NIGHTMARE – do NOT use AMERICAN VAN LINES – Here’s what I went through:
This was the worst moving experience I have had (and I have moved 4 times in the past 5 years).
When I first spoke with my representative, Don Otis, regarding a moving quote, I was told that since I was one of the first people to be booked on my particular trucks, I would be given "customizable" delivery dates -- a 5 day window instead of the usual 10-14 day window. My contract showed that pick up was to be on June 22 or June 23 and delivery between June 25-29.
On Friday, June 17, I received a call from customer service. She said there was going to be a truck coming through Oklahoma City on Monday, June 20. I was asked if there was "any way" that I could have my things packed and picked up 2 to 3 days EARLY. I was on vacation that weekend, changed plans and came home to Oklahoma City early to finish packing. I took Monday, June 20 off work since they were coming to pick up everything, and I booked a hotel room for both Monday and Tuesday night since I still had to be in Oklahoma City for work and I did not expect to have a bed (or any other belongings). I was told the pick up would be between 9am and 12pm on Monday, June 20.
No one ever came on Monday, June 20; I also never received a call from my representative, from customer service or from the driver explaining why they were not there to pick up my things. At 12:15pm, I called AVL customer service, who had absolutely no explanation as to why my pick up did not happen. They claimed to call the driver, but "could not get him to answer his phone"...this went on all afternoon on Monday, June 20. No one, at any time, was able to get in touch with the driver.
Tuesday, June 21: Still absolutely NO explanation as to why my pick up did not happen. I had spent HOURS on hold with customer service with absolutely no responses or explanations on Monday, so on Tuesday I called my representative, Don Otis, and asked him to try to help get me answers. After several hours, I received a call from Don, who said he had spoken with my driver and that my pick up would be between 3:30-4:30 pm on Tuesday, June 21. (In the meantime, Kevin, from customer service, called to ask if my pick up had gone smoothly the day before -- the lack of communication and irresponsibility of AVL was such that your own customer service rep, the one ASSIGNED to my particular move, did not even know whether or not my pick up happened. At 4:30pm, still no one had arrived and I had received no explanation. A total of 16 calls were made on June 21 to customer service and my representative, and not a single straight answer was given to me. I was given the driver's phone number on that day as well; I made 8 calls to the driver and sent 2 text messages; Linton (the driver) did not answer a single call or respond to a text message. He finally called at 9:06pm on Tuesday saying that he was still over 3 hours away from Oklahoma City and would be there the pick up my things at 6am on Wednesday, June 22. WHY was I told that pick up would be between 3:30 and 4:30 pm if at 9:00 pm the driver was still 3 hours away --- I received nothing but lies all day long.

Wednesday, June 22: After swearing that they would be at my house at 6am, the driver/van did not show up until 6:40am. To make matters worse, it was one of the most unprofessional situations I had seen. The driver had an adult assistant/helper, as well as two CHILDREN, ages 10 and 11, who helped them carry boxes and load the truck --- unprofessional. The kids were yelling and screaming going up and down the stairs, awaking neighbors.
When speaking to Linton, the driver, I asked why he was 2 days late without ever calling me. I also asked why he had not answered his phone whenever customer service and dispatch had been calling him for the past two days. He said that he needed to get more gas for his truck and that AVL had refused to allow him to charge any more fuel on his fuel card, so he got mad and refused to drive or answer his phone.
As a driver for a huge, national company, I find it VERY hard to believe that #1. the company is not aware of gas mileage of their trucks and do not give the drivers money for fuel to cover their trips, and #2. that the drivers actually run out of gas THIS often (as you'll see below, I was told on another occasion that the driver "ran out of gas" and this is why he was late with the delivery). He also said he was in a place with poor cell phone reception and this was why he hadn't answered my calls -- I don't believe you can find a single place in the USA that doesn't not have cell phone reception for up to 12 hours at a time -- again, endless lies.
During my pick up, I asked Linton when he thought my things would be delivered in Florida (again, my signed contract said June 25-29 were my delivery dates). He said he did not know about the delivery date; when I told him about my contract, he laughed and said the company "lied to me" about customizable dates. He called dispatch right then and when he got off the phone he said dispatch told him my things would be delivered by the 29th of June. He finished the pick up and was one his way.
Thursday, June 23: I received a voicemail from Kevin with customer service, "Confirming" my delivery for "6/29." He also said, "of course, if there are any changes, we will call you."
As my confirmed delivery date approached, I made my way to Florida. On June 28, one day prior to my, again, "CONFIRMED" delivery date, I had not received any calls to tell me a time frame for my delivery the next day. I made 23 calls to customer service on Tuesday, June 28, and at no point that day was I told where the driver was. I also called the driver 4 times that day and sent him a text message -- no response at all. After spending the majority of the day on the phone with customer service, Kevin from customer service called at 7pm and said my delivery would most likely now be on Friday, July 1.
Please note: throughout my quote, pick up and delivery disaster of a "process", I was told REPEATEDLY about "confirmed" dates, promised to be called if there were "any changes to the schedule, " and AT NO TIME IN THE ENTIRE PROCESS WAS I NOTIFIED OF CHANGES without first spending HOURS on the phone trying to get information. There was not a single instance of Customer Service taking initiative and calling to notify me of changes. Kevin assured me he would call me back on a daily basis, and not a single time did he follow through. I eventually spoke with a customer service "manager", Andrea, who also promised to make note of Kevin's behavior and she said she personally would call me back at the end of the day with information...again, absolutely no response from Andrea as well.
Thursday, June 30 - Saturday, July 1 -- A constant run around of lies, lack of answers, confusion. Again, the driver "wasn't answering his phone", I was never told where in the country the driver was, and my delivery date somehow would get bumped by "a few hours" to "the next day" on a daily basis. I understand that things come up -- delays, flat tires, running out of gas...but the amount of times I was given the same excuses is unbelievable. Kevin told me that they ran out of gas and that was the reason for the delay --- running out of gas may delay things by 3-4 hours, but in no way do I believe this is what resulted in a 4 DAY delay past my "customizable" dates of June 25-29 as listed on my contract. Over these days, I called AVL 19 times and received no definite answers; I called Linton, the driver, 2 times with no answer
Again, I still received no answers regarding where he actually was and why he was 4 days past contract.
When Linton finally did arrive, at 3:30 pm on Sunday July 3 (with contract delivery dates of June 25-29), he again had the same two young children with him. After a few hours, it appeared that most of my things had been unloaded, the movers had not come up with boxes in over half an hour, and I was unpacking in my apartment. Linton had not come up for me to sign the final paperwork. I was about to have to leave, so I went down to find him.
When I walked downstairs, the AVL truck was still outside but Linton was nowhere to be found. Then I saw the two young kids carrying boxes up the stairs of another building of the apartment complex. I walked over and found a man in a Budget rent a truck and told him I was looking for my movers. Right then, I saw Linton coming down the stairs of the neighboring building. He laughed when he saw me and said he was "doing some moonlighting, a little extra side work." --- HE HAD NOT YET FINISHED MY JOB YET HE HAD FOUND A WAY TO MAKE EXTRA MONEY ON THE SIDE HELPING TO UNLOAD SOMEONE HE DID NOT KNOW. I told him I now understood why he was 4 days late.
Linton came upstairs and I signed my paperwork; I assumed he then went on his way. Over an hour later, I realized that I was missing a table. I immediately called and sent him a text message about it, then walked outside...only to see that HIS TRUCK WAS STILL THERE! He was STILL unloading for other, random people, DELAYING all the other AVL paying customers whose things were still on the same truck mine had been on -- completely ridiculous and unprofessional.
I have never dealt with a more unprofessional, disrespectful and unorganized company. Save yourself from stress and fury – USE SOMEONE ELSE!!!

