H.A. Latham Moving & Storage

Review: I contacted this moving company following my mother’s death in an effort to move my father to the west coast to be with me. The person I spoke with was very helpful and told me that it would cost$10K or more to have his 3 room Assisted Living apt. moved. She suggested I contact a Pod moving service, in which case they could pack the pod for us at a much more reasonable rate. I did as she suggested and it seemed to be a more reasonable option. I also had very little time to research other options as I was trying to bury my Mom and take care of my Dad. The move was arranged, the owner came to assess the apt. I pointed out several special pieces that I asked to be cared for as they were valuable and had been special family heirlooms. One of these items was a 4 foot diameter 1 ½” think Slate table that my parents have had for over 50 yrs. They had moved it several times and had it crated to protect it. It was in prestine condition. I shared this with the owner. My contact at the company had asked for me to provide rope to secure the load which I bought and pointed out to the owner on his visit. We had discussed moving blankets, but honestly I don’t recall the outcome, however there was a dresser filled with blankets. This dresser had been emptied of everything else except the blankets. I hired a staff person from the assisted living to be present to answer any questions about negotiating the facility. I was clear that his role was not as a mover but to help the movers. When the Pod arrived on in [redacted] there was a piece of wire shelving that had been force through the bottom of the door and was sticking out. It took a pry bar and 2 people to open the door because the entire load had shifted and was leaning against the door. There had been no attempt to secure this load with the rope I had left. I have to say I’m quite surprised that there were mostly only minor scratches and other than the wire rack nothing was broken. The one exception, was the slate table. There had been no padding wrapped around it, and it looked as if they had just rolled it in on its side. Another of the wire shelves had fallen against the table and the round hole (that would accept a leg) had ground a ~ ½ “ circle into the table. There were other deep scratches and large chips from the edges. It made me sick to my stomach to have to tell my Dad about this. I contacted the woman I had arranged this move with. She immediately started to blame me for not having been there to supervise, not giving them the rope to secure the load, and not leaving blankets. She then blaming the staff person I had hired to help her movers with managing the facility. It wasn’t until the second or third call and her viewing of the pictures (which included one of the packed rope in the bottom of a box) that she finally admonished her crew for shoddy work. I asked how we would handle this and she said they would contact their insurance company. I received a quote to replace the table and it was roughly $2K. I emailed this and her response was that there is no way the insurance company would pay to replace this table. Since then, I have emailed multiple times to find out the status of this claim and have received no response. It has now been over 1 month since this conversation started. This company seemed to have a good reputation, they actually packed things well, but I don’t think I could recommend them due to the very poor effort to settle this matter. The initial response to my complaint was defensiveness and shifting blame. That was when there was a response. I’m not sure how to proceed at this point. Honestly, my energies have been focused on getting my Dad settled and starting his new life. If there is no resolution through Revdex.com, I think my energies with this moving matter may best be spent on Social Media sights telling my story.Desired Settlement: Refund of Moving Costs. $833.25

Business

Response:

We apologize for this happening. We had decided after careful consideration and several conversations with the client, to honor the request. On 6-24-15, Mr. Rowe was informed that we sent the check for a full refund as he requested. Again many apologies to all involved. HA Latham Moving and Storage

Review: Hired for move. Date was May 5, 2014. Workers arguing with each other. Eating on job. Broke 2 antique dressers. (The legs) Broke glass top on table (tempered glass). Dressers were returned and fixed. Can still see the seam (crack)in one of the dresser legs. But it is fixed. Glass for table top was never picked up at [redacted] glass, has been ready for two weeks. Charged for cleaning up the glass in the street (1hr) with my brooms and shovel..Today is June 9,2014. They have not contacted me in 3 weeks. The girl [redacted] that answers the phone is rude and disrespectful and should not be in customer service.Desired Settlement: Would like to get my glass for my table back from [redacted] and be finished with them. Balance I owe would = $0. Reason: the way they handled the situation, inconvience and time that has lapsed since date of move.

Business

Response:

To whom it may concern,

We held off on instantly responding to this complaint with the hopes of delivering the glass mentioned in the complaint and settling with this customer. Before and after we received this complaint on 6-10, we have contacted this client 3 times and emailed her and she has chosen not to respond thus far. We called [redacted] on 6-9, 6-11, and 6-12 and left messages, and emailed her as well, today.

Things mentioned within this complaint are untrue. The client is requesting a free move. Within our multiple messages, we have informed this client we can not offer this.

