International Van Lines

TL;DR: DO NOT GO WITH THEM. They're a brokerage company and they will subcontract your move to the lowest bidder 1-2 days before your pick up date. Don't trust any of the good reviews, they're all generic review without any real story/experience cause they probably paid for those reviews. Trust what you read on Yelp.

Where to even begin...

Okay so, we were moving from Central to West Coast. My husband went on a full research mode for the best cross-country moving company and he came across International Van Lines. He told me they showed up on most sites as the #1 and even appeared on Forbes. I know you can pay to be featured on Forbes (red flag 1), but I trusted him so we went on with booking them, which also happened they gave us the lowest quote compared to anyone else.

The second red flag begins when he tried reaching Crystal, the salesperson, to book, he was never able to get to her on the phone when he called and someone else always answered the phone, and a couple hours later Crystal will either respond to his email or return his call. After we booked, this is when things started to get worse...

We're about 2 weeks out and no one has reached out to us. We had to call them to speak to someone to get a confirmation. At this point, Crystal was nowhere to be found and now we're dealing with the Account Manager, Melissa. After calling multiple times, she finally sent us a confirmation email and wow... we're both professionals and never have we ever seen an email from an *established* company to be so messy! Different fonts, font sizes, blue/red/highlighted texts, off spacing? Not gonna lie it looks like a scam email and this is when I started to question them so I went on a full research mode and found this Yelp page. They have 2 stars and I found over 400+ reviews were hidden on the page. After reading all the horror stories, my husband called Melissa to confirm with them who will pick up our stuffs in a couple days and she said "we don't know yet."

We were shocked. We were about to give our stuffs to an unknown moving company so at this point we wanted to cancel so Melissa told us Crystal will reach out. A couple minutes later Crystal called my husband and it's about to get juicy from here. (Also, be glad they recorded the phone call because I hope they listened to it again and realized how horrible their customer service is. Pro tip, maybe record on your side as well because they said a lot of lies.)

Crystal started off saying if we want to cancel and get a refund, we could but she just wanted to understand why. When my husband said it's because they weren't being transparent that they're a broker company, she said "oh, you didn't do your research?" which also translates to "it's your fault for being scammed". We went back and forth on how she should be telling us about their business model from the beginning and she firmly believes it's okay for her to withhold information because we should be doing our research blablabla. After we keep pressing we wanted to cancel, you can tell from her voice she's getting frustrated because she started 1) raising her voice borderline yelling at us, 2) threatening us saying we'll never get our money back ever when she clearly said in the beginning of the call we could, 3) telling us we'll never be able to find another moving company who's willing to pick up our stuffs in the next couple of days. Overall, horrible customer service so I AM GLAD the call was being recorded so hopefully she can re-listen to it and realize she shouldn't be customer facing.

We ended up cancelling regardless of her threats and I am thrilled to tell the world, especially Crystal, we were able to find a legit Cross Country movers who were able to pick up our items on that same day we were supposed to, delivered it safely and on time, and was transparent about everything.

We really dodged the bullet on this one so here I am telling everyone to stay away from International Van Lines. Trust the reviews on Yelp

Their BBB page - https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/coral-springs/profile/moving-brokers/international-van-lines-0633-18000007/complaints

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3400

I have had a nightmarish experience with International Van Lines.

On August 10, 2020, I contracted an international "door to door" move of all my family's belongings from California to Ecuador. Our property was loaded onto a shipping container by the moving company on September 10. As of December 15, 2020 we have not received our shipment, and IVL does not have an estimated delivery date and we received a fine from customs because IVL abandoned our importation process.

