My experience with Princeline Logistics:
I submitted our info to several moving companies and Priceline was among the first to respond. I dealt with Brian Davis who is “very good at his job†or so he told me on repeated occasion. That statement could be both true or false depending on how you look at it. If by that he meant that he was good at baiting future customers into a deal by giving absurdly low quotes, then yes I would agree he is very adept. Brian was someone who gave me his personal cell (or so I was told) and answered almost every single time I called prior to my giving Priceline money. To contrast that, the day of our move I called him maybe 5 times, and have called him several times since with no answer or return phonecall. That was 2 weeks ago (as of 6/12/2021)
When I spoke with Brian on the phone the goal was to estimate the amount of inventory we had. I went around the entire house and told him every piece of furniture or larger items I could see. We made a large comprehensive list, even measuring the dimensions of many of the items. He next asked me how many boxes I thought we were going to use which, in retrospect, is an absurd question to ask someone who hasn’t started packing. Since I had no idea he offered to stay on the phone with me while I went and told him every single thing we had that could potentially go in a box, which I am confident he knew that I would not want to do because that’s just silly. So I asked him to give me an average of what a 2,700 square foot house might look like in boxes. He was the expert and I assumed he would know the average, which he did. He told me 50 boxes was the average for that house size. Having never moved a house that size before I naively trusted him and he went on to give us our quote which sounded great! Additionally as part of the offer Priceline Logistics would store our inventory in a temperature controlled storage unit until we had a home to move into. The first month would be free and after that it would be based on the amount of inventory we had. Based on our estimated inventory we were looking at about $250 per month after that. And they would move it in and stage/assemble everything at no extra cost. I was thrilled at the prospect to have all of this taken care of so we didn’t have to stress about it! Brian informed me that 2 days prior to our move we would get a phone call to confirm any changes to our inventory list and receive an updated quote. I told Brian that our move needed to be the 29th of May and he assured me that even though they were required to give a 2 day window, that he would put in the account that it needed to be the 29th.
During the next month or so we made a concerted effort to sell as many of our large bulkier items and furniture that we could in order to try to save some money when we moved. We were told if we had less items (or cubic square feet) we would save money. We sold an enormous semi circle couch, our entire king-sized bedroom set, a medium sized 2 person couch, 2 entertainment centers, 1 60 inch tv, my wife’s exercise bike, my giant 10 foot long office desk, a huge 13 foot rug, and our upright piano. Safe to say that’s a lot of stuff! However, we ended up with WAY over 50 boxes. I went back to check the estimate and the total cubic feet that he gave us for boxes was 150! I didn’t check that before which was my mistake. To put 150 cubic feet into perspective that would be less overall space than a stack of boxes that was 6 feet long, 6 feet deep, and 6 feet tall. And we were supposed to fit 2,700 square feet of house into that amount of boxes. The fact that I was given that as an average is beyond absurd and a complete lie. Unless almost every room in our house was empty, we would NEVER fit in that many boxes. We had closer to around 700 cubic feet of boxes though it was hard to fully determine since they were all different shapes and sizes. And we packed them very well.
Fast forward to 2 days before our move when we got the phone call to verify our updated inventory. This phonecall was with someone new named Mitch Jean (Senior Relocation Specialist). So we start going down the list and I’m excited because, again, we sold a bunch of stuff. Turns out a few of the larger items we sold weren’t even on the list! And somehow the refrigerator and our washer and dryer weren’t on the list! At the end of the phone call, and after adding my additional estimate of the amount of boxes we had, our quote was now over double what we were promised. Somehow despite all the things we sold, it was still WAY more. I cannot even imagine if we hadn’t sold anything how much it would have been! At this point we had no options because the people buying our house were coming in 3 days. I was encouraged to pay for the whole 1,800 cubic foot truck up front and if there was any spare room on it that I would be prorated that amount back. I was told that it was cheaper to do it that way and it would be way more expensive if they end up taking up more space. So I paid for the whole truck. At this point I was told that they were scheduled to arrive on the 28th, even though Brian had promised me the 29th and had made a note of the fact. Mitch had no record of the note and would not promise the 29th.
Allow me to take a moment to tell you things that I did NOT know about Priceline Logistics at this point in the story. I did not know that Priceline Logistics does not actually move anything. They just coordinate their contracted/local movers to do it for them. I also did not know that I was going to be required to have thousands of dollars in cash to pay said moving company the day of the move. I also did not know that said moving company were the ones who would be storing our stuff, and that all they did was rent out a publicly available unit.
The night before our move I got a text message from the moving company (who I didn’t know wasn’t Priceline): “Hello Stephen that’s Mat from the moving company, i texting to ask you if you will be ready tomorrow at 9 am to start moving ur stuff?†(this guy’s name is not Mat after all it’s Ahmed). Lots of things going through my head at this point… Is this person a professional? Is this person affiliated with Priceline? I figure it was just the personal cell of the guy driving the truck. They were supposed to come the 29th but this person said they were coming the morning of the 28th. The window that Mitch Jean promised us was between 10-12. The person texting me asked if they could come at 9am. The next morning I received several texts saying that they were having a hard time getting workers so they would be late. They didn’t end up showing up until much later and showed up without workers. It was just one guy Ahmed and a truck with his company logo literally TAPED to the side of the truck! This was the first time I found out that Priceline Logistics is not a moving company, they are a coordinating company. All they do is contact local movers to come pick up your inventory. The moving company was named Triumphant Moving company. I was never told anything about triumphant prior to this.
