We contracted with [redacted] for our move from the San Diego, CA are to the Toronto, Canada area Jim was our contact at *** [redacted] has a website that professes that they are the largest international moving service, and among other things says â â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/7.â Shortly after paying our â depositâ to ***, we got a call from Ken C, General Manager of AMS Transportation, Inc (AMS)., a company we had never heard of They said they would be handling our move Jim never mentioned AMS before we paid him, though it became clear that he was touting their bid from the very start We looked up AMS and became very concerned when we read some of the reviews Jim said they did â thousands of moves a yearâ , that [redacted] stood behind them, and that he would personally â keep a careful eye on them.â [redacted] Immediately after the goods were loaded and the Bill of Lading, clearly marked COD by the driver, was signed, we were asked by the driverâ s wife for an imprint of our credit card â for office purposes We donâ t know why they need it, itâ s just that they ask.â We complied â BIG MISTAKE We were them asked to sign the blank credit card form, which we refused to do They said that they were a small outfit and needed 20% up front We said that our deal was with [redacted] and they should contact Jim if they had any questions [redacted] About hours after the loading, we got a call from Tina of AMS She told us that the weight came in % higher than the estimate and she needed authorization to charge our credit card for the full move, up front We refused and said that was not our deal with ***Tina said that in her years in the industry, she had never seen a move that was not paid up front We told her that we had moved internationally several times, always COD, and that since the moving company had our goods and was not obliged to release them on delivery until paid, they were covered Jim was no support [redacted] He said he had â no authority to negotiate billingâ This from the guy whose company professes â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/7.â [redacted] In the next day and a half as we were driving to Canada, we received calls from Tina seeking our authorization to charge our card with the full amount of the move Finally, I sent an email clearly saying that we would NOT authorize it The calls stopped, but we later found out that AMS (Tina?) had processed a charge for the full amount against our credit card, without authorization [redacted] Because we did not believe the weight, we requested a reweigh They agreed saying we would need to pay for the reweigh, which we agreed to At the reweigh, sure enough, it turned out they overcharged us by some pounds Not a surprise Even at the reweigh, they tried more weight manipulation, with two people in the truck for the weigh-in, and only one on the weigh-out When the weight [redacted] came out, AMSâ s only response was that they would send it to their â accounting departmentâ for processing No apology [redacted] Weight bumpingâ is such an issue in moving that the GAO commissioned a report on it, and we furnished that report to Jim No response The report sets out the many ways moving companies fraudulently manipulate the weights Jim and [redacted] have all but disappeared at this stage, notwithstanding that wonderful assurance â â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/ [redacted] AMS agreed that we were owed a refund, but then said that while they could charge our credit card, they could not process and credit on it and would need to send us a check It would be amusing if not so time consuming and irritating We, to this date, have not received a refund and finally had to call our credit card company to dispute the charge The credit card company confirmed that AMS absolutely could process a credit on our card [redacted] We are senior citizens who have moved internationally several times These folks may be up to a local move, but long international moves do not seem to be in their league [redacted]
We contracted with [redacted] for our move from the San Diego, CA are to the Toronto, Canada area Jim was our contact at *** [redacted] has a website that professes that they are the largest international moving service, and among other things says â â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/7.â Shortly after paying our â depositâ to ***, we got a call from Ken C, General Manager of AMS Transportation, Inc (AMS)., a company we had never heard of They said they would be handling our move Jim never mentioned AMS before we paid him, though it became clear that he was touting their bid from the very start We looked up AMS and became very concerned when we read some of the reviews Jim said they did â thousands of moves a yearâ , that [redacted] stood behind them, and that he would personally â keep a careful eye on them.â [redacted] Immediately after the goods were loaded and the Bill of Lading, clearly marked COD by the driver, was signed, we were asked by the driverâ s wife for an imprint of our credit card â for office purposes We donâ t know why they need it, itâ s just that they ask.â We complied â BIG MISTAKE We were them asked to sign the blank credit card form, which we refused to do They said that they were a small outfit and needed 20% up front We said that our deal was with [redacted] and they should contact Jim if they had any questions [redacted] About hours after the loading, we got a call from Tina of AMS She told us that the weight came in % higher than the estimate and she needed authorization to charge our credit card for the full move, up front We refused and said that was not our deal with ***Tina said that in her years in the industry, she had never seen a move that was not paid up front We told her that we had moved internationally several times, always COD, and that since the moving company had our goods and was not obliged to release them on delivery until paid, they were covered Jim was no support [redacted] He said he had â no authority to negotiate billingâ This from the guy whose company professes â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/7.â [redacted] In the next day and a half as we were driving to Canada, we received calls from Tina seeking our authorization to charge our card with the full amount of the move Finally, I sent an email clearly saying that we would NOT authorize it The calls stopped, but we later found out that AMS (Tina?) had processed a charge for the full amount against our credit card, without authorization [redacted] Because we did not believe the weight, we requested a reweigh They agreed saying we would need to pay for the reweigh, which we agreed to At the reweigh, sure enough, it turned out they overcharged us by some pounds Not a surprise Even at the reweigh, they tried more weight manipulation, with two people in the truck for the weigh-in, and only one on the weigh-out When the weight [redacted] came out, AMSâ s only response was that they would send it to their â accounting departmentâ for processing No apology [redacted] Weight bumpingâ is such an issue in moving that the GAO commissioned a report on it, and we furnished that report to Jim No response The report sets out the many ways moving companies fraudulently manipulate the weights Jim and [redacted] have all but disappeared at this stage, notwithstanding that wonderful assurance â â We offer single-source contact throughout your move, personally attending to all your needsYour personal move coordinator will be with you at every step along the way, 24/ [redacted] AMS agreed that we were owed a refund, but then said that while they could charge our credit card, they could not process and credit on it and would need to send us a check It would be amusing if not so time consuming and irritating We, to this date, have not received a refund and finally had to call our credit card company to dispute the charge The credit card company confirmed that AMS absolutely could process a credit on our card [redacted] We are senior citizens who have moved internationally several times These folks may be up to a local move, but long international moves do not seem to be in their league [redacted]