The client mentions two dressers with broken legs. The broken legs in question were not damaged by us in the first place. The clients son was present on the day of the move and informed the owner of our company, the men moving the client, and his own mother, that he was 100% sure that the legs were broken by [redacted]'s last moving company. When our men leaned the dressers to get them through doorways etc, the less then adequate repair her last movers did on the legs did not hold up and they rebroke in the same spot they were already broken in. Never the less, we took the dressers off property, repaired them and touched them up, and returned them within 3-4 days on the move. We felt that given the curcumstances, we could help this client by repairing something for her, that technically we are not responsible for. We of course did not charge the client and the repair we provided made the legs much more sturdy.

As mentioned by the client, there was a piece of glass that broke when one of our movers was carrying. It was not intentional and we do very much apologize for this. The owner of our company went to the job site when this happened and talk with the men and client, and informed the client we would take care of it. The owner of our company, [redacted], personally took the glass measurements etc and went to [redacted] and ordered the glass the day after the move. [redacted] informed us the glass was special order and would take some time to get. We then informed the client. For some reason, the glass took longer then planned. We called [redacted] to check if it was ready 3-4 times in a 2-3 week period and the glass was not ready. We informed the client. We mentioned the glass company name to the client and she proceeded to cal [redacted] and verified herself several times that the glass was indeed not ready as we had stated. On 6-7, after we closed, we received a message from [redacted], the glass was ready. 6-9 we called [redacted] and made arrangements to pickup the glass and called the client just after that, no response. We stated in our message to client that we were available asap to deliver but [redacted] would need to pay us in exchange.

All of our staff has apologized to this client and we are very sorry for any inconvenience. Both owners here at HA Latham have spoken with this client and [redacted] has been to her house/s several times to make sure things were taken care of for her. It is certainly not as though we have not kept the client informed and empathized etc, we have done everything we can, as timely as we can, and are into this project already for our labor, the cost of dresser repairs we truly did not break to begin with, and now a $200+ piece of glass. The cost of the move is $491.00. We will settle for $350 cash only. For the record, we are losing $100, not that this is the clients fault but it certainly explains our refusal to offer a free move. We provided a service, all though not up to our usual standards, we still feel it is reasonable to ask to be paid, as we have taken care of everything (and some).

Pending an agreement from [redacted], for $350 cash only, we would like to deliver the glass and put this behind us.

Again we truly do apologize but we have no control over the length of time it took to get the glass. We repaired some other movers damage with no questions asked, and we of course reprimanded our men for there behavior on the job. All along, we have been responsive, cooperative and as timely as possible. We are currently still waiting to hear from this client, she is not responding to us at this point.

Consumer

Response:

Review: [redacted]

I am rejecting this response because: I find the responsse to be incorrect. First of all the only time [redacted] came to the house was the day of the move when the glass was broken. He has not been to the new house at all or checked in with me about anything. Secondly the glass broke on May 5th. I called aroound and found that the glass was ordered form [redacted] glass company in [redacted]. I spoke with [redacted] who told me the glass was ordered on May 7th which was two days after the move. He also told me he has been trying to reach the company reguarding the glass and that it has been sitting there for two weeks and no one has gotten back to him. I offered to pay for the glass and have it delivered. He told me that he needed to contact the moving company and tell them about my call. At this point the moving company has tried to contact me, but not until this point.

I stopped watched the move from an [redacted]. Took a picture of it and saved it. The move was clocked at 3 hours 26 minutes at which 45 minutes of that at least was spent cleaning up the glass ( with a broom and shovel that I had to provide) and waiting for [redacted] to come down to assess the situation. At that time he measured the table and said it was going to be ordered immediately ( Immediateley is not 2 days later). I have never heard from [redacted] again. The guy who broke the table was cursing and swearing at me, using inappropriate language.

I will deal with getting the glass for my table myself. (I don't even know if the glass will fit, It was measured by the moving company. [redacted] told me I can order the glass from them and someone will come out and measure and deliver it when ready. The cost of the glass is $191.26 per quote from [redacted]. (and that is bil for the glass ordered by the moving company not $250). I am done dealing with H.A. Latham movers and their issues.

