Greenland Van Lines

I confirmed all the details of our move with Samantha by email – by the time I called to book and pay the deposit by credit card, we had sent 22 emails back-and-forth to specify and confirm the details (she made a sarcastic comment on the phone that I must REALLY like email). The only special request with our move was that we would be picking up some items at their storage facility in Scarborough as we would be living with relatives for a few months before moving to Kitchener – no problem, said Samantha.

I was told that I would be contacted one week before the move-out day with the timeframe that the movers would be at our place on move-out day. I contacted Greenland by email and phone a few times that week before as I had not heard back, including two phone calls the day before – finally at 4:58PM the day before, I received an email from Samantha to tell me that the movers would be there between 8-10 the next day.

The move-out in Calgary was great! The move-out company was a third-party so Greenland clearly outsources or contracts out their work – not a big deal to me as these guys did a great job.

Right after the movers left, I emailed Samantha that:
• “We separated all our stuff that we will be picking up from storage in Scarborough, but the guys said that they will be organizing that in Ontario. The items that we will be picking up are labelled with red dots - should I also send you a list of box numbers so your team in Scarborough can have these at the front of the storage space for our pick-up?
• Regarding pick-up in Scarborough, how much notice do you need? We are planning to pick-up during the 2nd or 3rd week in August.
• Regarding the final move to our home in Kitchener-Waterloo, how much notice do you need for this move? We are planning to move into our home in October.”

I had to follow-up one more time before receiving a reply from Samantha, but on July 16th (almost 1 week later) I received a reply:
“I will inform my warehouse manager about red stickers, Please let us know at least 2 weeks in advance. To move in Kitchener, ON please give us 1 week notice”.

I asked Samantha for some information regarding the storage facility as my insurance broker wanted it for insurance purposes. Samantha sent me a reply the same day promised to reply with the information “shortly”. After 5 follow-ups, I finally gave up trying to get this information from her.

On August 3rd, I gave Samantha more than 2 weeks notice to let her know we would be picking up the “red dot” items on August 20th. After 3 follow-ups, I was finally able to chat with Samantha by phone on August 15th – she told me that we would have to pay for 3 hours of time for the guys to pull-out our red dot items as they did not know and now everything was packed tightly in the warehouse! I sent her the email in which she said “I will inform my manager” and then she informed me that we had not paid yet so she couldn’t help us anyway – I told her that nobody had even contacted me to let me know how much we owe! She apologized and blamed the “accountant”. She then sent me a bill on August 21st that was $1000 overcharged due to extra fees and fees that were charged more than we agreed upon originally (good thing that I had everything in email, right?).

Samantha’s email to me:
“Please check the attach file, there will be additional fee for pick-up from our ware house! You did not mention anything like that to me we picked up your furniture on April 26th and you inform us with that information on July which your goods were already in our storage!”

I sent her the emails that we had sent back-and-forth that proved otherwise, but that was the last I heard from Samantha, despite 13 follow-up emails and phone calls – at one time, after speaking with someone who picked up Samantha’s phone and asking for Samantha, I was put on hold – I waited for 10 minutes then hung up and called again – I let it ring for 12 minutes then someone picked it up and hung up!

So besides having to cancel the cargo van I rented to pick-up these red dot items, I had to waste my time trying to speak with ANYONE at Greenland. I finally got through to Sarah and had to explain EVERYTHING all over to her. She updated a couple errors on the bill, but not everything – when I identified the items that were still wrong, she replied “I am aware of the charges and as I mentioned in my last email I WILL NOT BE REMOVING THESE CHARGES.” I sent her ALL the emails that Samantha and I had sent back-and-forth months earlier and finally Sarah relented except for the stair fee, which Samantha had assured me would not apply. I was too tired to fight anymore and waste anymore time so I just sucked it up and paid the $150 stair fee. I just wanted to schedule our move-in and be done with Greenland!

We finally scheduled our move-in on October 15th (so we were without our items that we planned to pick-up for almost 2 months) and I was promised that we would receive a call on Oct 13th to confirm the time. To my surprise, we did receive a call on the afternoon of October 13th so that was exciting (sarcasm)!

The move-in went well – only 2 dining room chairs were missing and another one was damaged. I dealt with Brock regarding the missing chairs and the damage claim and he was by far the most responsive employee (except once we settled – now I am not sure where he is ever since I asked him when I will be paid). On November 9th (three weeks after our move-in), the 2 missing chairs were dropped off. On November 19th I agreed to accept a settlement that paid for the repair of the chair (I had to find a furniture repair shop in Kitchener and drop-off and pick-up, but the settlement covered the charge from the furniture repair shop). However, it is December 3rd today and I have not received a reply from Brock yet to let me know when this cheque will be received – how this “accountant” at Greenland keeps his job, I am not sure.

Overall, I am NOT impressed with Greenland to say the least – very poor customer service – they will say whatever they need for you to book and then once they have your stuff they fall off the face of the earth. It would not be fair to give them 0 stars as the movers that they outsourced or contracted to move-out and move-in were great – the 2 stars that I did award were really earned by the movers, so nothing that Greenland did themselves. I would not recommend Greenland.