Please find below our response to the complaint received through the Revdex.com websiteShould you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach back out to us. The customer has claimed that a rug and numerous items were
damaged on his move in August/September I have thoroughly
researched
these claims and have found that everything was addressed in a timely manner
and per company policyPer the customer’s statement that a crate broke in the
warehouse and damaged many items, we do not have any records of this happening,
should a crate have broken in our climate control warehouse, we would have an
incident report on fileThe customer did file a damage claim form, but only
items were listed(Copy of claim form is attached) There was damage to a
dresser, but we not only had it repaired by a furniture professional, we
provided complementary pickup and delivery service for the dresserThe
customer is claiming that during the move, one of his rugs was laid under a
tree and became infested with carpet beetlesRugs are the last item removed
from an origin home and the first item placed into the destination home, so
there is no reason that a rug would have been anywhere other than on the truck
or in the homeI have confirmed with the driver that the rugs were loaded and
unloaded directly from the truck to the house and vice versaAll claims were
settled by December 11, and a letter was sent to the customer stating
suchDue to the customer being displeased with the service we had provided, we
offered not only to do complementary debris pickups from the shipper (value
of $each) as well as discounting their storage rates by 40%Additionally,
I did check and the amount we show charged to the customer matches the amount
invoiced upon completion of the job
The salesperson that the customer had been working with,
***, is no longer with our company, however, his voicemail has been
continuously monitored by another sales professionalAdditionally, the move
coordinator, ***, is still on our team and her contact information has not
changedNeither of these individuals has received any correspondence from the
customerIf they had, it would have been responded to in a timely mannerThe
VP of Household Goods Operations is attempting to contact the customer directly
to address any additional concerns
I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
First of all Laurence transport was made aware that the driver refused to pick up goods stored in the garage conversation went back and forth finally Laurence agreed to send out a claim form for goods not picked up. Laurence Transport would not have have items listed. We had the apartment surveyed which included what was in the garage we also told Laurence Transport we would pack as much as we could. The driver was under the impression that it was a pick up only. There were 3 people originally doing the load one person left leaving two to load.Originally we were told that 427.01 was due at pickup yet on based on the survey yet on 5/25 only 149.36 was collected which indicated that not all the goods surveyed was picked up. Also The following email was was sent
Hi Mr. & Mrs. [redacted],
After
speaking to you this morning I wanted to let you know that we have
worked on your storage charges and my Manager has agreed to reduce your
storage to $881.44 which is about
a 50% savings.
I’m
sorry for any confusion or problems you may have incurred. As far as
your survey being performed 5 days after you made contact with us is
actually very fast. I know you were
very anxious to get the process started but this is considered quick
from the start date of contact with you. I’ve requested a claim form be
sent to you and you can call me if you need assistance. You could list
what’s on your inventory list that the surveyor
saw in your garage at origin. You can only file one claim in 9 months
from the day of delivery. After it’s sent to claims it’s in their hands
to handle for you.
Please contact me if you have any further questions or concerns and I’ll be glad to assist you.
[redacted] will work with you on getting your items delivered out of storage.
Best Regards,
[redacted]
National Account Manager
Regarding the boxes checked off of delivered goods there where four boxes without numbers and four boxes not checked off. The delivery guy said they must be four missing boxes. It was not until the goods were unpacked that it was noticed that kitchen items that where packed by Laurence did not arrive.Regarding the money order Laurence was informed and shown that a Money Order was purchased. The driver left after dropping of goods, and I received a call a couple of days later. saying payment was not received. Laurence Transport was told that a money order was purchased and was on the counter top where the driver paper work was and assumed he picked it up. As the money order had the receipt part attached to it one is unable to obtain a refund.Over the years we have moved I never had a mover refuse to pick up part of the goods surveyed, nor for one of the packers walk off half way through packing. Any time there was a balance due it was collected by the driver.Laurence claim that The driver was
not informed at any time that he needed to load items from another location. is false my husband asked the the driver to drive to the garage unit prior to packaging the apartment. The driver point blank refused using the excuse that his truck would not fit around to the pick up location. Also the goods where included in the survey.Laurence claims I owe them $881.44 I have shown them that a money order was purchased Their drivers failure to turn in payment is not my concern or my responsibility. Laurence Transport is the preferred movers for my employer. They knew that I was under a time constraint and if they could not met the dead line and move everything they should have declined. Regards,
[redacted]
