Check history of the complaint:

• North_American_C_D_Danbury_2_29_04

• North_American_C_D_Danbury_3_14_04

• North_American_C_D_Danbury_3_28_04

 

Overview

 

We have introduced complaint to the Better Business Bureau of Indiana (NorthAmerican Van Lines) and CT (C&D Moving and Storage).

 

C&D Moving replied to the CT BBB, introducing itself as a agent for northAmerican Van Lines (NAVL), explaining its relationship with NAVL and how they assign responsibility for various aspects of the claim.

 

On that basis, C&D moving infers that it is only responsible for the aspects that occurred till our goods left their storage area and pass the blame to NAVL for the lost items. C&D Moving the request that this be considered by the CT BBB when deciding on their status as an upstanding business operating in Connecticut.

 

We note that C&D Moving indeed compensated us for a portion of the broken items. But this not sufficient to not affranchise them from their responsibilities with respect to the lost items. They may be an upstanding business; who knows. But an upstanding business would not shy away from their basic responsibilities to guarantee end-to-end contractual service. In this case they decided not to and to play the same game as NorthAmerican Van Lines.

 

The following is our follow-up with the CT BBB:

 

From: Plaintiff@essem.com  

 

To: CT BBB

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

This email is a follow up / update to our complaint about C&D Moving and Storage, Brookfield CT.

The company cc'd us on the fax that the sent to you (CT BBB) on April 06, 2004 (6 pages). We can forward the fax if you can't not relate to it).

We have also been contacted via e-mail. The 3 exchanges are attached.

At the current stage of affair, we do not accept C&D Moving position. As you can see in the e-mail exchanges, the agent representative (Matt Chila) acknowledges all the issues that underline our complaint and apologize for the problems. At the same time, and while fully informed as stated in the first e-mail, C&D Moving general manager takes a different position and refuses to take the responsibility and compensate for the loss items that we dispute. As our agent we expect C&D Moving to obtain compensation for us or if needed to compensate us first. C&D Moving of course can then recover it internally from their partners based on their internal determination of responsibilities but that is of course outside the scope of this discussion. That would solve all the problems.

We are very disappointed by C&D Moving answer. We clearly can not accept their justification. Actually, by displaying the same patterns as NorthAmerican Van Line, the answer seems actually more incriminating for C&D Moving business practices than valid exoneration of responsibility.

C&D Moving answer to the CT BBB merely provides justifications based on considerations internal to their organization or partnership, intra-department / partners / agents processes and internal confirmations / exchanges between agents. Unfortunately, these are totally irrelevant to the matter at hand, unhelpful to the consumer and moot with respect to the complaint to the CT BBB. Indeed, as our agent, quality of service and contractual agreements have been passed between C&D Moving and us. Other parties, including NorthAmerican Van Lines and other involved agents are exactly that: third parties bound by these agreements contracted by C&D Moving to deliver the committed services, but not the principal who is responsible for end-to-end delivery of the service. As prime, C&D Moving is also ultimately our sole contractual point of contact.

Yes, all the problems discussed were discovered after delivery at unpacking and while inspecting the goods. However, we have no way to ascertain whose responsibility is involved in breaking or losing items and these details are not matters that should concern us. This can be internally discussed between C&D Moving partners in order for them to recover payments, assign blame and appropriately split damages and responsibility. We should be shielded from this process. Internal process documents are also irrelevant... So inventory exception sheets at loading should be left out of this discussion. They definitively do not exculpate C&D Moving. Especially if the other "partners" use similar arguments to put the blame back on C&D Moving. We can't be in the middle of such exercises to "pass the blame"...

C&D Moving answer is in fact another illustration and iteration of such a tactic of passing the blame between departments that NorthAmerican Van Lines has been using so far. This is something that we explicitly identified as a known tactic often used by insurance claim departments or complaint department of dubious reputation. We do not accept this approach and we want to dispute it. To claim that because C&D Moving has paid for some of the numerous amount of broken items does not justify not paying for the lost items and does not affranchise them from their responsibilities.

