Bekins Van Lines, LLC - moved my household items from Calif to Idaho and many items were lost and damaged

Bekins Van Lines, LLC - moved my household items from Calif to Idaho and many items were lost and damaged

Bekins Van Lines

4/20/04

summary: In July 2003, Bekins Van Lines, LLC moved my household items from Calif to Idaho and many items were lost and damaged. Even though I purchased their insurance for the full replacement value of my belongings and made many phone calls, to many people, Bekins has not reimbursed me for the damage.

I have completed and submitted all of the appropriate claim paperwork, in a timely manner. The employees that I have spoken to confirm that I indeed have insurance but they are busy and they "are working on it". They have been "working on it" for 9 months with no end date in sight.

In July 2003 I relocated from CA to Idaho. Bekins Van Lines LLC moved my belongings. I purchased their optional insurance for full replacement value.

As the Bekins’ movers were unloading my furniture they pointed out to me several broken items. I watched them fill out paperwork describing the damage. They said this would be submitted to Bekins. After the movers left, I discovered additional broken and missing items.

The movers gave me a phone number and advised me to file a claim. After filing a claim I received a letter from Pamela Berry/Claims Department stating she was assigned to my claim rep and I that should call her with any questions.

I attempted to call Ms. Berry MANY, MANY times to discuss the status of my claim. Often I was not even able to reach to Ms. Berry’s voice message but I persevered and after calling 25 times I was able to leave eight different voice messages with my claim number. Ms. Berry did not return any of my 8 messages. I also left 3 voices messages for Ms. Berry’s supervisor, Jackie Meyers but she also chose not to return my calls.

I’d like to give you a little more information about the amount of time I spent holding on Bekins’ customer service phone line. Bekins’ phone system was not working well. I would call Bekins, listen to their greeting "We know how important your time is and we'll get to you A.S.A.P." I'd hit the right keys in an attempt to contact to Ms. Berry and wait on hold for a very long time often I just couldn‘t get through and sometimes I hung up because I couldn‘t hold any longer.

I called often and started putting my phone on speaker while I’d empty the dishwasher, make dinner, write letters to my family etc. often times after waiting long periods on hold, their phone system would "crash" and bump me back to the original greeting "…We know how important your time is..." I’d start over and enter the appropriate numbers to get to Ms. Berry again and finally reach an operator.

When I told the operators that there was a bug in their phone system and that I’d already waited to speak to them once before, been put on hold, bumped back to the original greeting and was now speaking to them a second time they often responded that I’d only waited 10-15 minutes because they watched a phone waiting clocking device. What I couldn’t make the operators understand is that their clocking device resets itself and starts over after the caller on hold is bounced back to the original greeting.

The 10-15 minutes represented the 2nd block of time that I’d waited to speak to an operator. Since it typically took me 45 min to get through. I often tracked this by writing down my wait start time. And to further add the frustration several times after waiting on hold for 30-45 minutes for Ms. Berry and Ms. Meyers when I finally reached their answer machine it said that I couldn't leave a message because their voice mail box was full. Then the phone disconnected. This happened several times with each of their message boxes.

In Sept 2003 I sent a certified letter to the Bekins Claims Department begging for assistance. By December 2003 I had to resign myself to the fact that no one was going to respond to my letter.

December 4, 2003 I sent two certified letters, this time with attached receipts that Bekins would sign in order to receive the letters from the post office.

One certified letter went to a Bekins Vice President, Bob Dalaskey. I wrote to Mr. Dalaskey that between Sept-Dec 2003 I had left 10 voice messages for Pamela Berry but she had not returned any of the 10 phone calls. He did not respond to my letter.

The 2nd certified letter went to Pamela Berry. In the letter I told her that we had never spoken but I had left her 10 voice messages asking that she return my call to discuss the status of my claim.

In January 2004, I stood up in a Boise, Idaho classroom and talked about my frustrating experience with Bekins Van Lines and asked the students and their family members all choose never to support Bekins. (I’m doing my best to spread the word to please not support Bekins Van Lines). After the class a student handed me with a phone number for Paul Bekins in Washington. Mr. Bekins was very helpful and explained that his company was Bekins Northwest which is not affiliated with Bekins Van Lines LLC. Paul Bekins gave me a phone number for Dale Aman/President of A&P Moving Inc. (associated with Bekins Van Lines).

I told Mr. Aman that I planned to mail a letter to the Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mr. Aman seemed concerned and called Mike Rogers/President of Bekins Van Lines. Mike Rogers called me and explained that, even though I paid Bekins Van Lines, I'd actually purchased 3rd party insurance through Six & Geving Insurance, Inc. in Colorado Springs, CO. He gave me a phone number and said that he would call ahead of me and tell the president of the insurance company my story. I called the president of Six Geving, Mark Furgason in February 2004. Mr. Furgason said that they had received the claim paperwork from Bekins in December 2003 and were very busy and that they needed additional paperwork from me. I sent him a large envelope of the additional information he needed, including a time line and history of everything I've just told you and copies of the certified letters I’d sent to Bekins Van Lines.

I spoke to Mr. Furgason and he said that he had what he needed and that he wished that all of his customers were able to provided the level of information that I sent him. He had told me twice that I would receive a phone call from someone who would come to my home and confirm that my furniture is broken. I'm still waiting and it seems that they have had enough time to handle this. They were originally sent my claim from Bekins in December 2003.

My claim number is 03-CH2676-01

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