WARD NORTH AMERICAN VAN LINES

Is there such a thing as a good long haul moving company? I'm not sure. But Ward North American ain't it. While I can say the first half of my move went smoothly--they nailed the weight estimate from our Facetime call, the load out movers in Austin were professional, organized, and meticulous. But all fell apart the second my items were moved out of storage and placed en route to my new home in Chicago. First of all, Ward outsourced my contract to another company--Berger--without informing me of the transfer. When the day finally came to receive my items, the clearly unvetted driver was 4.5 hours late. He "couldn't find a shuttle truck." Pretty sure he didn't start LOOKING for a shuttle truck for my 1 Bedroom Apartment worth of items until the morning he was supposed to deliver. When they finally arrived, they walked up to my door HOLDING pieces of my clothing IN THEIR ARMS. "Where was the box all of that was in?" I asked. "We had to unpack it to make it fit in the truck." Right. Off to a great start. When I glance in the truck, I notice that every single piece of furniture, which had been beautifully wrapped in plastic and furniture pads by the movers in Austin, was crammed together, no longer wearing its protection. My hunch is that in an attempt to make his life easier this trucker (who was NOT a mover based on his lack of dolly, furniture pads, etc.) unwrapped everything and threw it away before he even got to my apartment building, cramming it in the smaller box truck to make it fit. The first thing unloaded after aforementioned my loose coats and shoes is my bicycle. Which is crushed. I don't understand where you get the idea that smashing an $1100 bike in a truck is a good idea. The handlebars point one way, the front wheel points another. I hope it's reparable. The top of my solid wood dining table is cracked--clearly it was dropped. An antique chair lost a leg in pieces. Did I mention this driver's coworker was his FOURTEEN YEAR-OLD CHILD? And that they were incredibly uppity about wearing masks during a global pandemic, all the while, hacking and coughing as they carried items up the stairs. The fact that I did not contract COVID from this experience is a miracle. And what does Ward North American do to take care of the damage? A whopping $70 credit back to me. After pushing a little harder, they agreed to give me an additional $400 dollars (after promising $600) out of their GOOD WILL. Look, I understand things get damaged in transit. Glasses break, boxes get dented, etc. That's a risk you have to take when you can't move your own items cross country. But when you completely fail to uphold a reasonable standard of care and then pat yourselves on the back for "goodwill," well, hypocrisy doesn't begin to describe it. I am not one to take down a customer service representative who is clearly doing all they can as a cog in a machine. The Ward employees I interacted with were apologetic and kind. But as a corporate entity, Ward clearly has some work to do. Long story short: JUST DON'T.

They told us with would take three days to pack and then they turned up a day early and told us our stuff could be packed in two days. This meant everything packed in the last day, Saturday was packed quickly. All of our large furniture was dissassembled whether it had ever been taken apart before or not. All parts were thrown in one big box called "parts". Unbeknownst to us our stuff shared space on the van with another customer. Our stuff was delivered three months later to our new house. They were three hours later on the day having had an trouble. Our boxes were labeled with our second name and the name of one item in the box. There was not consistent room labels we were told that's because "the room in this house are different" We did not use the offered unpacking service. Many boxes were not labeled, several were stacked in rows 4 boxes high against the basement wall. Parts for furniture was in several different rooms. At 9 pm they discovered they had left a section of our stuff Inc Texas an had to return 3 days later. Furnitrecwas reassembled by slotting screws into holes an not tightening then. We had 72 photos of damaged items, including but not limited to sofa cushions packed with oil lamps from the yard, soda spilled on the dining table, missing parts, console tables damaged during disassembly where they were screws forced out of glue joints, missing children's room boxes (apparently they were delivered to the people we shared the truck with) drawers of dressers left to swing loose in transit and unable to close again, kitchen plates packed with bone China ("because those rooms are next to each other") children's posters squashed into boxes, armchair legs all scraped from rolling in parts boxes, rugs creased from being squashed after rolling. This company were focused on saving space in their warehouse and truck and time in transit from one job to he next. This was a corporate move for which I am sure they were comfortable compensated. A less professional more incompetent outfit I have not met whose obviously lack of customer care is only made worse by their customer care representatives who make all the right noises but do bugger all

.

From coming out to make an estimate to the delivery and unloading of our furniture, everyone with whom we dealt was most helpful. We were especially impressed with the two men who came and packed up or furniture and then drove and delivered it to our place in Bellevue.

Five stars.

It was great. We didn't have any problems.

