Protected Van Lines Inc.

Avoid this company like the plague! We’ve had a terrible experience moving from Illinois to Massachusetts with them. OVER A WEEK has now passed since our stuff was supposed to be delivered and neither Protected Van Lines (PVL) nor the carriers can even give us a rough estimate of when it will arrive.

We can only get a human being to pick up the phone about 30% of the time when we call and they won’t reply to emails. Good luck leaving messages: we keep getting a message that the voice mailbox is full. It took us 3-4 days of repeated calling their customer support before anyone even picked up.

Every time we call to ask when the carrier will arrive, they say “we’ll call you back,” and they never do. They promised us 48 hours’ advanced notice before the carrier’s arrival to pick our things up but this never happened.

It was only because we kept calling that we finally found out late the night before that the carrier would arrive the next day around noon. The carrier actually arrived at 4:00 pm.

We were told yesterday that the carrier would deliver our things today and that we would get a call with a specific time last night, “or at least 3 to 4 hours’ notice.” No call came last night or any time
today. When WE CALLED and finally got someone on the phone today we were told “maybe today, maybe tomorrow.”

As the customer you have no control over which carriers PVL chooses to do business with. The carriers PVL hired were very rude
and sketchy.

Without any advance warning, one carrier demanded
a CASH-ONLY payment of $1,000.

The carriers keep promising to call us ahead of time with arrival times but never do so. We only find out when to expect them when WE CALL many, many times. For pickup, they were several hours late.

One truck driver collided with the fence at our pick-up location and charged “bulky item” fees for items as if they were a surprise even though we had specifically listed them to get our estimate.

When getting our estimate from PVL, we told them how many flights of stairs the movers would have to climb and were quoted a price for that. The carrier demanded 7 TIMES that amount and we ended up paying “only” double what we were quoted.

The PVL owner even admitted to my husband over the phone that one of the carriers was “awful”!

Service cost: $10000

This company will low ball your estimate knowing that when the actual movers get there, the cost can be drastically different. Because PVL is a brokerage company, and not a moving company, anything that goes wrong throughout the move is not their concern. They basically charge a lot of money to send bad movers to pick up your stuff. Save yourself time, energy, and money by avoiding this company. I have lost over a quarter of my things from this move, and neither the moving company nor PVL could care less.

Also, their great reviews are FAKE. They hire people to write positive reviews for them. This company needs to go out of business.

Service cost: $2650

I called them and reserved them long before my move and received a GREAT rate! I was raving about them to anyone & everyone who would listen. Moving is so expensive and stressful, I thought I got a great deal! Fast forward to the move -- they changed the time they had first said they were coming to the following day, they told me the day my things would be picked up that it was leaving CO for FL and should take about 6 days.. 4 weeks later my things arrived. The cost was 2.5x's the amount I was quoted. I was charged for moving supplies, even though that was supposed to be free (I did receive a refund for that). Some things were missing, a number of things were broken - they quoted me the $ amount for a refund for that -- it was less than what they charged me to move the items.. I asked about it, they never responded. Never sent me any refund.
Its been over a year since my move. I was mad at the time, so I did not leave a review. I am now, because I just helped my mom move and she used PODS. So much easier, So much cheaper, So much less stress! If your things are broken, it is your fault.. nothing is lost because you seal it up.. they work on your time table, so you don't have to wait a month for your things.
Don't use Protected Van Lines - they outsource, so when there is a problem, they contact the company -- it is a lot of waiting for responses and checking in and things NEVER get resolved.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6000

The woman that helped me was named sheena and she underestimated the space I would need for my move. This caused a huge confusion on the day of where I had to pay $1,500 more than what was discussed. After the first foreman showed up and told us what had happened; his “helpers” we literally snorting cocaine in the cab of the semi-truck and the foreman tried to stop them and apologized for them to us. After that happened, the helper that was snorting cocaine decided he needed to pee, my grandmother offered him our bathroom and he peed ALL over the floor. I’ve never been so furious with a company. They also refuse to refund the money that was over charged due to their issues of under compensating the dimensions needed.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3000

I've been thinking about writing this review for months. That's how long I've been pissed off at this company.

I wish I listened to all of the bad reviews about this place. I thought I would be different. I'll roll the dice I thought to myself. Worst mistake ever. Please let this be the review that you read that stops you from spending money with these people.

1. I was quoted a number for my move that was only meant to get me to sign up. They knew that as long as I said yes on that phone call and gave them my deposit, they would just make up the difference when the movers got there. And that's exactly what freakin happened. ALMOST DOUBLE my estimate. 4K turned into 8K! .

2. As they're getting my stuff the guy incharge of the move comes up to me after they have 70% (Heavy extortion vibes) if not more of my stuff already and starts doing the paperwork. He then proceeds to let me know he needs to charge me $350ish extra for fees. FOR FEES! What fees you might ask? The fee for traveling more than 100 feet. These sorry jokers where pulled up right to my ELEVATOR. Sure as the crow flies it's longer than 100 feet; but these sorry jokers where not traveling themselves more than 100 feet.

3. Finally the nail in the coffin. Our stuff gets to our destination place. They tell us they'll give us a 24hr heads up before they're there. They text us the day before at 10PM! Technically it was the day before by 2 hours. Sure whatever. What sprung this whole review though was these sorry jokers were RUDE TO MY WIFE. Yall trippin.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $8000