Alliance Van Lines inc.

After several days of emails, replies that took hours, having to negotiate a lower weight estimate (they wanted me to pay for 2500 pounds when I knew I had more likely 2100 pounds which would cost significantly less and they finally said I could pay for 2300 pounds. The whole system makes no sense since if it weighed more than I would be obligated to pay more, but they want you to pay a minimum of the highest weight *scammers!*) I finally got a moving date.

I had taken the day off work to let the movers in. I had also made sure to put pylons up and to block the street so that they had direct access. They never showed up. I called when they were 2 hours late to find out that they were delayed and couldn't come until about 730pm to do just the packing and then come the next day for the move. No one had bothered to let me know that they were not planning on coming and were only offering the 730 packing since I called and asked what happened.. I had an important day at work so I couldn't sit and wait for them to come at 730 to only do half the job. Then they came the next day (half hour late) and did the packing and the moving. I just received my stuff and still can't find certain items so we will see how that goes. Once my items were shipped I tried several times to track the shipment on the online "tracker" which never updated and said someone would contact me in 24 hours. No one did. I had to again email several times to find out where my stuff was..

On the day of delivery, I had a cleaning woman who just finished cleaning the floors..she ended up arguing with the movers because they were damaging the floors with their trolly and snow/salt boots all over the newly done floors. When asked if they had booties to put over their boots or if they could take off their boots once in the house, the answer was no. They finally went and got a runner (just one) which did nothing. My floors are disgusting after they delivered. I have also had movers who at least put together the bed frame or take off the plastic to the sofas, they literally dumped the boxes everywhere, dirtied up everything and left.

Horrible service and horrible customer service. Save yourself the pain and go with someone else! I know I will!!

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2300

I posted another review on another site, but was happy to write a few good words here too. Had a long distance move with this company and packing service. Everything went pretty good aside for a 2-3 day delay. I did not understand that departure date meant that's when the truck only leaves so there was some miscommunication. I was otherwise happy with the service and Michael who was very accommodating and expedited an exclusive truck for my delivery. Kudos for him.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $3891

We used this company to move from Manitoba to British Columbia in October/November 2017 and it was the worst experience of our lives. They wouldn’t commit to a pick up day until right before. They took almost 4 weeks to move our things and never could tell me where our belongings were. We tried several times and got nothing. When our things finally arrived the amount of damage was rediculous. They damaged our bed frame, a table, dresser
, broke a dining room chair, our exercise bike, crystal figures were broken. They put our electric reclining sofa on end in the truck and now one side doesn’t recline at all and the other side is damaged as well. They lost stuff. It was extensive. Our claim was $4000.00. They also upped the weight a lot from the original estimate. All they offered was $55.00. Where’s the justice in that. That is a complete insult.
I will never recommend these people and if you value your things do not use them. They are so unprofessional and uncaring they should not be in business.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3500

I had contracted with and paid my non-refundable deposit on a partial move from Winnipeg to Parkland County Alberta. When the contract came back I noticed an extra $75.00 charge on it which I enquirer about. I was told that because I was not moving to the exact city I had submitted the request for a quote with there was an extra charge. I had once I had received the original quote sent back to them a list of the goods being picked up and a more exact address, and asked that they update their quote. It came came back a little more money which is what I expected. So in the ensuing discussion by email I pointed out I had given them an more exact address along with the list of goods and requested (since I'm paying for it anyway) the before load and after load scale tickets (I do have the right to see them), I was told that their truck had all of a sudden developed mechanical problems ( they were supposed to be picking up some time between Aug 25 and the 31st) and did not know when the truck would be repaired and did not feel "comfortable" booking me a pick-up date. They did however refund my non-refundable deposit on the move. So I am lead to believe that they did not like the fact that I asked about the extra charges, pointed out that I did supply them, and asked for scale tickets.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $765

We used Alliance's services to move household items from Toronto to Florida. I will first start with the positives - the shipment arrived on schedule, no contents were damaged, the movers were polite and efficient. Now the negatives:
1. Lack of transparency. The quote is based on weight which is hard to estimate. The quoted price per pound is higher than the industry average. Our quote increased from $4.8K to $8K as the moving day approached. No scale ticket was provided.
2. Impression of price gouging. Movers used bubble wrap for a few items at their discretion without informing us. Once Alliance had our items in possession, they charged us $800 (!!) for bubble wrap. We had no choice. Also, they charged us a high credit card fee, although we had no other ways to pay.
3. Movers dropped the barbeque on our living room floor and damaged it. The company refused to reimburse our claim - after sitting on it for 6 weeks.

We will not use Alliance Van Lines (not sure about "Allied" Van Lines, which seems to be a different company).

