Business ProfileforCraig Van Lines Inc

This is a reposting of my review that was initially submitted on August 1, 2021, but never showed up on the BBB website. While I contacted the BBB several times via email about getting this review posted, it hasn't. The BBB tells me they do not censor their reviews but I can't seem to get them to post this review. Maybe this repost will make it to their website this time. My move with Craig Van Lines/Moving and Storage was a NIGHTMARE!! They advertise “specialist in delicate moving, experienced full-time employees, storage, and professional loading and unloading of the truck.” If this is what Craig Van Lines/Moving and Storage truly has, then those specialists/professionals DID NOT handle my move. Here was my experience with Craig Movers: • Their packers speak little to no English so communicating with them was quite difficult and required me to use my cell phone to translate my needs with respect to the move/packing of my household belongings. Additionally, I found out after the move that the packers put glass items (Swiss clock, glass candlestick holders, Chinese porcelain vases, etc.) in with marble sculptures. PROFESSIONAL PACKERS/MOVERS do not pack these kinds of items together. • Their “professional” loaders did NOT know what they were doing. Many of my boxes that were labeled “FRAGILE or VERY FRAGILE” and clearly marked as “china, glassware, stemware, pictures, etc.” were loaded on the truck at the bottom under many heavier boxes/items on top of them. Some of those boxes were placed on their side as opposed to standing upright as the arrow on the box indicated. My formal upholstered dining chairs and several other upholstered furniture pieces were not wrapped with plastic or even furniture pads as they should have been to make sure they were not soiled or damaged. When I saw the loaders doing this, I stopped them and asked them to take those pieces down and wrap them correctly. The loader basically cursed me out in Spanish and informed me it was not his first move and he knew what he was doing. Clearly, he did not know what he was doing because a professional mover would have wrapped the upholstered furniture in a furniture pad first and then wrapped it in plastic to keep furniture protected. Additionally, the lead on site could have cared less because he was not monitoring the loading of my furniture or household belongings and wasn’t making sure things were done correctly. Also, when I asked the loader to take down the upholstered furniture that was not wrapped and do it correctly before loading, the lead on site did not support this with his crew. This to me indicated that Craig moving does not have professional movers as they advertise or things would have been done correctly. While I was able to catch a couple of my upholstered items being incorrectly handled, there were many others that I did not catch and it turned out that several of my good dining room and living room furniture pieces ended up being damaged due to improper handling (dirty and tears in the fabrics). This would not have happened with PROFESSIONAL, KNOWGEABLE, AND EXPERIENCED MOVERS. • On moving day, one of the movers was in a hurry down some steps, slipped and pulled the railing right out of the wall. I reported it to the lead on site and was told their company’s insurance would take care of it. I had to inform the new owners of my home the next day about the railing but assured them the movers said it would be repaired and covered by the company’s insurance. Five days later, the new owners of my home were told it would not be covered by insurance. Craig Movers gave some cockamamie excuse about the railing being installed incorrectly even though no one came out to the property to inspect the damage. This railing had hung on the wall in my home for 28 years with kids running up and down those same stairs and NEVER had an issue…then you get a mover going down the stairs in a hurry and grabs the railing as he is losing his balance with all of his 185-190 lbs. of full weight – and the railing was pulled out of the wall. And Craig moving is responsible but refused to pay the repair. UNBELIEVABLE!! • When I spoke with the F*** Craig, owner, at the time he was doing a walkthrough for the estimate, I asked about having boxes delivered. His response was yes, no problem…we will bring out whatever you need. After hiring them, when I requested some boxes to pack some things myself, the person showed up about 5 hours later than I was told he would be there and then the guy called me “honey and sweetie” and he wanted to hug me. As he was leaving, he gave me his phone number to solicit work moving furniture at my new home. This whole thing made me quite uncomfortable and his behavior was incredibly unprofessional! • Before I decided to hire Craig, I contacted their office and asked about storage and if my belongings would be in a “climate controlled” environment. This factor was very important and went into my decision for the selection of my moving company. I was told by Delaney, a woman in their office, that “yes” storage is climate controlled. As it turned out, their warehouse was not climate-controlled. My things were stored in an old run-down, filthy, dirty warehouse out in VA that had no fire sprinklers that I could see. I asked one of the staff on site if this warehouse was climate-controlled, and he said NO. He told me there were 2 tractors in this warehouse. Now how clean could this place be?! I only found out about this warehouse not being climate controlled because I was so dissatisfied with the way the move was handled by Craig that I decided to hire another mover and come and get my belongings from Craig and have it moved to a more reputable and responsible professional moving company and into a warehouse that is “climate-controlled.”. On the day I was having my things moved by this other company, I called the Delaney, who told me the warehouse was climate-controlled and told her she misinformed me. She said it was climate-controlled and then indicated that she didn’t even know what climate-controlled meant. • After I found out that Craig moving refused to repair the railing that their worker damaged and after I was misinformed by the lead, Ethan, on site about an insurance coverage issue, I lost my confidence in this company. I tried to communicate with F*** Craig, the owner about all the issues I had by sending him an email listing those issues. I asked him to please contact me. After a couple days of no contact from him, I called and left him a voice message. He left a response voice message informing me “he was working 14-hour days and HAD A PERSONAL LIFE TOO.” I called him back and said that it was his choice as the owner to work that much and that it was no excuse for not calling back a customer. We exchanged a couple of text messages and I let him know I had lost my confidence in his company and that the move had not been completed as he said it would be when he was out giving me his sales speech and preparing the estimate. He didn’t seem to really care. I informed him I was hiring another mover from the area to come and remove my belongings from his warehouse/storage. Maybe this got his attention, because then F*** Craig contacted me via text and tried to make things right but by that point it was a little too late for me. I said that he should have tried to make things right from the first time I contacted him. I also informed him that Cindy Craig told me they were so busy that ALL their employees are now working out on jobs so I think their quality is in the dump because those that typically work in admin or warehouse don’t know what they are doing. They are NOT PROFESSIONAL MOVERS. • Lastly, when I was removing my belongings from their warehouse with the second moving company I hired, Craig had pulled out some other customer’s belongings and had them labeled as being mine. I told them the items were not mine and now they have a crate/vault labeled as no name customer. Given the bad experience I had with Craig Moving and their “non-professional” movers, it doesn’t surprise me they mislabeled items of another customer. I just hope the customer that owns those items get them back. Moving is stressful enough on its own but compound that with movers who don’t know what they are doing or don’t handle/pack your belongings correctly as they should be, it makes it that much more stressful. For me, while I thought I did my due diligence in researching this company, my decision to go with Craig Movers, was a bad decision. My move now will actually cost me twice as much as it should have. If you choose to use Craig Van Lines/Moving and Storage – Good Luck to you. You have been informed. I didn't want to give any stars but the BBB site requires me to give them at least 1 to get this posted.