This company is the worst. They lie, they weigh your furniture four times and tell you each time they re-weighed it the furniture weighs more than it did the previous time. Did my things gain weight while sitting on the truck?
They damage your things and lose (steal) your property. American Van Lines delivered my furniture two days late: on a Sunday - when they originally promised it would be delivered on Friday. I lost a day of work at my new job waiting for the movers, who decided they could not get it there on Friday and called me at 5:00 pm Friday to tell me it would now be there on Sunday. My condo association does not allow move-ins on Sunday. Their reaction? too bad. They threatened to leave my stuff in the street. I had to pay for a maintenance person to come in on his day off plus I had to pay a fine to my condo association because they did not want me moving in on a Sunday. These people could not have cared less.
Use anyone but this company.

I hired American Van Lines for my move from Salt Lake City to Atlanta and it was a terrible experience. They hired a subcontractor who then hired their own subcontractor. When he showed up at my house he insisted that I hadn't packed my items properly and that I needed to buy moving boxes from him or else he wouldn't put them on the truck. I told him that I was fine with the way that they were packed and I would assume liability for damages. He charged me between $15-25 for each cardboard box. I don't think that a shovel and rake worth about $10 each needed to be packed in 2 boxes for an additional $50 but I needed to move that day and didn't have a choice.

It took almost 3 weeks for my items to arrive and when they did he had lost my new $400 bike. Unfortunately when he picked up my items I had to sign an agreement that lost/damanged items would be valued at 60 cents per pound so after much back and forth with their claims department they offered me $24. I've tried to reason with them hoping that they would see how unhappy I was that I paid over $3000 for the move and they had lost an expensive item. The claims agent told me that "I should think of it like I had gone out for a nice dinner only to discover that I had a parking ticket while dining" and that "overall it sounds like I had a pretty good moving experience compared to most".

I also think that they were not honest about the weight of my items. The weight came up much, much higher than the initial estimate that I was given with a complete inventory of my house even though I gave away many large, heavy items after the estimate but before the move. I'm sure they know that there is no way for you to weight a tractor trailer yourself so what can you do?

Long story short, they know that people don't have a lot of leway when the moving truck is at your house and you need to move that day and they certainly take advantage of people. I would advise shopping around for a more reliable company and carefully understanding the carrier's liability before you sign anything or give them a deposit.

To say we were dissatisfied with their services is a vast understatement. This company is HORRIBLE. First, they called us the week of our move and doubled the estimate they'd originally given us, putting us in financial hardship with no option to hire another company because of the late date. Then, on the day of our move they attempted to charge us for a shuttle service to move our things from storage to the moving van when they were clearly told exactly how large our storage facility was ahead of time. Lastly - and by far the worst part - their driver continually told us he would arrive on a certain date and then called each of those days to say he would arrive a day later. We will move ourselves next time and are disgusted by their complete lack of customer service. Do not hire this company for your move.

Worst company ever for anything.
Contracted a month in advance and paid ahead to coordianate move.
They did not bring American Van Lines truck to your house. They try and find some other carrier.
They forgot about my order and there was no truck, and then lied that they couldnt find a truck.
They are a trucking company. Go out in the parking lot and get a truck.
They had a month notice.
Do not recommend.
Worst experience ever.
Don't worry, because they offer this: I'm sorry.
That always helps.
I hope they go out of business