International Van Lines

We made the mistake of trusting International Van Lines with our move from Illinois to California. There were many, many issues with customer service after they had our money, and careless movers did serious damage to our belongings. But, the biggest problem was that the final cost was 60% higher than the quote

The price of the move was raised by about 35% two days before our move, when we had no other choice but to move forward with it (our house had already sold and we needed to be in California for work). The cost was raised another 25% on moving day after our belongings were loaded onto the truck. They demanded payment by cash or check.

Beware International Van Lines.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $13000

I generally do not write derogatory reviews but rather vote with my pocket and elect not to give my business to them as my experience can be an outlier. However, this company seems to capitalize on the fact that repeat customers, especially for international moving, is not a part of their business plan and they treat you as such. I was moving from Ohio to Quebec, a distance of around 500 miles, a move size of a small 2 bedroom apartment. Cost was on the higher side, 6000 but I elected for this as the reviews were great. We enjoyed our initial talk with the manager Nico, who helped us set up the move 5 months before the move date. He had iterated on multiple occasions that the move will take 3-5 days (which was later clarified as 3-5 business days, which we understood and took it as a mea culpa). Long story short, it took 25 days of miserable calling, poor customer support and “you will get your shipment when we are ready” attitude. Had we been treated humanely, I actually would have understood this delay. However, a few things frustrated me:

IVL was a broker in my case without me knowing. I paid 2500 to them and they hired a company with the worst reviews I could find on google and one I actively avoided (AMS transportation, to whom I paid 3500). I would not have minded this if I was told about this at the time I signed the contract as when these smaller companies work for larger companies, they tend to behave better.

I complained to Nico about this delay and the unresponsiveness of AMS. Nico was nice enough on the phone and over email and also said the timeline is ridiculous for a 500 mile trip, he will find out what is going on and get back to me. He did not get back to me on all 3 occasions where he promised to investigate what is going on.

I was told when signing the final contract on my moving day that the “shipping delivery date” should be left empty as the exact date cannot be specified. But if I had discussed something with the dispatch, it will be honored. 25 days later, I saw this same contract that I signed and I now see “carrier’s convenience” written over the delivery date.

Long story short, my experience was that IVL is a broker who takes a large sum of money without providing adequate support or responsibility of their hired company. Once they have your money and furniture, they don’t care at all as the chance for repeat business in this industry is low anyways. If you have no choice but to go with IVL, I would advise that: you do not make the full payment until your goods are delivered. Write in every empty part of the contract as they will write things in there AFTER you have signed. Once you have signed, request a copy of the contract to avoid these illegal alterations.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6000

Hiring IVL was hands-down the worst purchasing decision of my life. I moved cross-country (CA to NY) and IVL farmed me out to a subcontractor TWO DAYS before the move. That subcontractor has a 1-star rating and is among the worst reviewed movers in America. IVL knows this, and they still give them work. If you were to book directly with that subcontractor, you'd pay a lot less (given their reputation) and understand the risks you're taking. But with IVL, they make you believe you are hiring THEM directly, and charge you as such. Then they subcontract you to firms they KNOW are absolutely awful, and pocket a handsome finder's fee. What's worse - given I was notified just 2 days before the move, I'd ALREADY made my insurance decision based on belief IVL would be handling my move directly. My move was 6 weeks late with several fully missing items (value: well over $1000) that were never recovered. Working with IVL to get so much as an update on where my things were was absolute hell that probably took years off my life. IVL is a dishonest company that claims to be something they are not, in order to profit off your trust (that they will then abuse). I worked with Melissa (sales), Jason (ops), Daisja (compliance), Julie (compliance), and also emailed the company founders (Josh and Jay). I've seen this company for what it is. I have full receipts of all communication as proof of their negligence and incompetence. Absolutely do not give them your business.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $5000

This was by far the worst moving company we have ever used. The driver in charge did not supervise a group of young packers so the result was that our beautiful belongings were damaged/broken. Items were just tossed in boxes without being wrapped properly. Best example: they carefully wrapped a $3 cheese grater but didn't protect a ceramic planter from the 1900's and it's now in pieces. They lost/misplaced parts to our tables, took off the legs of tables that we can no longer find the screws for. It has been the most worst move we have ever had. Antique furniture was broken, things that are irreplaceable. Thank goodness we crated some of our most breakable art work...they also put oil paintings in boxes to protect other things, luckily none were damaged. I put the blame on the hiring of unprofessional packers and the driver that didn't supervise. He rushed them to get a 10,000 sq ft house packed in 2 days instead of 3/4 days...therefore they didn't take the care it took to send our household items in one piece.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $70000

It's hard to imagine worse moving company. They lie to you from the moment you start talking to them.

First of all, they are a broker company, they hire some cheap companies to do their work for cheap but charge you premium for the brand. They would tell you to hire them because they are "best in market" but in reality they hire whoever is the cheapest.

Second, before you pay them money they would tell you things like "your move will take maximum 5 days, we put in a contract 21 just in case of some extraordinary situation happens", in reality, as soon as you pay them money, they say things like "you signed a contract, we have 21 business days to deliver your thing". So be prepared to stay one month in a hotel if you hire this company. When I called customer service a guy would say things like "you changed your delivery date so many times", "6K is not much money, just wait 21 days". Absolutely disgusting customer service.

