Do Not Use Wheaton - they will lie to you to get you to sign a contract! - Moving Review

I recently moved across the country (Washington, DC to California), and spent ample time researching van lines before deciding to go with Wheaton--boy did I make a mistake. I interviewed five companies (Atlas, United, Mayflower, Bekins, and Wheaton) to compare prices and policies, and as it turns out was flat out lied to by my Wheaton rep (James Gilmartin from Olympia Moving, one of their subsidiaries for the North East).

I had time constraints surrounding my move, and was concerned primarily with being able to have ample advanced warning regarding my delivery and a definitive, uncompromising delivery date. I was assured up and down that I would received at least 14 days advanced notice of my delivery date, and that as soon as my items had been placed on a truck I would be in constant contact with the driver so I would know where my shipment was and would be kept abreast of any problems.

Furthermore, I was told that even though I had to have a delivery "spread" (a window of 5 days during which time I was assured to have my delivery made) I could choose the exact date I wanted for delivery and they would back up my ship date from that to ensure it for me.

About three weeks out from my delivery spread I received a call telling me that my window had to be extended from 5 to 11 days in order to accommodate a new "company standard." Already I thought that it was unacceptable for a delivery window to be that large, but I agreed as I felt at that point that I had no other choice. That was the last phone correspondence I received from anyone at Wheaton without myself initiating contact.

About a week out from the start of my window (on a Friday) I had not heard anything from Wheaton regarding delivery dates and started calling the various phone numbers I had to try and get some answers. After some serious waffling on the part of my "move coordinator" I was finally able to get her to contact the driver who had my shipment and was given a delivery date of the following Friday, and told that my driver would be in touch with me "very early" the following week to confirm and give me details.

By Monday afternoon of the following week I had not heard a peep from anyone, so I called my move coordinator again for more information and was able to get the phone number for my driver. I began calling him with zero response.

Now, at this point I should point out that I had to make travel arrangements for myself and several family members to come down to my new home to meet this shipment, and it was becoming extremely costly for me to not be able to make any of these plans because I had not been given any confirmed dates for delivery.

The following day I spent 4.5 hours calling every number I had before anyone ever picked up the phone, at which point I was FINALLY told that several days prior the truck holding my shipment had broken down, and had yet to be repaired. No estimation of when the truck would be fixed was given, and had I not been doggedly making phone calls I never would have been given that information.

My delivery date ended up being seriously altered, and during the process as I tried to explain to Wheaton employees what had happened and that it was obvious to me that I had been lied to at various points throughout the process I was hung up on, yelled at, and given zero support or options to help accommodate the enormous cost I was burdened with because of their lack of communication and internal issues.

They are an absolutely horrible company. I started by dealing with a satellite office in Virginia for my move, then had to speak with a move coordinator who was in Boston and customer service people and dispatchers who were God only knows where, and none of them ever spoke to each other. There is no chain of communication between members of the company, and that comes back tenfold to their customers. I lost thousands of dollars because of their practices, and would do anything in my power to insure that no one else ever has to go through what I did using their service.

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