Certified Packaging & Transportation

Buyer Beware! Mark Feinberg, Owner - Don Hott, Mgr/Agent

UPDATE! As of 02/18/18 Mr. Feinberg, Owner/manager of Certified..is refusing to work with us to resolve this matter through the BBB, the MD Attorney General's Arbitration Program for Consumers and REFUSES TO PAY DAMAGES WE ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO by virtue of our contract. The AG's Arbitrator informed us they would submit our complaint to the MD Circuit Court for 'forced resolution' if Mr. Feinberg refused to co-operate.

Why incur the additional expense of court, the potential of paying OUR legal and court costs, a permanent public record of all 'unresolved' complaint details with the BBB, AND the permanent record of online reviews, when his fair and equitable cooperation would make all that go away? One can only wonder about the wisdom of that decision.

Does Mr. Feinberg not understand that we all use the NET to vet our potential business partners? Boggles the mind.

Mr. Feinberg has shown himself to us to be unreasonable, unprofessional & unethical, in his unwillingness to resolve this customer's complaints and hard damages in a fair and reasonable manner. Beware folks. Hire at your own risk!

Original Post:
We hired Certified, Mr Mark Feinberg (owner/Mgr), for an international move from the US to Canada, at a cost of over $32,000. Their agent, Don Hott, assured us repeatedly our belongings would be protected, their team had 'decades' of experience and our valuables would arrive undamaged and safe.

Upon the arrival of our belongings, 90% of our belongings arrived broken or needing repairs. Read that twice!! Our truck was 9 days late, 50 boxes were double-tagged, 70+ items unaccounted for and all patio items (huge BBQ, patio furniture, tools, gardening equipment, etc) MISSING! Whoa! What a nightmare! Feinberg insinuated we were not being truthful the missing items. It was all 'found' several weeks later in an unmarked pallet' in Certified's warehouse!

When we asked WHY these items had been marked as 'loaded' on our shipping container, when it wasn't..Mr. Feinberg told us 'well, it was a long day and we were all tired'!! What?!! What?!!

Half of Certified's fully trained' staff had no clue what they were doing. They arrived, threw their supplies on top of fine wood furniture and an Italian leather couch/loveseat without covering them first to protect them..causing damage. It just got worse from there! One 'well trained' staff scratched circles in our hardwood floors by wrapping our large Curio Cabinet by twirling it around IN PLACE as HE stood in one spot rather than walk around the piece to wrap it. Our floor had to be refinished! Half the crew left after 4 hours every day (wouldn't even SHOW UP the final day) leaving a huge overwhelming job to the dedicated 3 who stayed. Wow!

One woman, named Samantha, day 2 as an 'expert', packed up our full kitchen, my office, equipment and supplies and our great room..WITHOUT PACKING PAPER! The stress of this nightmare has been horrific. Imagine the scratches and damage sustained to our belongings! We have over 850 pics! Valuable/fragile items thrown in with heavy, jagged items, no wrapping or protection..causing a plethora of unnecessary damage to the entire contents. No one seemed to know the value of anything they were handling nor how to pack it to protect it! Eg. ALL dress shoes, most in new or like-new condition, dumped in the bottom of a box w/ ladders, luggage and other heavy metal equipment dumped on top of them, crushing them all. This in spite of the packer being asked specifically to wrap them separately. The manager/owner's response, 'oh, just wear those shoes for awhile, they'll be fine!' or 'oh, just put a cushion on your crushed and broken $1000 patio lounger. No one will see the damage!' Unbelievable!!

Expensive Stainless steel pots and pans, cutlery, knives, kitchen ware, office equipment, professional reference library (1000's of valuable books all in pristine shape to begin with!), personal items..everything just dumped into boxes, without paper or padding and taped up!! Fine solid wood furniture, Italian leather living room furniture, grand piano, solid stainless steel prep tables, all which looked new, all now with scratches, gouges, torn, crushed..you name it!

Total disrespect and disdain was shown for our valuables! We will never recover from all the damage. Once pristine items we spent our lifetime protecting..now are either garbage or look like garbage.

