Allied Van Lines

I had a great experience from beginning to end. From Tania that gave me the initial quote and followed up, to the person coordinating my move, the actual movers that came to the house to pack everything to the final delivery. Everyone was professional and attentive. Ismael, the driver that delivered everything in Texas along with Lionel, they did a great job, were personable and careful with everything. I can't recommend them enough. Thank you for everything!

This move started out encouraging. From scheduling I thought we had made the right decision. But, the bid was grossly underestimated. Oh, I jumped ahead.
Our contacts at Coleman, Tania and Samantha, were very nice and informative. The walkthrough took six hours for our property. It was done via FaceTime, first problem, this gave us a false sense of security.
Packing day arrived! We were so proud we had packed approximately 347 boxes on our own. Jared, came to pack us and he was alone. We asked him if he was alone. He said “yes, he had this”. Jared was good to his word. He was a machine. He was encouraging and enthusiastic. We appreciated Jared greatly. At this point we were starting to question if the company knew how big this move was. I’m an optimist, so I was hopeful.
By day two we knew it had been underestimated. Jared needed help. Two packers came and they arrived at 11ish. The pair packed about five boxes and left at two in order to “miss traffic.” They were useless. The movers showed up and only had one truck. Side note: we had a 6000+ sq. ft. house, a 700 sq. ft. out building, and a 2400 sq. ft. barn. 18 years of life. Huge move!! And the driver Tony was showing concern about space on the truck.
We moved forward. By day three it was obviously becoming an issue. Jared worked harder, and still smiled. Apologized for the obvious underestimation of the size of the job.
Tania, who bid the job, was brought down to see the error and help. She was lost and overwhelmed, and apologetic. Tony was getting more anxious with space and I had become frustrated with the disorganization of the details.
We move on. The one day pack took three extra days. Jared had to get more and more supplies because of the underestimation. Loading was supposed to be three days. It was five. And then finding another truck in there. By the way, nothing has been broken in packed boxes. Thank you Jared!!!
So now we are in the new location. They arrived on the 7th which was the final delivery day. It took six days to complete the offload.
They had packed the trucks so poorly that pieces were being delivered broken.
The crate, performed by a third party they hired, was supposed to be protecting our grandfather clock had been put together carelessly, and he drilled a long screw into our clock.
So now for the list of broke items: A 100 yr old table was snapped in half. Our antique bed was broken. One of our new porch pieces had a leg broken off. Which Tony tried to glue and not tell us, my husband came up on the situation. It looks terrible and unsafe to sit in. But wait, there’s more, an antique side board broken in two places. An antique wall coat and scarf hanger broken. An end table leg broken, which I came up on him glueing. Our “elephant cabinet” that has wooden carved elephant heads one was broken. Again, I had come up on Tony trying to fix it.
So, I called Samantha. She listened to my rant and tears with patience and grace.
She sent me a claim form, so now we have to spend all that time to get our pieces repaired. Or have someone tell me whether they will help or not.
This has been a rough and stressful experience to say the least. Jared and Samantha have been fantastic. And I would have given them individually a five plus rating. The loaders and off loaders were hard working and very friendly. I have no complaints on them. They would also have five stars.
Would I hire Coleman again? I don’t think so. Only because of the third party people. Too confusing and no stream of who to talk to. Incompetent people and too many involved in handling my priceless treasures.

We have used Allied for 2 state to state moves. This was our second experience with Allied, and I was less impressed this time around. The first truck that showed up couldn’t accommodate all of our items and another truck had to be arranged for the following day. The second truck that showed up didn’t arrive till mid afternoon and did not bring moving blankets or wraps with them. They left and had to go get the moving equipment. By the time they started moving out stuff it was 2;30 p.m and our condo only allows movers to be on the property till 5 p.m
This meant I had to meet 4 sets of movers instead of 2. Overall this most previous move with Allied was not the best experience.

I cannot imagine having a more difficult experience with my move than what I just had with Allied-Coleman. Everything leading up to moving day went smoothly and I was encouraged about how the whole process would play out, but unfortunately that was where the positivity ended. I packed the majority of my belongings myself, but there were a number of items that required wrapping with blankets or shrink wrap by the local movers when they arrived. I was assured that my furniture, television, and tempered glass shelves would be wrapped when taken downstairs to the truck. My TV was packed in a box from Home Depot, and I made a point to ask them to shrink wrap it downstairs since that box was not sturdy enough for a cross-country move. I was repeatedly assured my belongings would be wrapped and protected. The movers asked if they could have my queen mattress that I was throwing away, and I agreed because I was happy I didn’t have yo carry it to the dumpster myself. After the last load left my home and I was driving past the truck I saw my mattress standing up blocking the contents, but could see my shelves poking over the top and they appeared not to be wrapped. I rolled my window down and explicitly asked the leader on site if my belongings had all been wrapped and secured as promised, and he assured me that everything behind the mattress had been blanketed or shrink wrapped. That was a 100% false statement.

I had told my move coordinator a few weeks ago that the items would need to be offloaded to a shuttle upon arrival because the storage facility could not accommodate an 18-wheeler. On the day my items arrived they did so on an 18-wheeler where the drivers started offloading my items on a sidewalk outside the facility. I had to drive one of the guys to a UHaul to rent a smaller truck, then my items were loaded onto the UHaul from the trailer and sidewalk and driven into the facility. As my items were being offloaded I noticed there were no blankets protecting my furniture and nothing was shrink wrapped that had been promised. My coffee table was destroyed, my tempered shelves for my etagere were completely missing, my TV box was beaten up and unprotected, and I am missing an entire box of my personal possessions. The guys said they picked up everything in the local warehouse as I saw it, and that nothing had been protected from the original team who loaded my belongings from my old home.

I let my move coordinator know about my experience, and all she does is forward me a claims form to fill out and repeatedly tells me that she won’t be able to give me any updates on my claim because she doesn’t have access to that system. I will be filing my claim this week and insisting that for all damaged or missing items that they be removed from my invoice - I will not be paying for items I did not receive at my final destination in the condition received by Allied.

I went with this company because of the stellar reputation they have in the industry, but there needs to be more accountability for the local outsourced teams representing the bigger company because to customers like me it really doesn’t matter if the experience is a negative one in the end. Anyone working for or representing you needs to be held to the same standard or face the appropriate consequences.

Very disappointed.