The salesman was great and very helpful. The office staff, not so much. The woman who was our primary contact in Ward's Austin office never seemed to really know what was going on and never seemed that eager to help us. We kept having to turn to the saleman to get answers. The packers seemed efficient and friendly, but the bottom line, there were too many and quot;little thingsand quot; that were broken and damaged when we unpacked. The greatest damage so far with packed items has been with little and quot;odds and endsand quot; that our daughters had in their rooms. In some cases stuff was just piled into wrapping paper and tossed in a box. The worst has been with crushable items made from paper, cardboard, and fabric - no effort was made to prevent crushing. The driver and his assistant were great - helpful, friendly, went out of their way to help us out. However, we still had too many little nicks and dings in our furniture (a lot of it made it unscathed, but the master bedroom furniture in particular did not). I think a lot of the problem was with the men who unloaded at the destination. Unlike in Austin, the unloaders were not uniformed employees but appeared to be hires and quot;off the streetand quot;. My understanding is that the unloaders are outside Ward's control, but North American needs to step up and exert more control here or having a national brand is pointless. We had one prior and quot;big moveand quot;, 10 years ago from California to Texas, and we had much less damage from that move.

They arrived on time to pack our home. They were careful of my belongings and packed them as I would have packed them. The next day they arrived on time and completed packing and loaded the truck. After they completed our home they went to our storage locker and loaded those items on the truck. They were supposed to deliver our items the next day, but due to a paperwork glitch in the main office which put them extremely behind their time, the delivery was pushed back one day. This was inconvenient for us, but fortunately we had planned for any circumstance that may arise. They arrived at our home that Saturday at the time promised and unloaded the truck. They were very professional and apologetic for the delay in delivery. They were very careful not to scrape or damage our walls or floors. They assembled our furniture as specified in the contract and were more than happy to move the furniture a few times until I was sure of its placement. They removed all the packing material from items they had unpacked. The damage sustained was minimal from the move. Two candlesticks that looked like metal but were of a ceramic compound, were broken in half. Our refrigerator arrived with a small dent in the side which did not interfere with its operation. We did pay for a 100% replacement insurance with them, but did not make a claim. We were satisfied with the overall experience.

The pricing was high and I told them that. They told me that if I got other bids from legitimate movers they would consider that. They were very prompt and very, very thorough. They were very nice. It was too expensive for me. They gave me a very detailed written quote. They did fine for what they did. I don’t think I am going to use them because of the cost. Their cost was out of line. What they did was very, very good.

I took 5 bids. Ward was the highest, but by far the most meticulous and detailed. Their weight estimate (the most critical factor in a move) was within 200 pounds of the actual weight (about 10,200lbs.). The other bidders were missing items on their weight estimate inventories and many were slow to respond to questions. Ward completed this job efficiently, on time, didn't damage anything, were professional and courteous and there were NO surprises, including price.

We called Mr. Paul Noel, Ward’s sales consultant for an estimate. He came out to house and went to the store room and inventoried all items. Mr. Noel was very nice, professional and thorough. He explained all the documents and procedures. From the inventory Mr. Noel provided a “Not to Exceed” estimate of approximately $3700 based on an estimated weight of 18,070 lbs. Ward would provide a Maximum Value Protection for $768, but we declined this, since our own renters and homeowner’s insurance would cover this according to our insurance agent. This did not include packing as we had chosen to pack our selves. We signed the proposal on 4/21/10 with the move scheduled for pick up in Georgetown and Round Rock on 5/17/10 with delivery in Houston on 5/18/10. Once agreement was made, Ms. Amy Cortez at the office kept in touch with us weekly. Ward requires payment by cashier’s check or credit card. For a credit card they debit the amount just before the move. However since there was the possibility that the actual weight would be less, Amy agreed to let us provide a cashier’s check for $3,200 and a personal check for the rest. Later after the load was weighed, it was found to be less than the estimate thus reducing the cost to less than $3,200. On 5/17/10 Ryan (the driver), Chris, Brett, William and Jeff show up right on schedule. We found them to be courteous, cheerful and hard working. They lay mats and card board to protect the floors during the move. Using packing blankets and shrink wraps they wrapped all the furniture. After finishing the house, the crew went to the rental storage room and quickly completed that. The next morning they arrived at the house in Houston right on time. Of the Austin crew only Ryan, Chris came with the truck. Two other helpers from the Houston office showed up to help, Bobby and Frank. Again everyone was courteous, cheerful and hard working.The unloading was done quickly and before they left they check to see if we need some furniture relocated which we did.

The company in Asia packed all of our property, but this company moved us from the West Coast. They unpacked all of our belongings, and they didn't break anything. They had a lot of respect for our property and us. They delivered it on time, and I had no complaints about anything. The company paid for our move.