A multitude of pics were sent to Mr. Mark Feinberg . (we have documented over 850 pictures of damage and inferior packing standards utilized by his staff)..he denied that any of it was wrong, and denied any responsibility for the damages! And Don Hott REFUSED to speak with us!!

We've asked repeatedly for a refund. Nope.

Mark Feinberg, owner and Don Hott, mgr/agent have NOT behaved in a manner consistent with a fair and reasonable resolution to our dispute.

BUYER BEWARE!! BE CAREFUL HIRING THIS ORGANIZATION FOR YOUR PACKING, STORAGE & MOVING NEEDS. IN OUR EXPERIENCE THIS ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN INCOMPETENT, NEGLIGENT, UNETHICAL, HAS UNTRAINED STAFF AND WON'T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY THEIR ACTIONS.

M.O.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $32000

We hired Certified Packaging & Transport or Certified International Moving (CIM) of Jessup, MD and owned by Mr. Mark Feinberg to pack, store and ship our household goods from Washington, DC to, Canada July 19th, 2016. Mr. Don Hott was CIM’s agent who came to our home, previewed the job and subsequently quoted on the job. During our discussions, he assured us many times that our valuables would be wrapped, packaged and boxed to a standard that would completely protect our goods. He explained that all furniture would be wrapped individually prior to leaving our home. He assured us that he, the company’s owner Mr. Mark Feinberg and all his staff had decades of experience in the industry were trained by him personally and we needn’t worry about a thing. After interviewing several other moving companies we decided to hire CIM for the job. As we are meticulous in the care of our valuables and household goods it was important to us that we hire a company that would take the same care to protect our goods during our move to Canada. Every concern we expressed was countered by Don who assured us our things would be treated with kid gloves. He said he could personally vouch for the quality of work his crew would deliver.

From the beginning, his crew was very careless and 2-3 of them were obviously completely untrained, and our nightmare and the extensive damage to our goods and even our home began. They immediately piled their packing supplies on top of a solid wood 2-piece entertainment unit which was in pristine condition and proceeded to scratch the tops and fronts of these two units. They stood, on end, unassembled large cardboard boxes atop of our Italian Leather couch with the hard cardboard corners digging into the leather. I immediately addressed this with the crew and asked that they put blankets on top of any surface that they were to use and showed them the damage that had been done. I immediately called Mr. Hott to advise him of what had transpired and took several pictures which I forwarded to Mr. Hott. He apologized. Said that CIM would take full responsibility for any damage and then he spoke with his crew to advise them how to proceed. He promised he would send a woman the following day named Samantha who was very experienced and delivered top notch work to assist with the packing up of our basement contents which held our second kitchen, my clinic office, and a family great room.

During the 5-day job, both my husband and I tried to supervise the three levels of our home being packed up. We had to intervene several times to demand that our things be packaged in a manner that would protect them and communicated our frustrations and concerns to Mr. Hott several times, sending pictures supporting our claims and asking that he intervene to make sure the job was done to the standard he had promised us it would be. During that week, several of his staff arrived at 10 am and left between 2-3 pm abandoning the other 3 individuals to complete a very large job. Several of the team members dispatched to our home were obviously not trained in packing procedures in the least, even to our untrained eye, and again I had to intervene and extract promised from them that they would wrap everything and package our valuables carefully. The job ultimately delivered was chaotic, fraught with stress, rushed, sloppy and deeply concerning for us.

We observed one staff literally shoving books into boxes ripping the jacket covers. One of the staff wrapped our curio by turning the piece in circles on our hardwood floor, digging dozens of circle scratches into our floor and necessitating a re-sanding and refinishing of the floor. Several of our larger items were taken from the house to the truck unwrapped. We were assured they would be wrapped on the truck and re-wrapped at the warehouse prior to being stored. I had manufacturer’s cylinders for many of our crystal stemware that I insisted the crew use as they would be protected best in a cylinder…….only to find at this end here in Canada that the individual didn’t wrap the crystal within the cylinder and they were left to bounce around and many are chipped. I instructed a man named Ronnie to individually wrap my expensive dress shoes prior to packing them. He assured me he would, only to find at this end during our unpacking that he had just thrown them scattered into the bottom of a large box and threw any number of heavy and sharp objects on them including luggage and even a step ladder! Many of them are crushed, broken and ruined.

