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Michael MacBride (mayflower complaint) |
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Table of Contents |
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1. Overview In short, what will follow is a very detailed complaint about my recent experience with Mayflower, Select Van Lines, and Unigroup, Inc. These are in fact all the same company. In either case, the customer service we received was horrible; the follow-up to our many, many calls abysmal; and resolution of any problems was far from satisfactory. If you read nothing else, before you consider this (or any part of this) company to help you with your move be sure to do four things:
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2. Guilty Parties
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My wife and I moved from Kansas City, Missouri to Saint Peter, Minnesota in July of 2005. Before we did this, we shopped around for moving companies. Two years ago, we had moved from Toledo, Ohio to Kansas City, Missouri and had used United Van Lines--so they were first on our list of companies that we would like to work with again. While the previous move had not been flawless, the people we worked with there had been very helpful and provided great customer service. I interviewed the following companies, and got quotes from each of them:
After interviewing all three, Steven Strube (from Mayflower) was by far my favorite. He was very personable, seemed to know what he was talking about, and had even brought his son along for the ride (bring your child to work day, or so he said). My wife and I discussed it, and ultimately we decided that the good follow-up and friendly customer service was worth paying an extra $300.00. Just to give you an idea of a timeline, this was in April of 2005. During the next week, we learned that Steven Strube had made a mistake in his math. The quote actually wasn't $2,562.85, but in fact it was: $2,652.28 (making it now $400.00 more expensive to go with his company). In his email to me, addressing this error, he wrote: "Also, I may have had a dislecsic? moment, I adjusted things and it comes to $ 2,652.28 (see the similarity)". At this point, we were still happy enough to deal with Steven Strube--even despite this error. Everyone makes mistakes, right? Well, he also neglected to include the estimated weight of the items, until we asked him. I guess we should have taken these two "mistakes" as a sign to go with someone else. But, he was quick to respond to any questions, apologized for his mistakes, and made up for it with things like free tape, boxes, and paper to wrap things in. As the day grew near, we were excited about the move and wanted to know when things would arrive; so my wife called Mr. Strube to verify the dates that they would deliver. She was given a range of dates 7/27/05 through 8/02/05, and then told that she could pick one date from that range. She thought it was a little strange that she would given a range of dates and then told to select one of them, but did as she was asked and selected 07/27/05. Mr. Strube confirmed this date with her, and said they would pick-up the belongings on 7/25/05, and deliver them on 7/27/05. In the initial interview, Mr. Strube verified that I could be present for the weigh-in of the truck, before and after the loading of our items (so that we could verify the actual weight of our items). This was something that our movers in Toledo suggested to me, and I think is a good practice. It wasn't something Mr. Strube offered, or any of the other moving companies that I interviewed, but when I asked, he said, "Sure. No problem!" However, on 7/27/05, when I came to witness the weigh-in of the empty truck, he stated that often trucks are weighed at weigh stations, and that I could receive a copy of the weigh-in ticket (but they didn't have it on hand, so they would send it to me). Since the truck didn't weigh-in at the office, it meant they were on the way to our apartment. So, I rushed home to meet the movers. A few moments later, the truck arrived. The first thing I discovered was, unlike our previous move, the person who was loading the truck in Kansas City, Missouri was not the same person that would be delivering our belongings to Saint Peter, Minnesota. I thought it was a little strange, but after dealing with the man (unfortunately I can't remember his name) for a few moments I was glad that he would not be the person that would deliver our goods. In short, he was an ass. He was far from friendly, grunted, was difficult to understand, and had none of the courtesy that any of the