After reviewing Mr. [redacted]’s response to our explanation of issues regarding his move, I have the following information to share. First of all, in his initial complaint he requested refund of a supposed overpayment. We did extensive research and do not show any records of an overpayment. Since the disputed amount was only $32.60, I was able to override our system and refund this amount as a good faith refund to the customer. However, we need to speak with Mr. [redacted] to confirm how he would like to receive this refund. Due to the nature of the situation, our Vice President of Household Goods Operations has been trying to get in touch with the customer, but has received no response. He has called Mr. [redacted] several times and left numerous voicemails, but all correspondence has gone un-answered. We are unable to send a refund check or discuss any further issues if Mr. [redacted] continues to refuse our calls and messages. Should he happen to have lost all of our messages and correspondence, he can reach out to [redacted], VP of Household Goods Operations at ###-###-#### or [redacted]. Mr. [redacted] has pointed out in both of his complaints that any settlements will have to go through the Probate or Court system, while we are unfamiliar with the legalities of this particular personal situation, the move was solely in the name of [redacted], and be assured that Lawrence Companies has followed and adhered to all federal and local laws during this move and with regard to its billing. Additionally, shippers are legally only allowed to submit one set of claims (the number of claims is unlimited, but they must all be submitted together), Mr. [redacted] submitted claims on 3 different forms at 3 different times (9/23/15, 10/22/15, 11/15/15) and took it upon himself to mark out the legal notation that claims may only be submitted once. In response to the additional claim issues, our records show that all claims issues have been settled as of 12/15/2015. [redacted] has kindly offered to re-evaluate the issues and backdate all of the claim forms to one date, but once again, he has been unable to get in touch with Mr. [redacted]. As for the complimentary debris pickups, these were provided at the request of, but at NO COST to the customer, however, that does not mean that they were free, we had to absorb the costs for both of these pickups internally, which we did, in order to provide the best service we possibly could to the customer. In summary, we have tried multiple ways to contact Mr. [redacted], to which, as of 3pm today (4/27/16) he has not responded. While we hope that all customers are provided top notch service, on rare occasions, things happen beyond the circumstances that we can control. We hope that it is evident that we have made every attempt to contact the customer and settle these issues.
This letter is in response to the complaint by Mr. [redacted]. On 4/10/2017 Lawrence’s Safety & Claims department received a call from Mr. [redacted] stating that one of our drivers had rolled backwards into his car the previous day while in stop and go traffic near the [redacted]...
[redacted]. Mr. [redacted] stated that our truck had done damage to the grill of his vehicle and he expected us to cover repairs. Our claims manager (with whom he spoke) advised him that she would investigate the incident and that we were self-insured up to a base amount, so that minor accidents are usually handled directly through our company instead of through our insurance carrier. She assured him that once she had contacted our driver she would be back in touch with him regarding follow up steps. Through use of our dispatch system and GPS tracking systems we were able to narrow down a team of drivers that was in the area at the time of the incident. Upon interview with both drivers, we were made aware that during a slow traffic time, one of the trucks was harassed by a car that was behind them. This car was blowing the horn, flashing lights, occupants waving hands, taking photos of the Lawrence truck and driver, etc. Once they were safely through the construction zone they were in, our driver and the team truck that was shortly behind him pulled over to call the WV state police regarding the incident, the car in question did not pull over when the trucks did. Our Lawrence driver called the State Police and was told that if the other driver did not stop, there was nothing that could be done on their part. Our Lawrence claims manager followed up with a call to the WV state police where they stated the same claim that there was nothing they could take a report on if we had no information on the other driver and they did not stop. The claims manager also called a witness provided by Mr. [redacted] (see attached summary of call with [redacted]). After review of all parties' statements and photos of damage provided by claimant (Mr. [redacted]), it was determined that there was not sufficient evidence to support his version of the story and we would be denying his claim. Our denial was based on two things 1) Witness statement is questionable as the damage claimed is not consistent with the impact described by the witness 2) in the event that the truck did roll back Mr. [redacted] would still be liable for following too close and for a hit and run as he left the scene and did not notify police.
In May 2015 Lawrence
Transportation Systems was hired by Mrs. [redacted] to relocate her
household goods from [redacted] to [redacted] as Lawrence is the preferred mover
for [redacted] (Mrs. [redacted]’s new
employer). The [redacted]’s household goods were...
picked up by a qualified
Lawrence Transportation Systems van operator on May 13, 2015. All items from
the apartment were loaded at that time and the driver confirmed that all items
had been loaded when having the shipper sign the origin paperwork. This
paperwork includes a bill of lading for the shipment, an inventory of all items
loaded, a high value inventory (if applicable) and a “Most Important” document,
copies of all of these documents have been provided. The “Most Important”
document states that the movers are not responsible for any items left at the
residence after loading and that the shipper (person being moved) is
responsible for checking to make sure no items are left behind. The driver was
not informed at any time that he needed to load items from another location.
The [redacted]’s household goods were then transported to [redacted] and
placed into storage in our [redacted] warehouse.
On 5/15/15, [redacted] from our [redacted] office called Mrs.
[redacted] to see how the move went, she stated that everything went well and she
would notify us once they found a residence and we could deliver their items
out of storage. Mr. [redacted] confirmed that they would like to take delivery of
their household goods on 6/15 and they were delivered on that date. At delivery
the shipper checked off the “Bingo Sheet” showing that all items had been
delivered into their home and signed all delivery paperwork. The [redacted]’s
were supposed to pay for the remaining balance on their shipment ([redacted] paid for $2500.00 of the relocation cost, leaving Mrs.
[redacted] with a balance of $881.44 that she was responsible for at delivery).