We have hired a lawyer and investigator and uncovered multiple errors during the importation and shipping process that have caused more than 70 days of delays and fees to third parties of over $150 per day. We have incurred more than $15000 in storage fees to date and will likely incur an additional $10000 in expenses to recover our property. International Van Lines has consistently obfuscated their errors including when they violated their agent's policies ordering the container shipped before receiving approval from their agents an Ecuadorian Customs, thus causing tens of thousands of dollars in additional damages to me, the customer.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $25000

Made the move so much more stressful than it should have been. Charged over double what the quote was (booked through International Van Lines but they contract it out to a 3rd party who was terrible and rude) but once they have your non refundable deposit you are stuck with them and screwed. Had 3 pieces of large furniture broken and many small items broken as well as missing items. We also received 6 large boxes of someone else's stuff. Have not rec'd any insurance settlement and what they are supposed to pay was a joke anyway. To top it off they were extremely rude and threatening. Do yourself a favor and skip this company and a lot of headaches!

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $8000

NEGATIVE STARS!!!! Worst experience with a moving company that we have ever had. READ all the poor reviews: I can attest that the reviewers are speaking honestly about their experience with IVL, because that was our experience as well. Once we signed the contract, we could not get a hold of ANYONE via phone or e-mail. They would not respond. They hired a sub-contractor to do the move, and it cost us $7,000 more than what was quoted. Pieces of furniture were destroyed in the move (a chair, and coffee table), and others seriously damaged - the worst being a quarter sized chunk of wood being gouged out of the top of my formal dining room table (mahogany) , dents, scratches and chips to master bedroom furniture (also mahogany), and the top of my dryer looks like someone danced on it, it's so dented. We were told that we could expect delivery on our items in a three day window, but the contracted moving service stated that they had 30 days to deliver our things so they could not guarantee the delivery window that IVL gave us. Fortunately we did get our things delivered only two days after the window of delivery we were originally given. I would NEVER recommend IVL - EVER!!!! The ONLY positive experience was with my car which we had them transport from Colorado to Alabama. We were able to communicate with that division by phone (they would actually pick up instead of the calls going to voice mail - or call back in a timely manner), and everything went smoothly. Overall, I highly suggest you go with another moving company as IVL was not worth the money they charged or the stress we incurred.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $19000

My experience here was very poor. Although it was limited to pre move communication. They never actually picked up my goods.

I contacted IVL based on their reputation for a cross country move. When it came time for the move date I was informed that I would be notified between 4pm - 7pm EST the day prior to confirm my move.

I received six calls from the mover between 1:47pm and 2:02pm. I responded within another 45 minutes to confirm the move at which point I was told that my move had been cancelled because I did not answer my phone in time...

I spent the rest of the day on the line with IVL asking them to line up a different driver, during which time their support staff laughed at my situation. They did in fact confirm the same driver for 3-6pm the following day, although he called to say he would be there at 8am. The driver I explicitly stated I would not work with after a heated conversation.

Following that they refused to refund my deposit and made false claims about particulars of our conversations, all of which are recorded.

I now need to find new movers, file a complaint with my credit card company, and possibly sue them.

Way to Go IVL.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6000

My comments are based on my current move situation. I am not sure how IVL made it on the list of best long-distance moving companies but they're far from it. They are quick to quote you a price (which will be far from what the guys loading up the truck will tell you after all your stuff is in their custody) and will not answer the phone, return your call, or respond to an email. None of them will. I've tried the three people that worked on my move and their customer service line. Regarding the price, the initial quote seems high but reasonable (I guess). When the guys are done loading your stuff, which is another company (Wayflowers Van Lines in my case) they will tell you that whomever quoted you that was wrong and that there are things they can't be stacked on top of each other; therefore, the cubic feet is more than what was quoted. Then you'll hear that if they cut down the cubic feet it will come out of their pocket. My initial quote was ~$5,100 and is now ~$9,300. I did add some stuff at the last minute but not $4,200 worth. No lie, I could have bought all new stuff for what they are charging me. Of course, I can't get anyone on the phone to discuss this or to give me an idea of when my stuff will arrive. I will say this, the guys from Wayflowers did an excellent job packing up the stuff. It took them a while but they did great work.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $9300