other people from Mayflower had displayed to this point. For the most part, I sat in one room and read while they moved everything and it went without incident. July 26th, 2005, we had the carpets cleaned in the new house, and were all ready for the movers. Mayflower had provided us with a toll-free number to call to check the status of our move, and so we called it and found that it would be arriving Wednesday July the 27th, in the morning. Excellent, everything was going according to plan. July 27th, 2005, we made arrangements to be home, and when we hadn’t heard anything by 10am, we called again to inquire. This time we were told that our belongings in fact had not left Kansas City yet, and would not arrive in St. Peter until either August 1st, or 2nd. The dispatcher apologized for his error and said that there was something moving to another “Saint something” city in Minnesota. When I asked, "Which Saint something?" He said, "I don't know, I guess there are a lot of them up there." But, it certainly wasn't our belongings which were going to Saint Peter, Minnesota. Obviously concerned, and boggled by the conflicting information, we called Mr. Strube. He told us that our things would arrive tomorrow (Thursday, July the 28th), and he wasn't sure what the dispatcher was talking about. We asked Mr. Strube to verify this information, and he said it would be there. We called the dispatcher, to double check, and now he said that it would be there tomorrow. We asked “Are you sure?” He said “I’ll have to double-check to confirm. The dispatcher called back, he apologized stating that our order kept getting confused with this other order going to “Saint something” in Minnesota, and he said he was working on getting it for Friday (the 29th) or Saturday (the 30th) but that he couldn’t do anything sooner. We called Mr. Strube, and he apologized again. He said that the soonest they could deliver would be August 1st or August 2nd. When we mentioned what the dispatcher had said about the 29th or the 30th, he was unaware of any option for that weekend. As you can imagine, we were very frustrated. To add to the amusement, Mr. Strube also lost the “Credit Card Authorization Form” that I filled out, with our information and my Discover card. He stated that he “remembered something about a Discover card, because they aren’t used very often, but couldn’t find the form anywhere.” And so on Wednesday, July 27th, we had to find a fax machine where Mr. Strube could fax the form to us in Minnesota, and then that we could fax back the credit card information to him. Granted, the cost to use the Office Max’s fax machine was only $2.00; but I feel extremely uncomfortable knowing that my credit card information was “misplaced” or “lost” or whatever. Additionally, it was one more inconvenience that we had to deal with while trying to figure out where or when our belongings would arrive. Somewhere in there, we received a call from a female (I apologize, I didn’t get her name) and she said that she was very sorry, but that the soonest they could deliver the items would be August 1st, or August 2nd. When we mentioned what the dispatcher had told us about the 29th, or the 30th, she said that the owner would have to call us back to confirm. Finally, we did receive a call from Mr. Cooper (at approximately 5:30PM Wednesday, July the 27th). He stated that he would be driving the truck himself, and that he would be at our doorstep by 9:00AM Saturday, July the 30th. Which, while it was nice... it was still 3 days later than we were promised. All said and done, we made (and received) 15 calls to (and from) Mayflower and Mr. Strube on July 27th 2005. Good to his word, Mr. Cooper showed up at 8:35AM Saturday, July the 30th. He brought his wife (Quimby Cooper), and two helpers. They unloaded the goods in quick fashion, and were done by about 11:30AM. We have zero complaints about the unloading of the items; both helpers were efficient, friendly, and very helpful. In the process of checking off items, we found several of our boxes were missing their tags and so we had to do a lot of guess work in attempting to figure out which box was assigned to which number. But, for the most part we got through the checklist (and the illegible writing of the aforementioned driver in Kansas City). HOWEVER, they had left one of our high
dollar items back in Kansas City. These
were the leaves to our antique dining room table, which is a family
heirloom. They apologized,
and Mrs. Cooper stated that she would overnight DHL our leaves to the
table to us tomorrow when they got back to the office.
My wife said, “Oh, you have to work Sunday?”