No check was presented to the Lawrence staff that was present at delivery. When
the move paperwork was processed in our office, the move coordinator realized
that the customer still owed a balance and called the shipper to see how they
would be paying the balance, the shipper stated that they had a money order at
the time of delivery, but it had disappeared. They also stated that they could
not cancel the money order until it had been outstanding for 90 days. Our
office agreed to check in with them at the conclusion of 90 days to rectify
their account at that time.
On June 30th, our office received a damage claim
form from Mrs. [redacted] claiming 10 items that had been “lost” during her move.
This claim was denied as none of the items on the claim form were listed on the
move inventory. Once the 90 days had elapsed, we have tried to contact the
[redacted]’s multiple times to collect their remaining balance but have been
unable to contact them beyond leaving messages on their voicemail. At this
time, Lawrence Transportation Systems is owed $881.44 from Mrs. [redacted].
I forgot to attach the customers damage claim form to the preiovus e-mail. I can also supply reciepts where the items were inspected and the dresser was repaired if needed.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.I was in and out of the office over the past week, and our phone system was down for 3 weeks. I have left a message with [redacted], and will try to reach him again on succeeding days. My complaint is not so much about any claim issues, but rather the inability to reach any of the people that I was working with on the move.The first claim was for those items identified by the Lawrence moving crew as damaged in transit when they were delivered. I followed the directions of the Lawrence Driver in filling out the form in his presence, including the snapping of a solid wood dresser into 2 pieces. I did not consider this to be my claim, but just documentation for items that Lawrence had already admitted that they had damaged. These had also been reported to the Lawrence office before all of the items were removed from the truck. In fact, someone can over to view these items the same day.On the other items, some of these were probably related to damage from items falling out of the crate. However, some were just due to the fact that items were not packed in accordance with the shipping contract. They were just stacked in boxes. I was told by several Lawrence people that I had up to 6 months to submit MY CLAIMS, on anything that was found damaged in the boxes. My crossing out of the claim form documentation was based on discussions with [redacted]. No one ever came to look at these items, nor could I get anyone to come look at them, or to tell me if I could throw them away. I had been told to keep these items for examination. They still reside in various locations in my house. I really want to get them thrown away and move on to the repair and replacement process.
Regards,
[redacted]
I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I think that the problem here is just that the communication processes have not worked, both internally and externally. The financial issues involved here are very small, certainly relative to the $22,000 they were paid for moving services. They also do not appear to understand that these claims are in the Probate or Virginia Circuit Court system because my wife died in the move process before the claims had been settled. Any claims and settlement will become public records, and will need to be signed off on by either the Circuit Court judge, or at least the elected Clerk of Court in [redacted] County. They are subject to state probate taxes. I am pursuing settlement to make things easier on both parties. If the Court does not like the settlement they will require it to be litigated.I will attempt here to explain the communication problems in detail below. My wife was also our move coordinator, as she spent around 15 years working for moving companies, and also had many contacts with with Lawrence. I am glad to hear that [redacted] is still there. I left a lot of phone messages with [redacted], and [redacted] that were never returned. I also followed this up with email. When I got an email (above) to [redacted] that was undeliverable and no returned calls, I assumed that she had left before the moving processes had been completed. This may just have been a bad transition process of responsibilities. There are two separate claims, and 3 separate causes of damage as well as a billing error involved here. The first claim (I refer to it as the Lawrence claim) consists of 2 items that Lawrence employees identified as being damaged in shipment when they delivered the items on 9/23/2015. The delivery driver helped us fill out the claim form before he left. I later, researched the value of the items and added this information before submitting it to Lawrence.Claim Form 1, Item 1. A solid wood dresser (perhaps 300 lbs) had the back right section broken off. This was solid wood, and it would have taken substantial force to rip off a large piece of solid would. Simply dropping one end of the dresser would not have caused this. Four members of the moving crew independently apologized and explained what had happened. Lawrence employees indicated that in moving the crate that the dresser was in, that the clips holding the crate had broken and that the dresser and a number of items had fallen to the ground in the warehouse off of a flatbed truck. Based on my observations, this fall could have been 10-15 feet in height (in physics that would be 3,000 foot pounds of force applied to a corner of the dresser), and explained the catastrophic damage that had occurred. Based on the fact that the delivery people arrived 45 minutes late (the warehouse is 5 minutes away), I believe that this probably happened on the morning of the delivery. It is odd that they say that this incident was never documented, because based on the drivers report of the warehouse accident, Lawrence hired a company called [redacted] to look at the damages. The driver called the office and got this process going before he left, and I believe that 2 people came out to look at the dresser the same day. I contacted [redacted] (the move coordinator) the next day about the accident and she sent me an apology and notified the claims department of this on the same day. See the attachment in the claims packet email. I later received another separate apology from the claims department. My only complaint was that we had set up a delivery date for the dresser a week in advance, and since my wife was bedridden, I