C&D Moving used our description of the problem, discovered after the move and delivery and therefore while and just after interacting with NorthAmerican Van Lines to try convince you that it is not their responsibility, mentioning that our complaint focused on NorthAmerican Van Lines. This is an untenable position. Indeed, as prime signatories for the overall service (storage, move and delivery / unpacking) we do consider C&D moving as prime party in this matter.

So please update your files accordingly and consider the complaint as unresolved. I hope that the exchanges across C&D moving answer and forwarded e-mails allows you to identify some of the same incriminating patterns that we identified in our complaint. This is especially striking when this is related to the similar patterns (e.g. passing the blame between internal NAVL departments as well with respect to C&D moving) displayed by North American Van Lines in addition to systematic claim denial for the lost items by NorthAmerican Van Lines... The bottom line remains that in such situation, C&D moving is contractual the prime contractor and will have to live up to their responsibilities if they can't get their partners to act. They are prime responsible for providing the contractually agreed services. They also know very well that NorthAmerican Van Lines has forwarded our claim to them... Still they decide to try to return the blame to them and keep us running in circle. An upstanding business would not shy away from such basic responsibilities.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions based on these exchanges.

I urge you to actively pursue this matter and educate consumer about such practices that are not fit from an upstanding business that C&D Moving claims or aspires to be. We clearly appreciate enormously your help in this matter. I hope that you understand our desperation when confronted to such practices. I also believe that BBB should investigate the moving industry and publish reports to inform and warn consumers. We have collected so many corroborating stories across the country...

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

 

Signature

The following are e-mail exchanges to and from C&D Moving representatives:

 

As you can see, no dispute of the facts.... Reading this should convince anybody of the untenable position taken by C&D Moving as discussed above.

              4/8/04:

From: Plaintiff@essem.com  

 

To: C&D Moving

              $1200

               Signature

Thanks again for the explanation. I still however don't know how much you're looking for, dollar-wise, to settle the dispute. I would be as or more frustrated as you are, believe me! But I don't know how to fix it if I don't know how much needs mending. Yours was by far the biggest move, pound-wise, in years. Add to that, you had literally tons of items from your previous overseas move that was pre-packed, AND it was all stored on top of that. I'm only mentioning this because such a large move can and will cause much stress on a family, and when you experience the aftermath as you have, it's exacerbated further.

If you can, real quick, please let me know the amount of $ . Then at least I can forward that amount onto the powers that be here.

Thanks again.

[...]
----- Original Message -----
From: Plaintiff@essem.com   
To: C&D Moving
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 1:25 AM
Subject: RE: Insurance claims - Problems with move LCH415

[...]

I double checked

The claimed amount in dispute is the sum of the items below, i.e. $1200. In reality a lower bound estimate of the real losses!

So far, C&D Moving has paid only for broken items. We claimed already lost items (around August). North American Van Lines immediately rejected that part. They sent a check for some broken items and forwarded the rest to C & D Moving. You have never received /seen (to our knowledge) the claim for lost items. We however already mentioned to you that there were lost items that would have to be reimbursed when we would re-file.

In more details:
- We filed a total of three claims:
- the first claim was about the fridge,
- The second claim was for broken items (including paintings) and some lost items. NAVL rejected the lost items, paid some of the broken items and forwarded a big part of the claim for broken items to C&D Moving. C& D Moving sent a check for the painting first then second check for other broken items (not all by the way!).
- The third and final claim, which is the one we are discussing here, is for lost items. As explained, part of these lost items were filed with second claim, but NAVL rejected them and didn't even forward these items to C&D Moving. After first rejection, we called and explained the circumstances. At the time, NAVL suggested re-filing. We waited for completion of the unpacking and inspection of the goods and re-filed in February, just before the deadline. NAVL, nor C&D Moving have not paid anything for any of these lost items.

In addition, and for your information:
- Not all broken items have been reimbursed...
- We keep on discovering missing items!
- Some of the boxes marked "PBO" by your moving team were not really packed by us. For example, we wrapped some ornaments and stored them in boxes (diaper boxes) as we were showing/selling the house. We asked that they be repacked. They were rewrapped then packed into C&D boxes but still marked as PBO!

I hope that this clarifies the history of the claims and the actual disputed claim.

