National Relocation Van Lines is, if not the worst, certainly one of the worst moving companies in the U.S. They lie without compunction, and the service they provide is horrible.
If you should call them for information about your upcoming move, do not be misled by their assertion that they will beat the cost of any other moving company. Whatever price they give you at first (in order to get you to sign the contract) will increase as time goes on. We selected them for our move from South Carolina to central New York and were told that the price listed on the contract was a “binding agreement” (and, in fact, it said as much on the contract) and would not change no matter what. They lied.
The first problem arose when the movers came to pick up our things at our South Carolina home. Early on, NRVL had told us that all their moving people and trucks belonged to their company. Another lie; they subcontract everything. The subcontractors who arrived proceeded to tell us that with all the things we had in the house, the move would cost us more money. Unbelievably, I found that we were renegotiating the cost as the movers were at our door! I had previously provided the NRVL salesman with a list, room by room, of all our furniture and other big pieces like washer and dryer and canoe. He told me I didn’t need to send them the number of boxes we had, so I figured that, since they were in the moving business, they would extrapolate the approximate number of boxes we had based on the typical three bedroom house.
When the movers came to our door, all they had was the list I had given the NRVL salesman of the large items, no mention of boxes, so they assumed that was all they needed to deal with. Then they told us that if we wanted our furniture protected, we would have to pay for additional packing materials. Now I would have assumed that this was part of the cost (over $7,000 at that point). After all, how many people choose to move their things long distance with the probability that their furniture will be damaged in the process? I called the miscreant who was my salesperson about the extra charges, and he told me to speak to the NRVL customer service person and that she could adjust the price for me. Another lie. The price was never adjusted; we just paid more. Later, when I called the customer service person and complained about all this, she said the extra charges were due to the extra large item we had to move. She was referring to our canoe, and yes, this had been on the list we provided the company.
Our possessions needed to stay in storage for about two months because it took that long for us to close on our new house in New York. When we were ready, we called NRVL and set up a delivery date. I thought we were home free and the worst was behind us. Wrong. A van arrived at our new house, but it wasn’t a moving van with the special suspension one would have expected from a company that has the gall to call themselves National RelocationVan Lines. No, this vehicle was a commercial van used to haul heavy industrial equipment. Another sub-contractor. The owner of the van informed us that he had never moved household furnishings before. There wasn’t even a ramp on the back of the truck to ease things down. AND, worst of all, men started arriving at our doorstep that the driver of the truck had hired locally from CRAIG’S LIST!!!! Yes, that’s right. No insurance, take your chances. Maybe they’ve had experience, maybe they haven’t. Not to mention the fact that we didn’t know what kind of people these were; criminals? Possibly. The driver didn’t care. NRVL certainly didn’t. It was so unprofessional a job that they didn’t even put down plastic runners through the house to avoid tracking in mud and muck. And, because enough men hadn’t been hired, my husband and I—both in our sixties—ended up moving boxes and furniture just like the hired men. And that’s after paying over $8,000 for the privilege!! And yes, we had damaged items.
My only hope is that this review prevents someone else from having the headaches we had with this wretched company.
