Date: December 12, 2008
To: A.S.A.P. Relocations, Inc.
(By US Certified Mail as attachment to Letter of demand) From: Frank Bailey-Meier
Re.: Order Number 63117

At the time of the trucks arrival at my house in Santa Barbara I noticed that the crew had come without instruction from the head office. The first area they targeted was my storage shed in which all my construction tools were located. The workers proceeded to wrap and box my tools individually. I had to stop them and placed a call to the head-office to have the workers instructed. They had no idea that my trailer was to be shipped. My tools, and only my tools, were to be placed into the trailer and the trailer was to be sealed off for shipping. The reason for packing only my tools was that the purpose of my relocation to New Orleans was to rebuild four properties damaged by Katrina, and I needed to be ready to start work immediately after my arrival. Also items that were labeled “not to be shipped” were loaded onto the truck (i.e. vacuum cleaners, carpet shampoo machines etc.). These items did not belong to me. When confronted about these items, the workers claimed that they didn’t know what I was talking about. Only after stopping all work and placing a call to A.S.A.P. did they locate the items inside the already sealed trailer! All in all it took 4 calls to the office to keep the workers instructed correctly.
After everything was loaded onto the truck I was presented with a complete account of the above-mentioned items (boxes, etc.), including the individual prices and their total, which I signed. That grand total came to $ 4173.50 (which includes the $ 2400 of the original estimate). At that time I asked the driver, if I should follow them to the weigh-station, assuming that they had weighed the empty truck before coming to my house, and it was now time to re-weigh the truck to get the figure of how much weight my belongings represented. The driver responded by telling me that they never had any intention of weighing the truck in Santa Barbara, but I was welcome to follow them to San Jose, where they do all weighing at their own facility. As he started the truck, he told me that I would get the weight results faxed or mailed to me. With that he drove off!
Ever since then, I have requested to have all final paperwork send to me to complete my records of this move, have documentation of the total and final cost and justification for any charge beyond what I already had on paper from the day my stuff was picked up. Since my request was denied over and over I solicited help from the Santa Clara County's DA's Dept. of Mediation. After their involvement we thought we had come to some agreement over the total price (it had grown to almost triple the original estimate!). I sent them the money agreed upon and expected my belongings to be loaded and delivered to me.
Two nights ago I was informed by the truck-driver that he would arrive here in the next 24 hrs., that I still had a balance of their original claim and had to pay that full amount before they would unload my stuff!
I called the mediators and the company-office to find out where the extra charges came from, because, after 6 weeks of this I still had not received a stitch of paper work, except a threatening letter, saying that my belongings were slated for auction.
Tonight the truck-driver presented me with the bill which turned out to be the original from the day of the pick-up at my house, except his copy had items scratched out by hand, new numbers added, no initials next to the changes and no new signature, documenting who made the changes.
I offered them the balance, according to the contract I had, in cash, and to pay any other charges at a later date, once I could look over the new paper work and assure myself that the charges had merit.
Both, the DA's office and the local police-officers-I had to call them to prevent the truck from leaving-agreed that I was making every effort to resolve this impasse, but, since this was a 'civil matter', I had to let the truck go with all my belongings on it.

Respectfully,


Frank Bailey-Meier


P.S.:
You should know that I forwarded a description of events along with my letters of complaints to the DOT, Better Business Bureau of California and other consumer protection agencies.

March 23, 2009
to this date I have not received any communication from ASAP to solve this dispute other than demands of payment amounting to double their 'claimed cost' of appr. $2900.00 beyond of the moneys already sent to them. At this time I am getting only letters threatening auctioning my belongings or full payment of $4586.09. Any and all paperwork from ASAP to me has been testimony that my complaints to them since October 29, 2008 have been ignored as nonsense.
I strongly believe that this company needs to be exposed. The BBB of California has more than 130 complaints against this company and, according to the District Attorney Office of Santa Clara, the number of complaints are overwhelming.
Please, read my last communication to ASAP, which was, again, ignored in the letter I received today.
March 16, 2009


To Whom It may Concern,

This letter is in response to your last communication to me (no date on letter!).
Just to recall some of the important parts of the history of my dealings with your company, I want to remind you that I have informed you of my problems and dispute regarding your treatment of me as a customer since October 29, 2008 through December 12, 2008. December 12, 2008 was the supposed date of delivery of my belongings to my new place of residence at 8232 Hickory St, New Orleans LA. Throughout that entire time period you never saw the need to correct your wrongs and based all your opinions and decisions on me being wrong and claiming baseless disputes.
Since December 12, 2008 I have sent you repeatedly letters by way of certified mail explaining in detail what the nature of my dispute is, also informing you that I will never give my consent to auctioning my belongings, and that I will charge you with the compensatory costs I have incurred because of your decision not to release my belongings to me or, at least come up with some kind of solution to resolve this situation.
All your communications have reflected that you refuse to change the amount of financial obligation to you, even though I did inform you that I refuse the responsibility of any cost for the storage of my belongings. The simple reason for that is that you for two months did not acknowledge that there was a problem with the way you handled your end of our contract.
So, in closing, let me inform you of your financial responsibility to me. All cost, incurred to me as a direct result of not having availability to my tools and other items, are accompanied by receipts. Before I list all figures, let me inform you again that the sole purpose of relocating to New Orleans was for guaranteed employment as a builder. Contracts and their timelines were signed way before you entered your influence on my life. I have had numerous contracts with this client in previous years and the present obligation to him came from him knowing about my skill as a builder and reliability as a businessman.
All figures are up to date, but not limited to future expenses.

$ 4480.00 lost wages (documented and notarized) $ 977.66 replacement tools (future expense of big ticket items, i.e. table saw, etc., will be necessary)
$ 268.00 winter clothing for my 9 and 10 year old sons
$ 68.00 printer
$ 78.00 television set (since you’re holding all of my sets)



Your obligation to me stands at $ 5871.66.
All replacement costs listed above are below replacement value of items I already own, but are currently in your possession
The fact that my sole source of income to provide for my family is my ability as a builder, which has taken over 30 years of experience, makes it impossible for me to take this matter lightly.
If your next response does not show any change of attitude on your behalf, I see no other option than litigation to the fullest extend. Make no mistake, time is on my side.



Sincerely,


Frank Bailey-Meier

Case # 63117


It is my hope that this company will be investigated,
sincerely,

Frank Bailey-Meier


for any questions, please, contact me at (cell) 626-242-5430 or at [email protected]