hired someone for $100 to travel 3 hours by car to meet them. They announced the day before that that delivery would be delayed another day. The reason for the delay was that it would be cheaper for Lawrence to deliver it the next day, and it would be difficult for them to arrange delivery on the agreed date. (Remember that it is a five minute trip from their warehouse to the delivery address). I had to take off work the next day to meet them because the person I hired had to be at work that day. Since Lawrence saved a lot of money by changing the date (their claim), I believe that they should reimburse my extra $100 cost.Claim Form 1. Item 2. Damage to my wife’s favorite oriental rug. The process with the rug was that the rug was vacuumed. The movers arrived at 8:00 am. in the morning, plastic wrapped the furniture in the formal living room and then rolled up the rug. After loading the remaining furniture in the house, the rug was brought out onto the driveway about 10:30 a.m. I was there helping them finish some items in the garage. I watched the rug sit there for some time from my office above the garage. As it was supposed to rain, I looked for the driver to find out if this should be loaded. I could not locate him, and later learned that he was packing up some books in a back room. The driver confirmed that this was one of the last items loaded (around noon). The truck left at 1:00 p.m. just as it started to rain. This whole story issue comes about because when Lawrence delivered the rug and unrolled it. Large amounts of carpet fiber came out on the floor. The Lawrence delivery people claimed that this had been damaged in transit. The entire outside edge of the carpet looked like the fibers had been cut off with something sharp. It was very clean. We formed a theory that the rug had been abraded or cut in shipping, but no one know that caused the damage. It is simply a fact that there could not have been any carpet fibers when it was rolled up (it was just vacuumed) and there where large amounts of fibers when it was delivered. Lawrence hired [redacted] to look at the rug. They came out and took lots of pictures. The called another company that specializes in carpets. This company can up with the theory that one or more carpet beetles had gotten into the rug while it was sitting outside under a tree (the beetle live in trees). I never claimed as indicated ”The customer is claiming that during the move, one of his rugs was laid under a tree and became infested with carpet beetles.” I had never heard of carpet beetles. This was a theory proposed by a consultant that Lawrence had hired to review the damage that Lawrence employees had claimed took place during the move. This is another apparent example of Lawrence staff not communicating with one another. They are attributing a claim to me can came from someone they hired, and was a claim that I was trying to refute.As a result of this claim by Lawrence, I got a magnifying glass and went over every each fiber of the carpet. I found no evidence of beetles, remains of beetles, larvae, or any other artifact left behind by beetles. Contrary to random eating by beetle, the damage to the carpet was in a perfectly linear fashion on the very edge of the carpet. I reported this to the claims department, and I told Lawrence that it would be extremely remote that a beetle could have caused the carpet slicing as their consultant had claimed. Yet the carpet was not damaged when it was rolled up, and was damaged when it was unrolled and the damage was contained within the carpet roll. The partial debris pickup mentioned below took place on day the delivery of the dresser and it was at the request of Lawrence transportation. It took about 10 minutes by 1 employee while the other delivery person was attaching the mirror. It cost Lawrence $0 in marginal expense to do this, and that is the reason that Lawrence requested it. Pickup of the debris was part of the original moving contract, although it is possible that my employer was never billed for it. I brought that to [redacted]’s attention, and in any case, I need to know if this is an amount that they are claiming is still due.. There was a lot of confusion in their original invoice because they had over-reported the content weight of 1 trailer by a factor of 3.The 40 % discount mentioned is a red herring, and has never been brought up before. This was a corporate move and the 40 % discount was negotiated with the company before move took place. It is a standard discount from the maximum tariffs, and resulted in the company ([redacted]) making [redacted] and Lawrence their preferred movers. We could have down the same thing with [redacted] or any other mover. If they check the original estimate, they will see that the rates in the original estimate were the same rates that were billed.Claim Forms 2 &3: This is from a claim package received from [redacted] around 9/29. It was sent to Lawrence by mail and twice to the claim manager via email. I never got a response to any of the submissions. No one wanted to acknowledge this. The claims were submitted along with pictures. There were many other items broken besides those in the claim forms, but they were of small value. The last one was sent on October 25. We still have many broken items in the house, I never got a response to my question on if I could throw these items away, or if Lawrence wanted them. No one ever came to look at them. We would like to get these items out of our way so that we can finish unpacking. If we could just get them to acknowledge the claim, then we could move on. Many of these items were probably caused by the crate failure in the warehouse, as there were a number of badly dented boxes and boxes with whole in them (The claim form show a list of the box that the broken items were in.)> However, other items were damaged when they were not actually packed in accordance with the contract. One of more members of the moving crew were just stacking items in large boxes without packing materials (or sometimes using expense suits for packing), or simply throwing items into boxes haphazardly. I tried to point these out in my letter and claim form. Billing Error on storage. Lawrence overbilled on storage because they miscounted the storage days by 1. [redacted] had the invoice corrected, but I had already paid the billed amount. She indicated that they would provide a refund. The amount is only about $36. Perhaps someone was offsetting this with the debris removal??This is about all I have to say. I hope that it removes some of the misconceptions on the part of Lawrence due to no one person being involved with the move from end to end. If we can get them to simply acknowledge the claim issues and have a discussion on these items, then we can move forward.Thanks for your help.[redacted]
