SUMMARY: (details follow):

Neighbor's was either purposely deceptive of culpably negligent, with a clear profit motive, in their failure to inform me of the provisions of the insurance company that they recommended.

Neighbor's gave me false information about the consequences of packing my own cartons, and profited from the sale of the packing materials.

Neighbor's failed to deliver boxes as scheduled.

Neighbor's failed to provide packers as scheduled, and failed to notify me properly of either the box delivery or packer problem.

Neighbor's was very slow in providing me with standard insurance documentation necessary for the move. My emails and repeated phone calls were ignored for several weeks.

Neighbors failed to provide me with the empty weight of the truck prior to the scheduled move after two requests.

Neighbor's refused to accept my offer to rectify the packing/insurance problem.


Details:

Neighbor's Moving and Storage failed to provide service as promised and also failed to provide information that it knew, or should have known, that was material to the contract. These failures resulted in lost time and a potential significant increase in the cost of the move had I elected to continue to do business with this company. Neighbor's retained the down payment ($707.50) after my repeated attempts to forgive previous failures and go forward with a very reasonable solution to the problems they had created. They refused all such offers. Details are as follows:

Phone conversations with Neighbor's agent Vans Johnson preceded the signing of the contract. After discussing the inventory and all the details of the move, I found that it would be easier and more convenient to pack the majority of my goods myself, with a specified list of more difficult items to be packed by Neighbor's. Mr. Johnson agreed and specifically told me that there was no difference to them whether I packed the goods or they packed them. He suggested that I purchase a set of boxes and packing materials from Neighbor's and pack up what I could, and then have Neighbor's come the day before the move to pack up a list of special items, including large pictures, musical instruments, a plasma television, and some electronic equipment.

During our discussions, I also informed Mr. Johnson that I would need very specific insurance information from Neighbor's regarding their liability, worker's compensation, and additional named insured according to the condo that I was moving to. This information was necessary to allow the move and also to secure a move-in date.

Mr. Johnson made arrangements for the boxes to be delivered on May 1st, with the packers for the special items to work on May 12th, and the move to take place on May 13th.

I began a series of emails to Mr. Johnson and Kathryn Bradbury beginning April 22nd requesting the insurance/worker's comp documents that we had discussed. These were the only two contacts that I had with Neihghbor's, Kathryn being the agent who took the down payment and sent a confirmation email with the names of two suggested companies for moving insurance.

My emails went completely unanswered through April 29th, so I was unable to make arrangements with my condo management for reservation for the elevator, etc.

On April 30th, I phoned Neighbor's to try to get the insurance problem solved. I spoke with sales manager Paul, and I gave him all the details about the additional insured that needed to be included with the insurance documents. He assured me that he would personally take care of it, using his assistant Jennifer to immediately get the required documents to me electronically so that I could forward them to the condo management.
He failed to act as promised. I received no documents from him or Jennifer on the 30th.

The boxes for my packup were scheduled for the morning of May 1st. At 11:30 a.m. I phoned Neighbot's to find out why the boxes had not been delivered. I spoke with sales manager Andre, and he assured me that the boxes were on the way and would be delivered. At 1:30 p.m. I again phoned Andre to find out where the boxes were, and he again reassured me that he had been in touch with the dispatcher and that they were on the way.

At 5:00 p.m after having waited all day, I phoned Neighbor's again, spoke with Andre, and insisted on speaking with the dispatcher. I spoke with Tony, and he informed me that my truck had broken down and that I would not be receiving the boxes, and that I would not receive them on Sunday, but Monday morning at the earliest. Tony became very evasive when I asked him when the truck had broken down, when or if he had spoken with Andre, and why he had not bothered to phone me when he knew there was a problem with the delivery. He would not take any responsibility for not informing anyone of his delivery problems, if the truck story were in fact true. I had wasted an entire day waiting for the boxes, and insisted on a delivery the next morning. After some time on hold, Tony came back to the phone and infomed me that the boxes would be delivered at 8 a.m on Sunday, May 2nd.

Around 9 a.m the next morning, a driver for Neighbor's phoned me from his truck to tell me he would not be there until about 9:30, because he claimed MapQuest did not show him the proper location for my condo, 2001 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137. I entered my address into the MapQuest site, and of course it shows perfectly well where I live. The driver did show up around 9:30 and delivered the boxes so that I could start my packing.

On Monday, May 3rd, I phoned Neighbor's again and spoke with Jennifer, the lady who was supposed to have gotten the insurance documents to me. She told me that Paul had never given her the required additional insured information as he had promised.

I then asked to speak to the owner of the business, since I had lost confidence that Neighbor's was going to be able to do anything it had promised correctly or on time. I was able to speak with a Sandra Bradbury, who did her best to reassure me that all of the insurance documents would be taken care of and that going forward, all would be well. I was also able to speak with Louis {Massaro ??} the owner, and he assured me that all would be ok going forward. I asked him just to assure me that the insurance would be taken care of, and that the packers would show up on time on the morning of the 12th and that the movers would show up on time on the 13th. He assured me of all items.