Mrs. Cooper said, “Yes, because we had to make this trip we
have to get caught up with all the things we would have normally done
Saturday.” Knowing that DHL didn’t make deliveries on Sundays, the package should have left Kansas City, Missouri on Monday. If it was going to be over-nighted, as Mrs. Cooper stated, we should have had it by Tuesday. When we did not receive the table leaves on Tuesday, I called the Kansas City office and spoke with Mrs. Cooper. I inquired about the shipment, and she said, “No, I haven’t shipped them yet, I just got back into the office today because I got sick on the way home from Minnesota. I will have them to you before the end of the week.” I asked her if she had my phone number. She said she did. I asked if there was any way I could confirm that in fact the table leaves would be shipped as she was now stating. She stated that she would contact me with the confirmation number as soon as she had it. I expressed my displeasure with waiting, and advised her of my home phone number to contact me at instead of using my cell phone. At 2:16PM, Wednesday, August 3rd, I received a call from Cathy in the claims department; she stated that she had spoken with Mr. Cooper about the table leaves and that he said, “He knew they were in the warehouse, but couldn’t find them.” We explained to Cathy what we had been promised, and again expressed our concern and displeasure. She said that they were doing their best to find the leaves, to ship them to us, and if I “didn’t hear back in a week, to call [her] again and [she] would press them”. I explained that a week wasn’t acceptable, that I had been promised overnight delivery. She said she would do her best to make it happen as soon as possible. No one from the office contacted us regarding our item, so on August 5th we called the office. At that time we were informed that the leaves to the table were not likely in the warehouse, but rather on a truck. The next day, Kansas City staff (someone named T.C. and the owner Tom Cooper) explained that they did not think it was in the truck but instead was in the warehouse. They indicated that they had been previously too busy to address our concerns and would now begin to look in their warehouse. Our next communication with the Kansas City office was on August 15th, when we called to inquire again about the table leaves. At that time Mrs. Cooper was very short and stated that the matter had been turned over to claims, because they no longer believed the table leaves were in the warehouse but were instead perhaps they were on a truck. In
addition to the lost table leaves, many of our items were damaged.
With the exception of one item, we shipped these same items with
Corrigan when we moved from Toledo, Ohio to Kansas City, Missouri.
With Corrigan, not a single item was damaged.
All items arrived in one piece, and as they had left.
The distance between Toledo and Kansas City is approximately 750
miles. The distance between
Kansas City, Missouri and St. Peter, Minnesota is approximately 430
miles, and yet 12 items were either lost or seriously damaged.
Seven of the eleven items that were damaged were furniture that was
wrapped and packaged by the Mayflower team themselves.
The four other items were: a glass candy jar, a cookie jar, an
ornament, and a coffee mug; and we wrapped them. But given the rough treatment that our other items received,
I’m not convinced that it was our packing job that resulted in the
breakage of these four items. Among these damaged items is one antique jewelry box that is broken very badly and will either require replacement or a complete reconstruction of the item. And while it wasn’t necessarily the most expensive item that we shipped, it had a considerable amount of sentimental value attached to it. Beyond the simple fact that this item was damaged, it appeared as though someone attempted to disguise the fact that it had been obviously dropped, by placing the broken pieces into one of the drawers of the jewelry box. Because we carefully watched the unloading process of the items, we are nearly 100% certain that these items did not sustain their damage when they were moved into our house; but instead sustained their damage either in the loading process, the storage in the warehouse at the Mayflower facility, when they were reloaded into the truck (most likely hastily to allow Mr. Cooper to get them to us by Saturday the 30th), or in transit. It surprises me that given that this move was over 300 miles shorter than our previous move, that so many items were damaged. I can only assume that the damages were as a result of the staff at the Kansas City facility, the number of times the items were handled (removing from, and putting back onto trucks), or the conditions in the warehouse.