Please find below our response to the complaint received through the Revdex.com websiteShould you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach back out to us. The customer has claimed that a rug and numerous items were
damaged on his move in August/September I have thoroughly
researched
these claims and have found that everything was addressed in a timely manner
and per company policyPer the customer’s statement that a crate broke in the
warehouse and damaged many items, we do not have any records of this happening,
should a crate have broken in our climate control warehouse, we would have an
incident report on fileThe customer did file a damage claim form, but only
items were listed(Copy of claim form is attached) There was damage to a
dresser, but we not only had it repaired by a furniture professional, we
provided complementary pickup and delivery service for the dresserThe
customer is claiming that during the move, one of his rugs was laid under a
tree and became infested with carpet beetlesRugs are the last item removed
from an origin home and the first item placed into the destination home, so
there is no reason that a rug would have been anywhere other than on the truck
or in the homeI have confirmed with the driver that the rugs were loaded and
unloaded directly from the truck to the house and vice versaAll claims were
settled by December 11, and a letter was sent to the customer stating
suchDue to the customer being displeased with the service we had provided, we
offered not only to do complementary debris pickups from the shipper (value
of $each) as well as discounting their storage rates by 40%Additionally,
I did check and the amount we show charged to the customer matches the amount
invoiced upon completion of the job
The salesperson that the customer had been working with,
***, is no longer with our company, however, his voicemail has been
continuously monitored by another sales professionalAdditionally, the move
coordinator, ***, is still on our team and her contact information has not
changedNeither of these individuals has received any correspondence from the
customerIf they had, it would have been responded to in a timely mannerThe
VP of Household Goods Operations is attempting to contact the customer directly
to address any additional concerns
I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
First of all Laurence transport was made aware that the driver refused to pick up goods stored in the garage conversation went back and forth finally Laurence agreed to send out a claim form for goods not picked up. Laurence Transport would not have have items listed. We had the apartment surveyed which included what was in the garage we also told Laurence Transport we would pack as much as we could. The driver was under the impression that it was a pick up only. There were 3 people originally doing the load one person left leaving two to load.Originally we were told that 427.01 was due at pickup yet on based on the survey yet on 5/25 only 149.36 was collected which indicated that not all the goods surveyed was picked up. Also The following email was was sent
Hi Mr. & Mrs. [redacted],
After
speaking to you this morning I wanted to let you know that we have
worked on your storage charges and my Manager has agreed to reduce your
storage to $881.44 which is about
a 50% savings.
I’m
sorry for any confusion or problems you may have incurred. As far as
your survey being performed 5 days after you made contact with us is
actually very fast. I know you were
very anxious to get the process started but this is considered quick
from the start date of contact with you. I’ve requested a claim form be
sent to you and you can call me if you need assistance. You could list
what’s on your inventory list that the surveyor
saw in your garage at origin. You can only file one claim in 9 months
from the day of delivery. After it’s sent to claims it’s in their hands
to handle for you.
Please contact me if you have any further questions or concerns and I’ll be glad to assist you.
[redacted] will work with you on getting your items delivered out of storage.
Best Regards,
[redacted]
National Account Manager
Regarding the boxes checked off of delivered goods there where four boxes without numbers and four boxes not checked off. The delivery guy said they must be four missing boxes. It was not until the goods were unpacked that it was noticed that kitchen items that where packed by Laurence did not arrive.Regarding the money order Laurence was informed and shown that a Money Order was purchased. The driver left after dropping of goods, and I received a call a couple of days later. saying payment was not received. Laurence Transport was told that a money order was purchased and was on the counter top where the driver paper work was and assumed he picked it up. As the money order had the receipt part attached to it one is unable to obtain a refund.Over the years we have moved I never had a mover refuse to pick up part of the goods surveyed, nor for one of the packers walk off half way through packing. Any time there was a balance due it was collected by the driver.Laurence claim that The driver was
not informed at any time that he needed to load items from another location. is false my husband asked the the driver to drive to the garage unit prior to packaging the apartment. The driver point blank refused using the excuse that his truck would not fit around to the pick up location. Also the goods where included in the survey.Laurence claims I owe them $881.44 I have shown them that a money order was purchased Their drivers failure to turn in payment is not my concern or my responsibility. Laurence Transport is the preferred movers for my employer. They knew that I was under a time constraint and if they could not met the dead line and move everything they should have declined. Regards,
[redacted]