I repeatedly asked everyone to be careful and corrected what I saw at the time……….I thought. Later, during our unpacking I discovered that the CIM crew had completely ignored my preferences and instructions to them regarding their packing standard and practices, of our valuables.

Although CIM knew our possession date here in Canada was December 15th, for a full month prior to us leaving the US, and they assured us repeatedly that our goods would arrive on or about that date, it didn’t arrive until December 23. I had nothing but the stairs to sit on and NOTHING in my home to utilize while I waited for 9 days.

When our goods arrived, all our patio items were missing, a 74” Weber Grill, Weber Firepit, power shovel, wrought iron patio table, and 4 rocker chairs, 2 huge loungers (one lounger has several broken fibreglass slats and the metal frame for the curved seat area is bent flat as if something very heavy fell on it - it is completely ruined.), an 11’ umbrella, umbrella stand, saw horses, tools, brought iron foot stools, garden equipment, etc. During load-in 77 pieces were missing, 49 double tagged with the same number and over a dozen boxes untagged. I have since made a meticulous spreadsheet of everything I have unpacked and am finding the same discrepancies at this end as were noted during load-in that day.

95 percent of our fine furniture is so damaged and broken that it will all have to be either repaired or replaced. The leather couch which looked new, is completely ruined. The leather surface is ruined, it is torn and permanently crushed. It was obviously wrapped incorrectly, handled roughly and left in the 100 Degree heat during the storage period. Our solid wood occasional Sklar French provincial LR tables have the legs broken off 2 off them or are so badly scratched or the wood crushed that they are ruined. The feet of one of our stainless steel dining tables are split, the solid lower shelf which had zero scratches on it when it left our home, was not wrapped at all and was obviously used to store heavy boxes and has a multitude of huge scratches running the length of the shelf. The tops of these two SS Bar dining tables fared no better, they are scratched and marred up. NONE of this damage was present prior to CIM handling our goods.

Our 2-person Infra-Red Sauna has dozens of deep scratches and gouges to all sides of it. There was no ‘set-up box’, one of the first standard practices within the packing, shipping, and moving industry. I cannot use our phones as we can’t find the electrical cord. I cannot use the TV…….same reason. I cannot put my headboard and footboard together as the customized bolts are missing. All the hinges to the glass doors for the 17 tall bookshelves were not only taken off but were COMPLETELY taken apart and several of the tiny hinges are missing as are many of the customized screws for mounting the doors. ALL our lampshades were crushed. Several of our table lamps are broken and unusable. I can find no remotes. All the batteries were left in EVERYTHING, and have ruined many of the connections with battery acid rendering these items useless. My two office desks are broken and with pieces of shelving missing. The power cords for our 2 CD players are missing. Our three antique sideboards are broken, cracked, scratched and will need repair.

Dozens of our professional reference books are crushed, permanently bent, torn and useless. Several fitness machines are missing connecting pieces, or broken pieces, or have critical pieces missing. A Stainless Steel Coronado Table Fan is broken and unusable. Our many bookshelves are chipped and the backing torn in a multitude of places. 3 new, 4 and 5-drawer, filing cabinets are completely scarred up and battered, scratched and dented, where no damage was on these items as they sat in our home in DC. Legs to shelving units are missing. A multitude of storage bins are crushed, broken and unusable. The brand new Weber Firepit which had never even been used is bent and crushed. Both the insides and the outsides of our 2-piece solid wood large entertainment unit are scratched and deeply gouged in many places.

They, much like everything else look old and ill-cared for, when before being handled by CIM, they were in pristine condition.

