Polite Staff” and “Our guarantee, make your move easy” are simply promises that you do not fulfil. The actual moving of property is only one part of moving. Having it done on time, being kept informed, sticking to original quotes and having call centre staff who are not rude are also major factors in moving and if performed competently would have “taken the fuss” out of my move. I have been severely inconvenienced physically and financially by the actions of your company in this move. I cannot see myself using your company again or of ever recommending it to others.
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My wife and I decided to go with Citymove for our relocation to Mango Hill from central Brisbane as we thought they had a good name amongst removal firms and we wanted our belongings looking after. Everything seemed to be going well with the loading of the vans as there was a team of three plus the team leader who seemed to know what they were doing. I was a little perturbed as we drove off to the new house to see that they’d left a few items on my front lawn but I grabbed those and threw them in my own car. The problem came when the furniture and belongings were unloaded at the other end of the move. When the team leader asked me to check if I was satisfied with the condition of the items with a view to paying the bill and signing the invoice, I noticed a nine inch deep scrape in the leather sofa and a 5c sized puncture hole. I informed the team leader of this and I asked him what he was going to do about this. I was initially offered a $70 dollar discount, which in effect was the waiving of the balcony-lift fees. The hole is not in a place where it can be hidden so $70 was not sufficient recompense for a ruined 8 month old $1400 sofa. I asked for the complaints department number, and received a reply of something about not having insurance and something about Australian Financial Services Licence. The team leader went to speak to his team and confirmed that the damage had been done because they had place a large, wooden dog kennel up against the leather sofa which, unsurprisingly, had scraped it in transit. The team leader phoned through to his help desk but got no answer. I wrote a disclaimer on the invoice that whatever payment I made was subject to the damage on the sofa being made good.
My wife called the Citymove claims line the next day and made our complaint again verbally. I followed this up with an email as per their instructions. The reply I received informed me that if the removal team do not deem an item to be at great risk, they do not wrap it. If any item is not wrapped, it is voided from the “We break it, we fix it” guarantee. This seems to me to completely remove any incentive to wrap anything as if it’s broken, who cares? The guarantee is void anyway as it wasn’t wrapped. Citymove apparently pride themselves on their professional approach to removals but I would seriously question the thinking behind placing a large, wooden dog kennel next to a soft, leather sofa given that things generally move in transit. They are negligent as they placed the sofa at “great risk” themselves.
I was contacted by a Jason Hutchins and offered $100 and a 20% discount voucher for our next move with Citymove. As this was only a $30 increase from the initial offer and given the fact that I am never going to use Citymove again, I turned their offer down. Jason Hutchins said he would take my complaint to his Managing Director.
I emailed Jason for a response on 14th May. I actually work in complaints and I know how long these things can drag out so I emailed again 10th June. On 12th June I was contacted by Christina Cavallero who informed me that Jason was no longer in the employ of Citymove. She then went on to say that to finalise my enquiry, they were willing to give me $30 and a 20% discount on my next move. Clearly a $70 drop from their last offer wasn’t too appealing to me! I replied to this email on 13th June.
Still not having had a response, I again emailed on 18th June (seven weeks after the move!) to inform Citymove that if I did not hear anything by the end of the week, I would be contacting the Dept. of Fair Trading and also putting the details up on this website.
Christina Cavallero then contacted me asking for my mobile number so that we could discuss the matter by phone. This is despite my work phone number being on every single email I have sent to them. I replied stating that they could ring my work number any time. Needless to say, I have not had a phone call as yet. I guess we’ll just have to see wh
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