After reviewing Mr. [redacted]’s response to our explanation of issues regarding his move, I have the following information to share. First of all, in his initial complaint he requested refund of a supposed overpayment. We did extensive research and do not show any records of an overpayment. Since the disputed amount was only $32.60, I was able to override our system and refund this amount as a good faith refund to the customer. However, we need to speak with Mr. [redacted] to confirm how he would like to receive this refund. Due to the nature of the situation, our Vice President of Household Goods Operations has been trying to get in touch with the customer, but has received no response. He has called Mr. [redacted] several times and left numerous voicemails, but all correspondence has gone un-answered. We are unable to send a refund check or discuss any further issues if Mr. [redacted] continues to refuse our calls and messages. Should he happen to have lost all of our messages and correspondence, he can reach out to [redacted], VP of Household Goods Operations at ###-###-#### or [redacted]. Mr. [redacted] has pointed out in both of his complaints that any settlements will have to go through the Probate or Court system, while we are unfamiliar with the legalities of this particular personal situation, the move was solely in the name of [redacted], and be assured that Lawrence Companies has followed and adhered to all federal and local laws during this move and with regard to its billing. Additionally, shippers are legally only allowed to submit one set of claims (the number of claims is unlimited, but they must all be submitted together), Mr. [redacted] submitted claims on 3 different forms at 3 different times (9/23/15, 10/22/15, 11/15/15) and took it upon himself to mark out the legal notation that claims may only be submitted once. In response to the additional claim issues, our records show that all claims issues have been settled as of 12/15/2015. [redacted] has kindly offered to re-evaluate the issues and backdate all of the claim forms to one date, but once again, he has been unable to get in touch with Mr. [redacted]. As for the complimentary debris pickups, these were provided at the request of, but at NO COST to the customer, however, that does not mean that they were free, we had to absorb the costs for both of these pickups internally, which we did, in order to provide the best service we possibly could to the customer. In summary, we have tried multiple ways to contact Mr. [redacted], to which, as of 3pm today (4/27/16) he has not responded. While we hope that all customers are provided top notch service, on rare occasions, things happen beyond the circumstances that we can control. We hope that it is evident that we have made every attempt to contact the customer and settle these issues.
This letter is in response to the complaint by Mr. [redacted]. On 4/10/2017 Lawrence’s Safety & Claims department received a call from Mr. [redacted] stating that one of our drivers had rolled backwards into his car the previous day while in stop and go traffic near the [redacted]...
[redacted]. Mr. [redacted] stated that our truck had done damage to the grill of his vehicle and he expected us to cover repairs. Our claims manager (with whom he spoke) advised him that she would investigate the incident and that we were self-insured up to a base amount, so that minor accidents are usually handled directly through our company instead of through our insurance carrier. She assured him that once she had contacted our driver she would be back in touch with him regarding follow up steps. Through use of our dispatch system and GPS tracking systems we were able to narrow down a team of drivers that was in the area at the time of the incident. Upon interview with both drivers, we were made aware that during a slow traffic time, one of the trucks was harassed by a car that was behind them. This car was blowing the horn, flashing lights, occupants waving hands, taking photos of the Lawrence truck and driver, etc. Once they were safely through the construction zone they were in, our driver and the team truck that was shortly behind him pulled over to call the WV state police regarding the incident, the car in question did not pull over when the trucks did. Our Lawrence driver called the State Police and was told that if the other driver did not stop, there was nothing that could be done on their part. Our Lawrence claims manager followed up with a call to the WV state police where they stated the same claim that there was nothing they could take a report on if we had no information on the other driver and they did not stop. The claims manager also called a witness provided by Mr. [redacted] (see attached summary of call with [redacted]). After review of all parties' statements and photos of damage provided by claimant (Mr. [redacted]), it was determined that there was not sufficient evidence to support his version of the story and we would be denying his claim. Our denial was based on two things 1) Witness statement is questionable as the damage claimed is not consistent with the impact described by the witness 2) in the event that the truck did roll back Mr. [redacted] would still be liable for following too close and for a hit and run as he left the scene and did not notify police.
In May 2015 Lawrence
Transportation Systems was hired by Mrs. [redacted] to relocate her
household goods from [redacted] to [redacted] as Lawrence is the preferred mover
for [redacted] (Mrs. [redacted]’s new
employer). The [redacted]’s household goods were...
picked up by a qualified
Lawrence Transportation Systems van operator on May 13, 2015. All items from
the apartment were loaded at that time and the driver confirmed that all items
had been loaded when having the shipper sign the origin paperwork. This
paperwork includes a bill of lading for the shipment, an inventory of all items
loaded, a high value inventory (if applicable) and a “Most Important” document,
copies of all of these documents have been provided. The “Most Important”
document states that the movers are not responsible for any items left at the
residence after loading and that the shipper (person being moved) is
responsible for checking to make sure no items are left behind. The driver was
not informed at any time that he needed to load items from another location.
The [redacted]’s household goods were then transported to [redacted] and
placed into storage in our [redacted] warehouse.
On 5/15/15, [redacted] from our [redacted] office called Mrs.
[redacted] to see how the move went, she stated that everything went well and she
would notify us once they found a residence and we could deliver their items
out of storage. Mr. [redacted] confirmed that they would like to take delivery of
their household goods on 6/15 and they were delivered on that date. At delivery
the shipper checked off the “Bingo Sheet” showing that all items had been
delivered into their home and signed all delivery paperwork. The [redacted]’s
were supposed to pay for the remaining balance on their shipment ([redacted] paid for $2500.00 of the relocation cost, leaving Mrs.
[redacted] with a balance of $881.44 that she was responsible for at delivery).
