Trillium Moving & Storage Services

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! AND AVOID ALL PARENT COMPANIES - DO YOUR RESEARCH AND WATCH THE EPISODE ON CBC MARKETPLACE. This goes way beyond the "bad customer service" that we have all experienced at one time or another. I am talking horror story here. Numbers modified with liquid paper on contract after it was initialized and signed; missing furniture; broken furniture; invoice almost double the amount of the estimate; threats not to deliver and to add fees if you try to contest the charges. I'm astounded that in Canada, such a business hasn't been shut down; I beg you, don't make the mistake I made!! I know I won't see my furniture again (high sentimental and market value), but what is even more painful is to think of all the others who will go through the heartache and frustration that I went through.

You may think that you are getting great customer service through email at first, and that a trustworthy agent has been assigned to your move (in my case, "Rosie"), but beware, this is a generic email used by all employees; no specific employee is taking care of you.

I consider myself an educated customer and I was assisted by a lawyer at the time of delivery: trust me, you won't win against them. Just avoid.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $1100

Hiring Trillium Moving and Storage has been one of the worst decisions I've ever made. I’ll tell the full story below, but here’s the condensed version for those in a hurry: 
·       - Was quoted $1900 for shipment, then charged $5014 immediately before delivery. Goods would be held hostage until payment was made.
·       - All outgoing inventory was marked as broken and damaged, so Trillium would not be held responsible. Goods were in terrible condition on arrival.
·       - Communication throughout was deliberately poor and misleading.
I requested quotes from a dozen companies online, and Trillium came back with the cheapest quote by quite a stretch. I requested a visual survey, and was told that they do not offer them for smaller shipments, but they would provide an estimate if I give them a detailed list of our belongings. I provided this, and received a quote for $1900, which seemed reasonable. I agreed to hire them. Our goods were collected several months later. Several weeks passed, and I had heard nothing from Trillium. I followed up to check on the final weight/cost, because I know that movers can hike up the cost later. Trillium responded, but my request was ignored. I followed up again, twice, and was again ignored both times.
 Weeks later, and shortly before delivery was due, I received a call from the driver (not Trillium themselves, who were still ignoring me), saying the shipment would arrive in two days time, and I must have payment of $5014 ready to pay on arrival. This was more than $3000 higher than the original estimate. I assumed there must have been some miscommunication, so I called Kate Roberts (our customer service rep) who told me that the weight was higher than the estimate, so the price would be considerably greater. I asked why I was not told earlier, and she simply said they have no obligation to tell me at any specific time. I told her I could not afford that much, and asked her to return the shipment, but she said she could not do that, and that, if I did not pay, our belongings would be placed in storage, at the cost of $175/month. After a certain amount of time, they would sell our belongings.
I asked for the rate to be lowered and was told by Kate Roberts that she would have to speak to her manager, who would be away for the next few days. I followed up a few days later, and was told that the manager was still not back. This happened again and again for several days, until I researched the company and found out that Kate Roberts, our customer service rep, is the owner and manager, and she had been brazenly lying to me about needing to speak to her manager. When I confronted her about this, she denied being the manager.
I finally accepted that I had fallen victim to the classic mover’s scam: I was given a super-low estimate designed to prey on individuals without a great deal of disposable income, my goods were packed in the truck, and then the price was hiked up, and the goods were held hostage. Sadly after a bit of Googling (too late), I found I was not the first person Trillium had done this too. See below for just one news story:
http://www.trurodaily.com/News/Local/2013-11-07/article-3471225/Moving-woes-leave-Little-Dyke-couple-living-in-near-unfurnished-home/1
I refused to pay, knowing that something illegal was occurring. I contacted the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, who affirmed to me that this was an illegal act, and that it is against the law in Canada and the US for any company to charge more than 10% higher than an estimate. I told this to Kate, who said that the quote she provided was a non-binding quote, rather than a binding quote, and the law doesn’t apply to such quotes. I contacted the Ministry again, who said that, under Canadian law, there is no such distinction between binding and non-binding contacts, and it was clearly an illegal act, and I could easily pursue legal action. I went back and forth with Kate, and she offered to reduce the price to $3500. I again refused.
Once I had filed an official complaint, and sent Kate a letter confirming this, I received word that the goods were not being held in storage after all, but were on the way to me in Los Angeles, as she was unable to stop the shipment. She said that she was willing to lower the price again, but not to the original estimate, or to within the 10% window. She said that, because the goods were already on the move, if I refused to pay the driver would now drop my goods somewhere in Los Angeles, and return back to Canada. I had no choice to agree to this, because the legal process would not be completed in time, I needed my shipment, and I didn’t want my goods abandoned in the city. We eventually agreed on a lower price ($2880, rather than the original $5014, but a great deal higher than the $1900 I was quoted), and the goods were delivered.
The driver eventually arrived, and I saw the state of my shipment. Trillium had used a company called Vega Line to transport their goods, and Vega Line is currently running a 2.9/10 ranking on Home Stars. The goods were stacked so high in the van (floor to ceiling, see photo attached) that the boxes and crates on the bottoms were completely crushed. To my surprise, there was only one man to both drive and unload the truck It is common sense that one person cannot properly unload a large shipment, including large pieces of furniture, without doing damage to the goods. Because he could not lift the goods on his own, he has to use a dolly for all the pieces, and actually pulled the dolly up a flight of stairs with the goods on top. One of my dressers had a huge hunk of wood ripped out of the base when he pulled the dolly out. I told the mover what he had done and his response was “you have to expect that to happen when you use a dolly to move heavy furniture.”
Many of my goods were damaged, and some items were completely missing. I went to file an insurance claim, and then I noticed the next part of the scam: on the inventory form that was made at pick-up, the movers had marked every single item on the inventory as “chipped,” “scratched” and “worn” so they would not be held responsible for the damage they would later do to the shipment. They even marked the mattress as being “mildewed” and “stained,” even though it was in pristine condition. If I had been there for pick-up I would not have signed off on this, but sadly my father-in-law, who supervised the pick-up, did not notice this. Consequently, it’s very unlikely that my insurance claim (which is for over $1000 of damages) will be honoured.
 