The MAJORITY of the boxes containing our goods and packed by CIM staff had NO packing material in them, no paper wrapping any of the contents, no paper on top and often no paper on the bottom. EVERYTHING in these boxes was literally thrown in a heap within the box and the box was sealed!! An International move and NO PAPER was used in the majority of the packing boxes!! I have sent a multitude of pictures to Mr. Feinberg, owner/manager of CIM, depicting plentiful evidence of everything I have stated in this complaint. All the kitchenware, very expensive stainless steel pots and pans, computers, cameras, external hard drives, office equipment, scanner, printer, shredder, my professional office equipment ……all without their respective cases or storage boxes. Antique engraved silver platters, a complete antique silver cutlery set and antique storage box, fans, professional powerboard extension cables, LR table lamps, lampshades, all desk lamps, paintings, CD player units with speakers, several microphones, music stands, PA equipment, several TV’s, cookware, food prep machines, toaster, small appliances: bread machine; ice cream maker; distiller; water purifier; several coffee makers; waffle maker; stainless steel Berkey water filter systems; kitchen utensils; ALL shoes; leather designer purses; designer eyeglasses not in their cases and just thrown into a box; desk copying machine; ALL professional clinic treatment equipment; vita-mix; blender; air poppers; 2 countertop convection/pressure ovens; wedding ceremony artifacts; all office desk ware..ETC, ETC, ETC..all unwrapped, bare in a box, all thrown in a disorganized jumble, without protection and tossed together to scratch and dent everything else within each box!

The disdain, disrespect, carelessness and unprofessionalism of CIM staff in the packing of our valuables as evidenced in each box we opened, has been stunning in its severity.

I have dozens, perhaps hundreds of documenting pictures. I have sent a plethora of them to CIM owner Mr. Mark Feinberg and Don Hott and we have asked repeatedly for a refund. Virtually NOTHING was done to the standard, or ANY STANDARD, that was promised to us by Mr. Don Hott and the CIM staff who came to our home to complete this job. Don Hott has refused to speak with me. Mark Feinberg has refused to take any responsibility. He blames me, says I should have been more ‘diligent monitoring and instructing his crew’. Tells me to just “put a cushion on the lounger. No one will see the damage”. Or ‘just wear the shoes a few times, that will fix them’.

We are asking for a refund of the monies paid for the packing and handling of our goods. Nothing was handled or delivered as promised. Few of our valuables were sufficiently protected by his packing and storing methods, or his ‘well-trained’ staff, so as not to sustain unnecessary damage. Seemingly NOTHING escaped damage of some kind! ALL of our valuables were treated like junk and now a lot of it looks like junk and a good majority of it is ruined. Mr. Feinberg refuses to either acknowledge his responsibility or make sufficient restitution to make us whole.

We paid CIM and Mr. Mark Feinberg in excess of $32,000.00 for the privilege of having him virtually ruin most of what we own. Our financial losses and the extreme emotional distress caused to us by the direct action of CIM and its employees has been substantial. Our recovery will be long and we will likely never be made ‘whole’. It will take us months to make right what CIM made wrong.

We are asking for a full refund from Mr. Mark Feinberg, to assist in the mitigation of our extensive and unnecessary losses which were a direct result of the actions of CIM. Mr. Mark Feinberg and Mr. Don Hott of CIM, breached our written and verbal contract, to pack, store and ship our household goods in a safe and protected manner and to a standard that they promised and that they would deliver our items to us in the time period agreed upon, and undamaged. Mr. Feinstein and Mr Hott sold us a service they did not deliver.. not by a long shot! Both Mr. Mark Feinberg and Mr. Don Hott have refused, in writing, to negotiate with us.

Our request for a refund is in no way connected to any claim for damages we will submit. We were asked by CIM to pay in excess of $13,000 more dollars prior to shipping for ‘replacement insurance’, something we just couldn’t manage. CIM is offering us .60/lb/item for the current damages. That translates, for example, to about $400 for the complete destruction of a 700 lb Grand Piano..a pittance Mr. Feinberg knows that we will receive a pittance in compensation for the damage he and his staff caused. We feel Mr. Feinberg is morally, ethically and professionally obligated to make restitution for damage done to us by the direct actions of he and his staff. He, his representative, Don Host and his staff violated our agreements and contract by providing below subpar service at premium prices.

No one should have to go through what my family has gone through at the hands of this organization. The personal losses as a direct result of their actions have been devastating. The ongoing and severe stress of this whole horrific experience has landed me in the hospital several times.

The service we were given by Certified International Moving is an embarrassment to the industry and should never be tolerated. I am requesting an investigation into the conduct of CIM and a full refund of our funds immediately.

We are fully committed to seeing this through to conclusion and will take it to whatever level is necessary to facilitate our request that Mr. Feinberg make full restitution to us.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $33000