No check was presented to the Lawrence staff that was present at delivery. When
the move paperwork was processed in our office, the move coordinator realized
that the customer still owed a balance and called the shipper to see how they
would be paying the balance, the shipper stated that they had a money order at
the time of delivery, but it had disappeared. They also stated that they could
not cancel the money order until it had been outstanding for 90 days. Our
office agreed to check in with them at the conclusion of 90 days to rectify
their account at that time.
On June 30th, our office received a damage claim
form from Mrs. [redacted] claiming 10 items that had been “lost” during her move.
This claim was denied as none of the items on the claim form were listed on the
move inventory. Once the 90 days had elapsed, we have tried to contact the
[redacted]’s multiple times to collect their remaining balance but have been
unable to contact them beyond leaving messages on their voicemail. At this
time, Lawrence Transportation Systems is owed $881.44 from Mrs. [redacted].
I forgot to attach the customers damage claim form to the preiovus e-mail. I can also supply reciepts where the items were inspected and the dresser was repaired if needed.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.I was in and out of the office over the past week, and our phone system was down for 3 weeks. I have left a message with [redacted], and will try to reach him again on succeeding days. My complaint is not so much about any claim issues, but rather the inability to reach any of the people that I was working with on the move.The first claim was for those items identified by the Lawrence moving crew as damaged in transit when they were delivered. I followed the directions of the Lawrence Driver in filling out the form in his presence, including the snapping of a solid wood dresser into 2 pieces. I did not consider this to be my claim, but just documentation for items that Lawrence had already admitted that they had damaged. These had also been reported to the Lawrence office before all of the items were removed from the truck. In fact, someone can over to view these items the same day.On the other items, some of these were probably related to damage from items falling out of the crate. However, some were just due to the fact that items were not packed in accordance with the shipping contract. They were just stacked in boxes. I was told by several Lawrence people that I had up to 6 months to submit MY CLAIMS, on anything that was found damaged in the boxes. My crossing out of the claim form documentation was based on discussions with [redacted]. No one ever came to look at these items, nor could I get anyone to come look at them, or to tell me if I could throw them away. I had been told to keep these items for examination. They still reside in various locations in my house. I really want to get them thrown away and move on to the repair and replacement process.
Regards,
[redacted]
I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I think that the problem here is just that the communication processes have not worked, both internally and externally. The financial issues involved here are very small, certainly relative to the $22,000 they were paid for moving services. They also do not appear to understand that these claims are in the Probate or Virginia Circuit Court system because my wife died in the move process before the claims had been settled. Any claims and settlement will become public records, and will need to be signed off on by either the Circuit Court judge, or at least the elected Clerk of Court in [redacted] County. They are subject to state probate taxes. I am pursuing settlement to make things easier on both parties. If the Court does not like the settlement they will require it to be litigated.I will attempt here to explain the communication problems in detail below. My wife was also our move coordinator, as she spent around 15 years working for moving companies, and also had many contacts with with Lawrence. I am glad to hear that [redacted] is still there. I left a lot of phone messages with [redacted], and [redacted] that were never returned. I also followed this up with email. When I got an email (above) to [redacted] that was undeliverable and no returned calls, I assumed that she had left before the moving processes had been completed. This may just have been a bad transition process of responsibilities. There are two separate claims, and 3 separate causes of damage as well as a billing error involved here. The first claim (I refer to it as the Lawrence claim) consists of 2 items that Lawrence employees identified as being damaged in shipment when they delivered the items on 9/23/2015. The delivery driver helped us fill out the claim form before he left. I later, researched the value of the items and added this information before submitting it to Lawrence.Claim Form 1, Item 1. A solid wood dresser (perhaps 300 lbs) had the back right section broken off. This was solid wood, and it would have taken substantial force to rip off a large piece of solid would. Simply dropping one end of the dresser would not have caused this. Four members of the moving crew independently apologized and explained what had happened. Lawrence employees indicated that in moving the crate that the dresser was in, that the clips holding the crate had broken and that the dresser and a number of items had fallen to the ground in the warehouse off of a flatbed truck. Based on my observations, this fall could have been 10-15 feet in height (in physics that would be 3,000 foot pounds of force applied to a corner of the dresser), and explained the catastrophic damage that had occurred. Based on the fact that the delivery people arrived 45 minutes late (the warehouse is 5 minutes away), I believe that this probably happened on the morning of the delivery. It is odd that they say that this incident was never documented, because based on the drivers report of the warehouse accident, Lawrence hired a company called [redacted] to look at the damages. The driver called the office and got this process going before he left, and I believe that 2 people came out to look at the dresser the same day. I contacted [redacted] (the move coordinator) the next day about the accident and she sent me an apology and notified the claims department of this on the same day. See the attachment in the claims packet email. I later received another separate apology from the claims department. My only complaint was that we had set up a delivery date for the dresser a week in advance, and since my wife was bedridden, I hired someone for $100 to travel 3 hours by car to meet them. They announced the day