Lou de Almeida

We have moved numerous times over the years and this last move had to rate as one of our worst ever! We were moving from St Thomas to Belmont, with a week between the move out and the move in dates. We signed a contract with Campbell Bros to move our belongings out, have everything put into sea cans and then a week later have the sea cans delivered to Belmont. The crew that showed up for the move out had a truck - no sea cans - and weren't aware that our goods were to go into storage. They actually did a great job of moving the stuff out of the house, being very careful and not doing any damage to the goods or to the property. The crew chief did some checking with head office and was told that they would be unloading the goods into sea cans back at the warehouse. We were concerned about the fact that our goods were now going to be handled one extra time - instead of "house-sea cans- house", we were going to have to go to "house-truck-sea cans-house". When we called the office, they had the perfect solution for us (sic) ... just pay the extra insurance if you're concerned with the extra handling. Now, isn't THAT a great business model??? Screw up the plans/signed contract and then have your customer pay extra for that screw up? Anyway, when we called on the day prior to the scheduled delivery in Belmont, we were told that the movers would be there between 8 and 8:30 on the following day. So, we went ahead and made plans with friends to help out and with work to fit that schedule. At around 4:30 pm that same day, we get a call back from the office to tell us that the crew won't be there until noon now! On the day of the move in, we waited and waited and still no sign of the movers. When we called around noon to find their whereabouts, we were told that the crew would be there within the hour. That hour and a couple of others passed and eventually a truck showed up with a sea can a little after 3 pm. That crew proceeded to tell us that our goods weren't actually moved from the original truck into sea cans ... in fact, it was moved from the truck onto pallets in their warehouse and then from the pallets it had to be moved into the sea cans! So, our concern with extra handling was actually doubled now - two extra handling of our goods meant two extra opportunities to do damage. And the crew that dropped off the goods had no idea as to what they were doing - one young fellow was running around (literally) on and off the truck and within the house just dropping stuff anywhere, two other young fellows had to be told (by us) on how to properly handle various pieces of furniture. Just a total mess, with the only goal in mind being to get the job done as quickly as possible - we were told that this crew had just done a 10,000 lb job and didn't expect to be having to do our job as well. Suffice it to say, a number of pieces of furniture were damaged - one clearly as they placed it, and they were aware of the damage and didn't say anything to us. At the end of it all, the email we got from Campbell Bros was basically a "too bad, so sad" email - telling us that they had not charged us for the return trip to the yard - NOT TRUE, because they charged us the 1/2 hour trip from St Thomas to London - and to file a claim if we had any damage at the normal rate of $0.60 per pound per article. And, they charged us for the container rental fee and container usage fee ($990 + taxes) when our goods weren't even stored in the containers! We will be filing a complaint with the local BBB over this, but we urge you to stay away from these people. UPDATE: After 5 months of back and forth with the company and the involvement of the Better Business Bureau as well as the Canadian Association of Movers, we have reached a mutually satisfactory settlement on this issue