RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

I had no problem moving with Budget van Lines last month. They did an excellent job and provided a binding quote that was actually less upon delivery.

When I booked with them they did tell me that they needed a complete list of items, so if the customer failed to list everything he was moving, then that is his fault, not Budet Van Lines.

Budget Van Lines is a scam.  Just google “Budget Van Lines Fraud” to find pages and pages of absolute horror stories on these guys (and I am writing from experience because they’ve done it to us, too.)  You contact them, they have someone else contact you back (in our case it was Green Pacific Van Lines) who gives you one estimate and wants a deposit.  Then once they pick up your stuff and have it in their possession, the nightmare begins.  

First,they will  not deliver your items for  up to 30 days–which has actually turned into 60 in our case, as once the initial 30 passed with no call and no delivery, we called and were told that we had to request our items for the 30 day timeframe to begin  ( as of this writing,we still do not actually have our belongings, though the driver is supposed to show up this morning–he was originally supposed to show up two days ago.)We were contacted two days ago via email to let us know the driver was on the way, and that our new total (originally just under $800) was now close to $2500 because they had weighed our items and found them heavier than expected (which I do not believe–we were moving a small 10×10 storage unit filled with childrens toys, womens clothing, and a few boxes of DVD’s and books.  No beds. No couches or entertainment systems. No large furniture at all.)  

The email was from yet another company–or at least another name.  In fact, between the heading, body and bottom of the email, there were three names–all different from Budget OR   Green Pacific.  In this email, it was stated we had to pay this extra money by cash or postal money order only (written in bold type.)  

When we spoke to the driver, this was confirmed.  No credit card, no checks, no bank money orders (in other words, nothing traceable.)  In addition, when we asked him who we should write these money orders out to, as our contract was with Green Pacific Van Lines, but the new bill had three other names on it, he told us to not worry about it and just give him the blank money orders, and he would fill them out in our presence (!!!)

I have since done some research online, and found out that if we do not pay the driver, he holds our things hostage, takes them to a storage, and we get billed for storage and redelivery on top of everything else, before they will release our items to us.

We tried calling our lawyer, who told us these guys are essentially operating in a legal loophole.  We tried calling the police, who told us they can do nothing as it’s a civil matter.  We are not going to let this go and are bringing legal action against these companies.  I say companies because so far I’ve found many different names for them, all linked–from California all the way to New York.  (Budget Van Lines is supposedly located in New York, however if you check up on them, their official address is in California.  Green Pacific Van Lines gives a California address–if you check that online, it leads you to a site that sells “virtual office space packages”–they don’t have a real office at all!) Here are the linked names I’ve found so far:

Budget Van Lines
Green Pacific Van Lines
Green Pacific VanLines

Green Point Van Lines
Greenpoint Van Lines
Green Van Lines
Nationwide Top Movers-
Nationwide Trusted Movers
Nationwide Moving Services
Trusted Moving and Storage
Trusted Movers
Planet Moving and Storage
National Van Lines
Green Wheels Van LinesGoogle any of these names and you will find nightmare stories–even video news stories.  I don’t know how these guys are allowed to continue operating.  Even when people pay and get their belongings, often there are missing or severely damaged items, or they receive someone elses things in with their own–or all of the above.