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7000

We have moved a lot and this was by far the worst experience we have ever had.
Alliance drastically underquoted us for the move. We paid up front for the whole move, and our stuff went to the storage unit. They would not tell us where the storage unit was and would not give us an address when asked. They claimed they had "several sites" and weren't sure which one they were using. They would not allow us to visit the facility. TOTAL red flag but it was too late.
We ended up not moving our stuff as far as we had initially paid for, and we NOT reimbursed for a much shorter move distance, despite asking several times.
We were not given proper invoices for costs incurred, and additional charges appeared out of nowhere when the final storage bill was paid. They had no explanation for this when we asked about it.
It took between 7-10 calls/emails to get any sort of receipt of payment. Finally we were told it was "fist come, first served to get a receipt".
What does that even mean?? It took over 6 weeks to finally get any sort of receipt.
We dealt with "Jane" most of the time (who claimed to be a manager when I asked to speak with someone in charge) and she was unprofessional, rude, defensive and was of no help whatsoever. Then all of a sudden, someone else started replying from her email address. No one knew what was going on.
Most of our stuff had minor damage and some had to be thrown out. We basically just wanted to get our stuff and be done with this company as fast as we could.
DO NOT use this company. Nothing seemed legit and we are actually surprised they are still in business.
Go with the bigger more well known companies who are well known for a reason. NEVER AGAIN.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $4500

My wife and I used Alliance Van Lines (Scarborough, Ont.) to move from Ontario to British Columbia in the fall of 2018.
On the morning before the arranged pick up day, Alliance decided to increase the cost of the move by almost 50%.
They had never visited our house, and as such, had never seen what needed to be moved. They said that they were working on “their estimation” of what a typical four bedroom house would consist of (not very professional by any standard). At this point, they tried to negotiate the moving costs however we decided to cancel their service and started looking for an alternate moving company (which needed to happen in the next 2-3 days based on our schedule). Needless-to-say, we were unable to locate another moving company on such short notice, so we decided to give Alliance another chance.
Upon contacting Nelly, she went back to the original price and we decided to proceed with Alliance (bad move on our part, no pun). My wife and I had carefully packed up most of our personal belongings, furnishings, etc., so all Alliance had to do was load their truck and we were on our way.
The day of loading the truck went well, however we later learned that all of our belongings would be unloaded in Scarborough and then transferred to another truck for the trip to BC. Note: after our belongings were picked up they were weighed, however Alliance would NOT disclose what our contents actually weighed. (Alliance had a set rate which they based on a minimum load of 15,000 lbs. I.e. if the load was more than 15,000 lbs. you were charged extra, however if the load was less than 15,000 lbs. there was no reduction with their fee) .
Our belongings arrived in BC and again were unloaded and reloaded into another truck for final delivery to our new home. Seems to me like too many opportunities for stuff to get broken with triple handling, and guess what I WAS RIGHT !!
On the day of the off load (I was not able to be there due to work commitments), my wife was left to direct the movers as to where everything should be placed (pretty easy job because we had clearly labeled each box as to where it should go), but this didn’t happen. There were over a dozen heavy boxes that were just dumped in our garage for us to move. In total, they took less than 3 hours to off load the truck . . . kind of alike a dine and dash, which all happened AFTER they had been paid for the move.
As we unpacked boxes and positioned our furniture, we found that numerous items had been damaged, and that some boxes/items had never been delivered.
This is the point where everything went down hill with Alliance. When we questioned about the damaged / lost (stolen ??) items we were advised that we should have taken out the “extra insurance” to cover these losses as the standard moving coverage only requires Alliance to pay $0.60 per pound.
By our estimation, the damages / losses were in excess of $3000.00 (this included a damaged $2000 paddle board that weighs only 18 lbs. and would have netted a claim settlement for $10.80). After nearly 3 months they offered a mere $95 as our TOTAL compensation. Hardly acceptable, but we were stuck.
The real irony of this is that we had to unpack, document and photograph all damages / losses within 10 days of the off load, yet Alliance took almost 3 months to process our $95 refund.
Word of advice, DON’T USE ALLIANCE VAN LINES, but rather look for a more reputable, professional moving company.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $8600

Moving from a house to condo we were initially given a quote of $800.00. We packed everything outselves. We were told we would get labels and the truck would be weighed. At first movers said they would load our things 1 day and deliver in 3 days. Then day before move said all on same day. Day of move 2 guys arrive at 1:30pm. No labels, no straps, no blankets to protect our furniture no weighing of truck. Our belongings were then unloaded atcondo. More like dumped. The cost $2 200. They did not live up to contract never asked how move went. Check your contract.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2200

We have move many times thru out the years, so to send four pieces of furniture to our son in Ontario seemed like a great idea.
The furniture was one year old and in excellent shape, when sent.
We have no pets and are seniors, therefore furniture was in excellent condition. Items were picked up on time. Transported from BC thru to ON Canada. Arrived in ON on time, but when our son spoke of damage and sent photos to us we were shocked.
The furniture looked bad, rub marks, small tears and the wood was marked deep and ugly. Moving companies do not do any thing about these problems. On a final note we will never use this company again and of course do not recommend Alliance Van Lines Inc..

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $932

I would like to say thanks to the entire staff and team at Alliance from the first day I called to the day of delivery had great customer service the movers were nice they were very professional they loaded everything up safely protected everything it arrived when they said and was all still safe and nothing broken when they arrived and unloaded the staff at customer service at Alliance especially Nelly was very helpful and kind and we were always given an update whether it by be by a phone call or email from the drivers or the company we appreciate everything you did to help my mom's move goes smoothly from levack Ontario to Dartmouth thanks so much to the entire team.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3800

Alliance Van Lines were fantastic from start to finish. The move was very short notice and needed to have my belongings picked up within two weeks. I phone many other moving companies though, Alliance Van Lines was not the cheapest option they were the only ones willing to make a truck available for pickup. The gentlemen who came to pick up belongings were friendly, fast, and wrapped my all my furniture with blankets. We moved to Halifax, and where my belongings arrived a few weeks later, this was understandable as it was the month of September their busiest time of year. The gentlemen who dropped off my belongings were also fantastic and assisted with setting up furniture and putting things into place. I would defiantly recommend Alliance Van Lines for your moving needs.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3129