Friday, December 18, 2009

Moving scam

Yesterday was not a good day. This post will explain my experience with one moving company based in Ontario, Canada.


Business info:

Movers on Demand, Inc.

http://movers-on-demand.com/contact.html

416 919 6683


WHOIS info for domain name:

CHINYENZE, KNIGHT KNIGHTAPIWA@YAHOO.COM

165 GREEN VALLEY DRIVE

UNIT33

KITCHENER, On N2P1K3

CA


Customer experiences:

http://www.druid.net/darcy/movers_on_demand.py

http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17789


Problem explanation and dispute position:

Two weeks before the moving date, we researched various moving companies and decided on one called "Movers on Demand, Inc."

The company website (http://movers-on-demand.com/) advertised that an estimate will be made before the moving date. This was never done. Over the phone a quote was given for approximately $265.

The moving date was set for December 17 at 10 am.


On the date of the move at 10am when the movers did not show up, we called to confirm the time. We were told the movers would be coming in the afternoon. We said that is not good enough and we were told they would come at 11:30am. They did show up at 11:30am but this was 1.5 hours late. Furthermore only 2 movers were present instead of the 3 promised over the phone.


It took 2.5 hours to load the truck. 20 minutes to drive to the new house. Once at the new house the movers sat in the truck for about 10 minutes. Upon emerging they presented us with an invoice for $855 before taxes with a breakdown as follows:


Labour at 45/hour - 360

Travel time - 45

Stairs - 180

Appliances - 30

Piano - 60

Special handling - 30

Assembly/dismantling - 60

Heavy Items - 90


The movers would not unload the truck until we paid the invoice.


The unloading time is assumed by the movers to be the same as the loading time. By those calculations, the total labour is 5 hours. However the invoice labour cost of 360 was based on 8 hours. Their explanation for this was to point out the contract terms where it stated a minimum of 4 hours per trip. This is then multiplied by 2 to get the minimum labour of 8 hours. We talked on the phone to the supervisor Kevin and we disagreed on the reasoning for multiplying and the result of 8 hours. We also disagreed on the surcharge for "Piano" as the piano involved is actually a digital keyboard that came apart and is not nearly as heavy as a conventional upright piano. Kevin agreed to take $45 off the labour charge and to remove the "Special Handling" charge of $30. The subtotal was therefore reduced to $780. After 13% taxes and a $20 credit card surcharge, the total charged to my VISA was $901.40.


Our position is that the labour should be for 5 hours and that the piano charge should be dropped. The subtotal should therefore be adjusted to $660.