Thanks

Signature

-----Original Message-----
From: C&D Moving
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 6:53 AM
To: Plaintiff@essem.com   
Subject: Re: Insurance claims - Problems with move LCH415

[...]

I appreciate your letter. While I can't disagree with anything you've said here, my last correspondence with your wife led me to believe that sending a check in the amount of $1,200+ to you was just restitution. Once we sent that check, I saw no further e-mails or cc's until your latest. When I showed it to our GM here he expressed similar confusion. My only question is How much beyond the $1,200+ check are you looking for? From your note it seems that you haven't seen or accepted even that sum.

It seems that some boxes were "PBO" (packed by owner) and it's a standard policy among all movers not to cover such self-packed boxes (you can imagine no moving company would stay in business if they insured unseen previously packed boxes).

Your move was indeed a huge task, packing, moving, storing and moving nearly 40,000 pounds across the country is no small ordeal. Again, I fully appreciate and regret all the transgressions you and your family have suffered through negligence, misunderstanding or outright poor service, but I can tell you it's the exception instead of the rule here.

I look forward to hearing from you again.

[...]
----- Original Message -----
From: Plaintiff@essem.com   
To: C&D Moving
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 3:41 AM
Subject: RE: Insurance claims - Problems with move LCH415

[...]

Sorry for the delay in answering. I am currently traveling abroad.

Since August, we have been discussing and disputing with NorthAmerican Van Lines (keeping you cc'd via e-mail or letters) for items that were lost during the move (Note: Lost items not broken items as for the previous claims).

I have attached the final claim for lost items that we sent to American Van Lines in February, after completing the unpacking and inspection of all the goods.

Each time we have been told that NorthAmerican Van Lines, with different excuses being invoked and ultimately refusal to accept responsibilities for the losses as well as for the extremely poor service rendered as illustrated by the amount of broken articles that must have been unbelievably mishandled (e.g. dropped fridge!!!) and the furniture assembly incident.

Considering the situation, we believe that we are quite reasonable. We keep on discovering other missing items ... We are definitively not profiting from the amounts recovered so far or claimed. We probably would get much more by instead asking compensation for the overall Calvary...

While we appreciate your help in resolving the past issues, this was "as normally expected". Unfortunately, we are very disappointed and troubled that you have not intervened in the matter of the lost items, despite cc'ing you via e-mail to each of the exchanges. You must understand that we can't accept the approach of systematic claim denial and passing of the blame between you and different NorthAmerican Van Lines departments pursued by NorthAmerican Van Lines. We recognize the patterns of classical but unfortunate and unacceptable tactics...

As the agent and contact for our move, we consider C&D moving at least equally responsible for the poor quality of the service provided, the contractual problems and the absence of resolution; even if these may result from NorthAmerican Van Lines business malpractices and incompetence. You will have to resolve internally with NorthAmerican Van Lines who is actually responsible for what; what happened at storage and what happened during the actual transport and delivery. This is not our problem.

In any case, confronted with NorthAmerican Van Lines position and clear tactics, we have no other option that to undertake legal actions and at the same time make sure that incidents are widely publicized to ensure that NorthAmerican Van Lines stops such practices and that potential customers are warned of what has happened and could happen. As appropriate and in the absence of a settlement, the press, consumer protection and advocacy publications and move / relocation information or industry fora are / will be informed and publish reports of the incident and the evolution of legal actions. In parallel, we are progressively introducing complaints with appropriate regulation or oversighting governmental agencies, legislative representative and requesting investigations. As we progress, we are amazed at the amount of well documented similar stories that we have been able to collect. As our complaint remains ignored by NorthAmerican Van Lines and C & D Moving, we will make it a personal agenda to bring this industry under much stronger regulatory scrutiny.

We can only suggest that you contact NorthAmerican Van Lines and urge them to honor once and for all their responsibilities and obligations in this matter. We will not accept any other resolution. Of course, rest assure that we would appreciate your help in settling this matter as smoothly as possible and in such a case, we would make sure that C & D Moving business practices be then positively reviewed, communicated to the channels and parties involved so far and clearly distinguished from NorthAmerican Van Lines.