Review: We engaged this company to move two pieces of furniture at our home. The young workers arrived early from an earlier job, overheated (it was a hot and humid day, and their truck was faulty -- sending engine heat into the cab), exhausted, and eager to end their day quickly. We gave them water and sympathy. They ignored our offer to use a longer but easier route from the storeroom to the garage, stating that a shorter route up concrete steps (with a low overhead) would be quicker. We warned them that the armoire was made of soft wood (pine). They proceeded to dent and scratch the handmade, hand-carved, one-of-a kind piece that was valued at several thousand dollars. The company's [redacted] and one of the owners said that they chose to believe the lead worker's claim that the damage was already on the piece. We explained that the scraped were clearly fresh (patches of raw wood). One of the workers was clearly embarrassed, but could not speak against the lead. We had paid for three workers, but only two did the moving. We asked about their insurance, but they said it would cost too much to even send out someone to assess the damage. The [redacted] and owner said that they could not afford to send out repair people, and then they hung up on us. We hired "[redacted]" repair person who charged us a low rate as a courtesy for a prior relationship. We paid $127.62 for the filling and refinishing by our repair person. The repair is excellent, although the armoire could not be totally returned to its prior state without a total refinishing that would have erased hand-painted details. Our repair person said that the moving company had hired him to make many repairs for them in the past, but was no longer using him. We feel it is clear that they are using substandard crew, equipment, and policies to the customer's deficit. We tried to reach them again by phone, but our calls were not returned.Desired Settlement: We would like to be reimbursed for the very reasonable repair. We paid for the moving by credit card. They gave us no receipt on the job because -- just walked away. We refused to sign a waiver.

Business

Response:

This piece of furniture we are talking about sat in a basement which the customer admitted was dark and damp. The customer admitted to not having throughly looked over the item prior to our moving it, which in turn means they can not be sure if the damage was pre-existed or not. In the men's opinion and ours, the integrity and condition of the item was severly compromised due to damp conditions it was subject to. Given these details, we can not exactly be sure if we can be blamed here entirely. Regardless of whether we did it or not, we offered this customer 60 cents per lb, as all movers carry this insurance and this was simply not good enough for this customer. They refused to accept the fact that this is all our insurance company will offer.

For the record, I explained the insurance procedures and limitations, and the customer was not happy with this information. As soon as they heard the offer, the customer starting screaming at me and being unreasonable. I could not even get a word in. I asked the customer to speak with me rationally and calm down several times, in vain. They continued screaming at me and to be honest, handled themselves quite unprofessionally. I understand that the customer was upset, however, screaming at me did not accomplish anything. After asking several times for the customer to stop screaming and handle themselves in a manner that would allow to explore options with them, the customer continued to yell and scream.

By law, we are not obligated to cover this item for anymore than 60 cents per lb. Because we are getting conflicting stories from the customer vs. the movers, we can not be sure exactly what happened. The movers do make mistakes and ALWAYS admit to them. We DO NOT punish our workers for damaging an item, because unfortunately mistakes do happen. The movers do not pay for damage, they are not written up or disciplined. So in other words, if they did indeed damage said item, they have absolutely no reason to lie or take responsbility if they did in fact cause damage to this item.

Our original offer for 60 cents per lb still stands. This is the best we can offer. We might have considered a settlement or special arrangement for paying for repairs, had the customer co-operated as asked. After 20 mintues worthing of a one-sided screaming match, and now a Revdex.com complaint, we are not feeling this customer is entitled to anything beyond an insurance claim. We normally offer multiple options but we never got the chance to get that far with this particular customer.

Given the circumstances and uncooperative manner this customer conducted themselves in, we are not feeling like we should be forced to pay for repairs that we never authorized or agreed to pay for.

Original offer and final offer, 100 lb item x 60 cents per lb, $60.00. This half of the repair cost.

Please advise.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

We engaged this company to move two pieces of furniture at our home. The young workers arrived early from an earlier job, overheated (it was a hot and humid day, and their truck was faulty -- sending engine heat into the cab), exhausted, and eager to end their day quickly. We gave them water and sympathy. They ignored our offer to use a longer but easier route from the storeroom to the garage, stating that a shorter route up concrete steps (with a low overhead) would be quicker. We warned them that the armoire was made of soft wood (pine). They proceeded to dent and scratch the handmade, hand-carved, one-of-a kind piece that was valued at several thousand dollars. The company's [redacted] and one of the owners said that they chose to believe the lead worker's claim that the damage was already on the piece. We explained that the scraped were clearly fresh (patches of raw wood). One of the workers was clearly embarrassed, but could not speak against the lead. We had paid for three workers, but only two did the moving. We asked about their insurance, but they said it would cost too much to even send out someone to assess the damage. The [redacted] and owner said that they could not afford to send out repair people, and then they hung up on us. We hired "[redacted]" repair person who charged us a low rate as a courtesy for a prior relationship. We paid $127.62 for the filling and refinishing by our repair person. The repair is excellent, although the armoire could not be totally returned to its prior state without a total refinishing that would have erased hand-painted details. Our repair person said that the moving company had hired him to make many repairs for them in the past, but was no longer using him. We feel it is clear that they are using substandard crew, equipment, and policies to the customer's deficit. We tried to reach them again by phone, but our calls were not returned.