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4. What happened after the move (the letter) As you can imagine, we wrote the company. We drafted a letter, which includes all of the information from this webpage, and sent it to Mr. Patrick Larch. It was sent on August 15th, 2005. Given their incompetence, we paid extra to ship it with tracking. If you visit the USPS website, and enter the tracking number: 03043490000241361987, you can clearly see it arrived on August 18th, 2005. I gave it a few days, and then called. Not surprisingly, they hadn't received it. In fact, no one knew anything about it. I spoke with a Betty and she said that she would indeed look into it and get back with me. Several days passed (I believe 5), and I hadn't heard anything. So, I called again and asked for Betty. No indeed, she hadn't found it, but they were still looking for it! She hadn't called because, well, she hadn't found it yet. Nice. "Is there anyway that I can email it to you? Since I don't feel like waiting for it to get to you in the mail again, nor paying the postage, nor having it be "lost" again. No, absolutely not. "I don't really feel like paying $8.00 to fax it to you, but if that will get it to you quicker, can I do that?" Yes, most certainly. I faxed it and received no response, but then again it was now 5 PM and I'm guessing everyone went home. The next day, I call and find out that they didn't receive the fax. "Strange, because I have a confirmation sheet that says all 12 pages went through." Well, I don't know what happened, can you fax it again? "No. Give me an email address to send it to. I am not driving out to Office Max, and spending money to fax this letter to you--which I have now sent twice. Once by fax, and once by mail." Okay, my email address is: betty_hight@unigroupinc.com. I sent the letter, along with the several page long email correspondence with Steven Strube (which you can read here, if you'd like). Finally, a response! This is the voicemail that I received from Betty Hight (from Tuesday, August 30th, 2005). I won't bore you with every single time I called them, but suffice it to say that over 15 calls were made to Mayflower's headquarters (which I came to find out was called Unigroup, Inc.); all with dissatisfaction. One time it would be, "Oh Betty didn't know how to forward this letter to 'special response team'..." and the next time it would be "It is most definitely in the president's office, you will be getting a response within the next day or so." but, nothing actually happened until September 27th, 2005. I called, as I did regularly to check on the status, and was told (for about the third or fourth time) that, "The response was on its way" and that "Unfortunately we can't discuss the outcome of the letter until you receive it"... despite now having waited over a month for a response to our letter. But, on September 30, 2005 (the envelope was postmarked September 28th, 2005), we did in fact receive it. Here is page1 and page2. Included with the letter, finally we also received a copy of our weigh-in ticket which confirmed the weight of our belongings (which we requested back on July 25th, 2005), and a few other goodies. But, of course, no retribution for the inconvenience. Today is December 20th, 2005, and as of today, here is the update:
One of the items on our claim form was a dresser.
When you fill out such a form, they ask you to "estimate" the
cost to replace or repair the item. Not knowing much about the
process, we put down $50 for one item. When we finally had a
"claims investigator" come to our house, they estimated that
it would cost $65 to repair it. So, what do you think we got on
the insurance check? The $50 we guessed, or the $65 that the
investigator (hired by Mayflower/Select/Unigroup, Inc./whatever)
suggested? Yup, the $50 we guessed. So, the moral is... when
you fill out such a form, guess an outrageous amount. Because, I'm
guessing they'll pay out the lesser of the two.
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As we review our moving experience with this company, we are thoroughly disgusted and frustrated. We selected Mayflower because they are a big company, and because of the customer service we received initially. In fact, we were so happy with the customer service that we received, that we referred another family (that was moving to the same area) to Mr. Strube. We have since shared with them our experiences and have advised them to request all promises made by Mr. Strube, and the Mayflower Company, to be in writing in hopes to avoid similar problems. Fortunately, we were able to warn them in time before it was too late, and they went with another company--which, by the way, they had no problems with. It seems as soon as we signed our “Bound Estimate” things went downhill. It is unclear if the Kansas City staff purposely misleads customers or is highly disorganized and unable to take care of problems in an efficient manner. We spent multiple hours on the phone sorting out these various problems which have not all been resolved to our satisfaction. Ultimately we paid more for very poor service and regret our decision to have Mayflower move our belongings. To say that we are unhappy and disappointed would be a drastic understatement. At this time we think that the Mayflower Company should provide some type of compensation/reimbursement. It seems outrageous to pay such a high price, for such poor service and follow-through. We still haven't seen the table leaves, nor have we received any kind of apology from the company or anything above and beyond the bare minimum required by them from the contract we signed. I am still in the process of getting their Better Business Bureau endorsement removed, but that in and of itself is another story.
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6. Where you can send hate mail (if you wish)
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