Before the rest of the workers showed up we went around the house to look at the inventory and Ahmed made it pretty clear our stuff wouldn’t fit on the truck. After about an hour his “workers†arrived. These workers were literally just random dudes from off the street. There was absolutely nothing professional about them at all. I did not expect after paying all this for a professional moving company move our stuff that the result would be a local guy who rents his own Penske truck and hires guys from off the street. I could have literally done that myself. I could have rounded up about 5 guys from my church, rented my own Penske Truck, and loaded it myself and saved THOUSANDS of dollars. It was beyond maddening.
Towards the end of them loading our stuff I was told I needed to pay Ahmed over 2 thousand dollars in cast right there. This was the first that I had heard of this. No one at priceline told me that the moving company would come and demand cash! So I had to run to the bank and luckily the cashier suggested I get a cashiers check which I did. I could tell the workers were not happy because I think Ahmed was going to use that cash to pay them that day.
This entire time I am trying to call priceline to communicate my frustration at the turn of events and NO ONE will answer the phone. (To this day Brian Davis still hasn’t returned my phone calls).
After loading the truck very poorly, and not optimizing the space efficiently, we were told that our stuff would not all fit and that they would need a second truck which was going to be an extra cost! After a couple hours of waiting they couldn’t find another truck (because they rent them just like any regular person) they took our stuff to the storage unit and said they would find a second truck in the morning. Because our beds were on the truck we had to find a hotel last minute to sleep in for the night. The next morning they couldn’t find a truck and after hours and hours of waiting Ahmed decided to unload all our stuff into storage and bring the same truck back. And since he uses temp workers he had to unload it all himself. (This is a professional moving company). Ahmed and one other worker didn’t show up until after noon and because we had to drive for about 10 hours that day we had to help them load so it would go faster. I paid them so that I could help them load! Finally we closed the doors and were able to drive off. Because of having to load a second truckload we ended up paying almost triple what our original bid was! There is no way that a professional moving company like Priceline Logistics could be that off in their original estimate. I can understand slightly off but triple? That is a scam. They bait you in with a low estimate and promise you the world and then disappear and leave you with a moving company who charges you whatever they want. It’s a trap and a scam.
In the week after this event after we arrived to our new destination I made constant and continuous efforts to get in touch with SOMEONE at Priceline. It became pretty clear that now that they had my money they were going to ignore my phone calls. I finally got someone named Maria to answer the phone and she eventually assured me that she would try to talk to her manager about getting me a discount for the trouble. My wife decided she wanted us to look into getting our own storage unit here so that we could have access to our stuff. I started doing research on storage units here and comparing them to what Ahmed was charging me to store my stuff. I was told our stuff would be put in temperature controlled storage but Ahmed informed me that it was not. Ahmed was going to charge us $500 per month to store our stuff! I found a storage unit that EASILY fit our stuff here for $140! I guarantee that Ahmed was just renting a storage unit just like any regular person would. He was just going to charge me way more so he could make a cut.
We finally found a unit here and had them deliver our stuff. I was told by Ahmed that I need to make a payment before they would bring our stuff even though I had already paid them when they picked it up. I was informed that our stuff would come in 2 truckloads which made sense at that point. The first truckload came and only 1/3 of our stuff was on it, the rest of the truck was full of someone else’s stuff! That driver came and had no workers with him. Just him! We had to help him unload and take all of the blankets and tape off of all the furniture! And then, just like before I was told I needed to fork out thousands of dollars in cash with no warning, even though I already paid Ahmed before they would send the truck. So I had to go to the bank to get another cashier’s check.
The second truck showed was supposed to show up a few days later. The new driver texted me before they left and it took them like 3 days to get here. The day they were supposed to show up they were so late that there wasn’t enough time to unload before the gates closed for the night so we had to wait until the next morning. Next morning the penske rental truck showed up this time with 2 people. According to them only one of them was supposed to unload because the other was the “driverâ€. So we had to help unload that truck also. But before they would unload they wanted even more cash. After another trip to the bank I gave them another cashier’s check for thousands of dollars just so that I could help unload the truck myself. They finished and left and that was it.
I’ve been trying to call Maria, who is the only person at Priceline Logistics to answer my phone after the day before our move, but now she is ignoring my calls. I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT use Priceline Logistics! Tell all of your friends and family and anyone you can who you know is considering hiring a moving company to steer clear! The entire operation is a huge bait and switch and will cost you thousands of dollars. It’s a scam plain and simple. If I felt confident that I were able to pursue legal action I would.
Stay away!
1/5
November 11, 2021 12:29 pm