After several more emails to Sandra Bradbury, I finally got the required insurance forms. Oddly, they had been issued on May 5th, and were set to expire on May 30th, indicating that Neighbor's did not have the insurance coverage promised at the outset by Vans Johnson. However, the documents that they finally did send to appeared to be in order as long as the move took place prior to May 30th. These documents came to me on May 6th, after numerous emails and a supposedly special effort from Sandra Bradbury to do what all the others had promised.

My wife and I scheduled our work around the 12th and 13th to accommodate the packers and movers, and we carefully packed all that we could beginning on May 2nd. We both were going to be out of town on the 9th, 10th, and 11th due to our work, but we made arrangements to be back for the the appointments.
Sandra Bradbury left a voice message on my home phone on the 11th of May, saying that she had a few questions about the packup which was scheduled for the following morning. She did not bother to call my cell phone or my wife's cell phone.
When my wife returned from her work late in the evening on the 11th, she picked up the message from our home phone. The next morning, at 9:00 a.m my wife phoned Sandra to find out what questions she had, and only got Sandra's voice mail. She left a message for Sandra to return her call. The packers had not shown up.

At 10:30 she again phoned Sandra, and again got her voice mail. My wife phoned the main number for Neighbor's to get through to someone without leaving another voicemail message. Mr. Vans Johnson answered by coincidence, and he went over to Sandra to get her to answer the phone.

Sandra asked my wife about the inventory which needed to be packed up. This was something that Sandra and Vans had been given at the outset of the arrangements, and in fact Sandra had the list in front of her the whole time. There was no real question about what needed packing. The truth finally came out later that Neighbor's had double booked the packers and that they were not planning to be at my apartment for their scheduled packup. Sandra wanted to do it all the next day, which would make a long day even longer. Mr. Johnson had suggested that it be done in 2 stages, as scheduled, to allow the movers to simply come in on the 13th and pick up the boxes. That was HIS plan, and Neighbor's explicit commitment to me, up to and including the owner's reassurance that they would be there on the 12th.

When I returned from work early in the afternoon, I was able to speak directly to Sandra myself. I did not want to lose another day, and make the moving day even longer, by allowing the packers to come on the day of the move. I asked about the possibility of getting more packing material and packing some of the additional items myself, and the issue of “owner packed items” came up with regard to the insurance I had purchased. I asked Sandra if “owner packed items” were covered by the replacement insurance that I had ordered from the company that they recommended. She claimed to not have knowledge of the details of my coverage.

I checked with the insurance company, MovingInsurance.com, underwritten by Allianz, and in fact owner packed cartons are excluded from the insurance.

THIS INFORMATION WAS NOT AVAILABLE ON MOVINGINSURANCE.COM'S application form for the insurance. Several days after the insurance is purchased, with a 50 dollar cancellation fee, another document is forwarded from the underwriter. The details of the owner packed cartons is only contained in the second, delayed document.

Neighbor's knew, or should have know, of this stipulation in the company that they recommended. This should have been presented to me as an option in the entire packing/moving discussion with Mr. Johnson, who actually gave me assurance that it did NOT matter who packed the boxes. That is the reason I chose to pack them myself, at my leisure. Had I known of the insurance problem beforehand or during the application process, I surely would have elected to have Neighbor's pack the entire shipment.

The options at this late hour were few. It was the afternoon of May 12th, the packers had not shown up, I had almost an entire shipmet of owner packed cartons that were not insurable, and Neighbor's wanted to delay the rest of the process until the 13th because they had double scheduled their packers.
I offered this solution: Neighbor's could come out, inspect the boxes that I had packed and certify them as ok and insurable for shipment. I told them there were only about a dozen boxes that I was concerned about that had some items that might be broken. The rest were all unbreakable items like clothing and books. If necessary, the packers could unpack and repack the necessary items to make sure they were ok.

Sandra told me that they would not do that. In fact, they said that if I wanted to do it that way, they would need to unpack all the items that I had packed and repack them. THERE WOULD BE UNPACKING AND REPACKING FEES FOR THIS. They quoted me an hourly rate of 74 dollars for the unpacking/repacking, as well as exorbitant charges (29 dollars extra ???) for each wardrobe box. They took no responsibility for the situation that they had caused, and had a very real profit motive for advising me of the inconsequence of my personal packing efforts.

I thought that my solution of having their packers redo a few boxes as necessary and checking the remainder to allow insurability was a very fair offer at this point. They refused.

I informed Sandra on May 12th that I could no longer do business with their company. I had no confidence that they would even show up the next day, let alone having to deal with their negligence or deception concerning the insurance. I requested a refund of the down payment, plus 50 dollars for the insuarance policy cancellation, and an addittional 200 dollars for the inconvenience. They refused.

The next day, I informed Sandra that I would settle for a simple refund of the $707.50 only, and that I would pay for the insurance company cancellation, and also the full retail price for the boxes that they had delivered (200 dollars). My request was for the $707.50 only. They refused.

I attempted to talk directly with the owner Louis, but he refused to answer my repeated phone messages left on his extension.