We hope that this answers your questions. We are sorry if you feel that this turned out to be upsetting and that you have already tried to do a lot to accommodate. Trust me, it has been an even more disappointing, painful and unacceptable experience for us. May be you should better "qualify" the companies for who your are providing agent representation in the future ... We definitely should have done so before doing business with NorthAmerican Van Lines and we wish somebody had informed us of similar previous incidents and practices...

Sincerely,

Signature

From: NAVL Moving Services Claim [mailto:ClaimForm@sirva.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 11:36 PM
To: msclaims@sirva.com; Plaintiff@essem.com   
Subject: Moving Services Claim Form

Moving Services
U.S. Statement of Claim
Your claim Information was sent to Moving Services on
Monday, February 16, 2004 at 1:36:25 AM CST.
Please print or save this page for your records.

Email Address: Plaintiff@essem.com   
Customer Reference Number: LCH415
ValuationType: MVP-NO
Storage Date From:
Storage Date To:
Comments: The day the truck arrived, the driver didn't even try to check boxes off against inventory sheets as they unloaded, he just repeatedly told me all my things were in the truck and the whole truck was just my things, I started to check boxes off as they came off the truck, but I couldn't keep up with 5 men unloading, the driver repeatedly told me all my things were there so I gave up trying to keep up and it seemed I was slowing them down trying to go throuh the inventory sheets. Even so, AND WITHOUT arranging my major furnitures like putting the sofa where I wanted, which I was told later that the driver should have done instead of what the driver said the unpackers would do (btw, caused big problems for me the next day and eventually only came to unpack several days later!! plus we ended up moving furnitures ourselves!!) , the driver finished unloading only around 3 or 3:30 pm, I couldn't go through the inventory sheets at that point either as they were ready to leave and the driver again told me all my things were there. Some of the items claimed here are not listed specifically on inventory sheets, therefore, I just gave a number for each, they are probably lost with the rest of the things ithey are packed with, however, since we only remember these particular items, we will only claim these.

[...]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 235 Original Cost: 600
Damaged Article: Raleigh race bike Date Acquired: 7/1/1984
Weight: 999 Amount Claimed: 300
Damage Description: missing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 294 Original Cost: 999
Damaged Article: headboard mirror Date Acquired: 10/1/1997
Weight: 10 Amount Claimed: 220
Damage Description: missing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 189 Original Cost: 40
Damaged Article: part of fan Date Acquired: 7/1/1999
Weight: 5 Amount Claimed: 40
Damage Description: missing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 11 Original Cost: 40
Damaged Article: shoe rack Date Acquired: 10/1/1999
Weight: 10 Amount Claimed: 40
Damage Description: missing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 1 Original Cost: 100
Damaged Article: roller blades Date Acquired: 8/1/1996
Weight: 10 Amount Claimed: 100
Damage Description: missing, roller blades were stored in original box, can't find it on inventory sheets, so just use A number

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 2 Original Cost: 250
Damaged Article: shoes Date Acquired: 8/1/1996
Weight: .5 Amount Claimed: 250
Damage Description: missing, 3 pairs of shoes including wedding shoes, probably packed along with other things, can't identify them on inventory sheets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inventory Number: 3 Original Cost: 250
Damaged Article: ski boots Date Aquired: 10/1/1984
Weight: 10 Amount Claimed: 250
Damage Description: missing, probably packed with other things, can't identify them on inventory sheets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: C&D Moving
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 5:41 AM
To: Plaintiff@essem.com   
Subject: Re: Insurance claims - Problems with move LCH415

[...]

Every one of your e-mails and cc's were forwarded to our general manager, [...]. It's been quite some time since I last heard but I was under the impression that he'd sent a substantial check to you to clear up any confusion whatsoever. If this is inaccurate please accept my personal apology, but I will forward this to him as well and see if there isn't anything further we can do. When we move someone interstate, the claims are settled through our office in Ft. Wayne, IN, but I can see that you've been put through the ringer so to speak.

For time's sake, what is the total dollar amount that you're still claiming?

Regards,

[...]

Note:

 

This information is posted in order to warn consumers of the business practices of NorthAmerican Van Lines and C & D Moving and Storage Co, Brookfield CT. It does not serve any other purpose. 

 

If you want to contribute to document, corroborate on similar issues, please submit contributions or testimonials.