Third, non existent customer service. You can never reach them. You can call/email/leave the message, but they just don't respond to you. The only people who are available are the once who take your money and make you sign up, after getting your money, good luck talking to anyone.

Fourth, every single piece of our furniture was damaged! They also made a hole in our wall, damaged a staircase! We had a new house, just renovated, and movers came in with zero regard for our furniture or our house, made a literal hole in the wall. Please tell me how much worse it could be?

Fifth, they will charge you so much more money than they initially tell you. They charge by sq.ft, so they would pack something tiny in the big box and change you extra. Also, they ask if 18 wheeler can come to the place and deliver furniture. We found out from neighbors and HOA that 18 wheeler will have no issues, however movers told us that "we cannot maneuver" and they asked for more money to get uhaul and deliver things on a smaller track.

Sixth, on delivery they didn't assembly majority of our furniture and said "they had other deliveries".

To sum up: broken furniture, damaged house, overcharged move, and horrible customer service.

Please, please, please, do yourself a favor and avoid this company!

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6000

DO NOT USE THIS MOVING COMPANY - I felt SCAMMED. I arranged to use IVL for a simple move from Dallas, TX to North Carolina. They were extremely responsive in the beginning with returning calls and providing information. The packing and loading went well. The problem occurred on delivery.

I had specified from day one before any papers were signed that I required the movers to unpack my boxes and to include it in my quote. I was told this would be included in the move total on numerous occasions as this was very important to me. When I mentioned to the driver they would need to unpack the boxes, he told me he had not been informed of this and was not planning to unpack the boxes. I promptly called IVL and they proceeded to tell me it would cost an additional $500 to have my boxes unpacked. This was such a SCAM!!! This was even detailed out on my invoice as included in the costs. They would not answer my calls and I was told by the driver he was the person in charge of my load. I was able to discuss with IVL, but only on his phone and they were adamant that if I wanted my boxes unpacked, I had to pay an additional $500. In the meantime, the driver told the hired hands they would have to stay and unpack the boxes for no extra pay and a whole new fight broke out in my front yard. This was extremely stressful and embarrassing and unfair to me as I had been led to believe I had already paid for the unpacking.

In the end, I did not pay them the $500 and I had to unpack the boxes myself. The driver insisted I sign the delivery papers with no opportunity to check the inventory, and he promptly left. I later figured out that he must not have completely unloaded the truck. As soon as I signed the papers, he slammed the doors closed on the truck and left. I am now left with approximately $2300 in undelivered items. There is no form on their website to claim a loss, nor will anyone return my message as I have left several. DO NOT USE THIS MOVING COMPANY!!

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6912

This moving company doesn’t treat your furnishings with care. We had several things broken and several nice pieces of furniture dented and scratched. Boxes marked fragile and this side up were on the bottom of the stack placed down.

The driver was nice and courteous but was a contractor as were the guys who unloaded the furniture. The crew was in a hurry and not good. They were literally running with dolly’s and unwrapping nice upholstered chairs on the gravel driveway.

But the worst was customer service. My furniture didn’t show up in the day it was supposed to which I understand is not a guarantee. But you would think they would call you you to let you know. I never heard from them after several calls and emails. A week later the driver calls and says I’ll be there in the morning. This company doesn’t care. Poor customer service. Go elsewhere.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $13000

The driver was supposed to pick up my car on Aug 19, and the driver told me that he canceled my order 3 hours before the pick-up time. The conversation over the phone with the driver was rude, which included f*** words, and without providing the proper cancellation reason. I tried to call International Van Lines, but I had difficulty reaching out to the operator, where the dedicated operator was out, and her backup person couldn't be reached. I told the customer service call center that I wanted to escalate the issue due to my urgency, and she ignored my request and kept putting on the line to the backup person.

After trying for 1hr, only the backup person reached back to me and tried to get another driver to pick up my car. With his conversation, I was told that my car could be left in the parking spot and the car key could be left somewhere hidden, where I didn't need to be present for the driver to pick up my car, but this info was conflicted with the later information.

Another car shipping service company reached out to me and said that they would pick up my car on Aug 22. However, I was told by my neighbor that my car hadn't been picked up on Aug 23, which was one day delayed. My wife called to car shipping service company, and they only told us that they couldn't get a driver, which they never informed us so that we could rearrange our schedule. The driver picked up our car on Aug 25, which was 7 days delayed at this point. After the pick-up, we were told that the car would be delivered to our place on Aug 31 or Sept 1. However, on Sept 1, we were informed that the arrival of the car would be delayed again to Sept 2, and arrived at 10 pm after our calling.

We had no visibility on the car shipping and only found out the fact after we called their service with multiple tries each time. The car should arrive on Aug 25, but it came on Sept 2, which was 7 days delayed. We had to spend an additional ~$700 to rent the car for another week.

No reply from the dedicated operator after writing the complaint email and CEO was also included in the email. International Van lines have poor customer service and bad drivers. The entire process didn't provide clear visibility to the customer. Would highly not recommend to their service.

Service cost: $1950