before that that delivery would be delayed another day. The reason for the delay was that it would be cheaper for Lawrence to deliver it the next day, and it would be difficult for them to arrange delivery on the agreed date. (Remember that it is a five minute trip from their warehouse to the delivery address). I had to take off work the next day to meet them because the person I hired had to be at work that day. Since Lawrence saved a lot of money by changing the date (their claim), I believe that they should reimburse my extra $100 cost.Claim Form 1. Item 2. Damage to my wife’s favorite oriental rug. The process with the rug was that the rug was vacuumed. The movers arrived at 8:00 am. in the morning, plastic wrapped the furniture in the formal living room and then rolled up the rug. After loading the remaining furniture in the house, the rug was brought out onto the driveway about 10:30 a.m. I was there helping them finish some items in the garage. I watched the rug sit there for some time from my office above the garage. As it was supposed to rain, I looked for the driver to find out if this should be loaded. I could not locate him, and later learned that he was packing up some books in a back room. The driver confirmed that this was one of the last items loaded (around noon). The truck left at 1:00 p.m. just as it started to rain. This whole story issue comes about because when Lawrence delivered the rug and unrolled it. Large amounts of carpet fiber came out on the floor. The Lawrence delivery people claimed that this had been damaged in transit. The entire outside edge of the carpet looked like the fibers had been cut off with something sharp. It was very clean. We formed a theory that the rug had been abraded or cut in shipping, but no one know that caused the damage. It is simply a fact that there could not have been any carpet fibers when it was rolled up (it was just vacuumed) and there where large amounts of fibers when it was delivered. Lawrence hired [redacted] to look at the rug. They came out and took lots of pictures. The called another company that specializes in carpets. This company can up with the theory that one or more carpet beetles had gotten into the rug while it was sitting outside under a tree (the beetle live in trees). I never claimed as indicated ”The customer is claiming that during the move, one of his rugs was laid under a tree and became infested with carpet beetles.” I had never heard of carpet beetles. This was a theory proposed by a consultant that Lawrence had hired to review the damage that Lawrence employees had claimed took place during the move. This is another apparent example of Lawrence staff not communicating with one another. They are attributing a claim to me can came from someone they hired, and was a claim that I was trying to refute.As a result of this claim by Lawrence, I got a magnifying glass and went over every each fiber of the carpet. I found no evidence of beetles, remains of beetles, larvae, or any other artifact left behind by beetles. Contrary to random eating by beetle, the damage to the carpet was in a perfectly linear fashion on the very edge of the carpet. I reported this to the claims department, and I told Lawrence that it would be extremely remote that a beetle could have caused the carpet slicing as their consultant had claimed. Yet the carpet was not damaged when it was rolled up, and was damaged when it was unrolled and the damage was contained within the carpet roll. The partial debris pickup mentioned below took place on day the delivery of the dresser and it was at the request of Lawrence transportation. It took about 10 minutes by 1 employee while the other delivery person was attaching the mirror. It cost Lawrence $0 in marginal expense to do this, and that is the reason that Lawrence requested it. Pickup of the debris was part of the original moving contract, although it is possible that my employer was never billed for it. I brought that to [redacted]’s attention, and in any case, I need to know if this is an amount that they are claiming is still due.. There was a lot of confusion in their original invoice because they had over-reported the content weight of 1 trailer by a factor of 3.The 40 % discount mentioned is a red herring, and has never been brought up before. This was a corporate move and the 40 % discount was negotiated with the company before move took place. It is a standard discount from the maximum tariffs, and resulted in the company ([redacted]) making [redacted] and Lawrence their preferred movers. We could have down the same thing with [redacted] or any other mover. If they check the original estimate, they will see that the rates in the original estimate were the same rates that were billed.Claim Forms 2 &3: This is from a claim package received from [redacted] around 9/29. It was sent to Lawrence by mail and twice to the claim manager via email. I never got a response to any of the submissions. No one wanted to acknowledge this. The claims were submitted along with pictures. There were many other items broken besides those in the claim forms, but they were of small value. The last one was sent on October 25. We still have many broken items in the house, I never got a response to my question on if I could throw these items away, or if Lawrence wanted them. No one ever came to look at them. We would like to get these items out of our way so that we can finish unpacking. If we could just get them to acknowledge the claim, then we could move on. Many of these items were probably caused by the crate failure in the warehouse, as there were a number of badly dented boxes and boxes with whole in them (The claim form show a list of the box that the broken items were in.)> However, other items were damaged when they were not actually packed in accordance with the contract. One of more members of the moving crew were just stacking items in large boxes without packing materials (or sometimes using expense suits for packing), or simply throwing items into boxes haphazardly. I tried to point these out in my letter and claim form. Billing Error on storage. Lawrence overbilled on storage because they miscounted the storage days by 1. [redacted] had the invoice corrected, but I had already paid the billed amount. She indicated that they would provide a refund. The amount is only about $36. Perhaps someone was offsetting this with the debris removal??This is about all I have to say. I hope that it removes some of the misconceptions on the part of Lawrence due to no one person being involved with the move from end to end. If we can get them to simply acknowledge the claim issues and have a discussion on these items, then we can move forward.Thanks for your help.[redacted]