I can imagine Kate Roberts responding that I’m not providing her side of the story, and that there was more in my shipment than in the original breakdown. While I made every effort to be accurate, it is possible that there were slightly more goods in the shipment than on the survey (although much less than what Trillium claims). Regardless, the problem could have been avoided entirely if Trillium provided the visual survey that I requested. Mostly importantly, if the shipment was truly substantially larger than the estimate given, the time to tell me this information is either at pickup or shortly after, so I have the option of changing my mind about the delivery. It is not ethical to do so once the shipment has already crossed North America so that my belongings are in a position to be held ransom.
The truth is that, regardless of Kate’s arguments, both the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services in Canada, and the Attorney General’s Office in the United States have told me that hiking the price more than 10% over the estimate is against the law. I will continue to pursue legal action against the company, and will update here if there is any progress.

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Service cost: $2880

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Service cost: $4600

I chose this company because they offered a nice rate. They were late about 4 hours for the pick up. When they arrived and moved everything, they charged me for some covers they used.  as it was a long distance move, they said they can store everything for free until my move in date. But, they charged me $100 for the storage. I had to claim that amount.. The day of the move in,  they were late once again for about 5 hours. They damaged several of my furniture. I had for almost $5000 in loss. Brand new white leather sofa I bought 7 months ago, leather chaise lounge, dresser, bed frame.. I claimed for all of these and they made me wait about 5 weeks to tell me I will receive $100 for my claim. I moved a lot in my life, from 3 continents, and this is the first time I have so bad experience with a moving company. I will never do business with them anymore. If my review can prevent this nightmare, I'll be very glad.

Service cost: $1200

I would never ever recommend Trillium company to anyone as it is one the worst experiences I've ever had with a service company. We hired them to ship our stuffs from Ottawa to Calgary on June 24, 2013. They were supposed to deliver them until July 10 but the actual delivery happened on July 18, after many calls and follow ups. By the time of delivery we had to pay the full amount so that our items could be dropped off. However, they did not provide us with a scale weight or a receipt. Twoexpensive items were lost (Total value of $800), the delivery guys assured us they would deliver them in couple of days or so, but they haven't done so yet after almost three weeks. We were in contact with one of the customer relations manager regarding our lost items and additional charges, but she didn't seem to be caring at all. There were also additional charges that had not been issued on our initial quotation. We were supposed to get a refund for those extra charges by Tuesday Aug 6, which we did not received it. The situation seems pretty awkward to us, as they delivered the small boxes and invaluable items such as books and cooking stuffs, but those valuable items (a brand new Samsung audio system, and a bike) are missing. .

Service cost: $1850

There were some things this company did that were good.  They agreed to pick up my shipment on short notice and they came when they said they would. I packed my own things, which was a choice they said I could make.  However when they arrived they said it wasn't packed to their liking and charged me for a huge amount of bubble wrap and packing tape.  The contract said that wrapping the furniture would be included in the price, but apparently not.  They also charged me for five wardrobe boxes.  Total packing charge was over $330 and I was not given a choice.  My furniture was late arriving.  When it came some of the totes were squashed and broken.  They blamed me for that but I looked in the truck and saw they were stacked about 10 high, no wonder they were squashed and broken.  My garden bench had the back broken and someone put it back together with tape.  The top decoration was broken off of an antique mirror.  A slit had been made in the plastic on another mirror and the broken piece stuck in there.  One of my dressers had three gouges in the front edge.  In places the plastic wrap had been torn and deep scratches in the torn areas.  It was very obvious that things had been handled in a very rough manner.  When the movers brought my furniture in the new house, they made scratches on the hardwood floor of three of the rooms.  I heard them pushing furniture across the floor so I went up to look and saw the scratches.  The floors had just been refinished before we moved in.  I would not use this company again.  I feel they see your belongings as just a cargo and don't care how rough they handle it.  I feel they were not upfront with me about extra costs.  They said on the contract that they offered a seniors discount but I had to ask three times to get it.

Service cost: $4700

I gave them 1 star because there wasn't an option to give zero.
This company was a disaster to deal with, and I would NOT recommend them to anyone. I'm in the process of taking them to small claims court, as someone stole my new iMac (was in box AND listed specifically on the itemized contract) in addition to random overage charges (including a parking ticket??) AND failure to provide a guaranteed, government stamped weight page.
The customer service reps were completely unprofessional - one even attempted to bribe me by saying they'd remove the charges (that I wasn't contractually responsible to pay), if I would provide in writing that I wouldn't write a bad review. Who does that??
Anyway, to sum it up - they overcharged me by close to $800, stole my new iMac, and was almost a month late in delivering my goods.

Service cost: $2800

The office staff is good, but hard to get a hold of people. The movers showed up early to pick-up which was great, the sooner they came the sooner we cleaned and were on our way. But they just threw boxes on the ground, in the truck, no care was really taken. Upon delivery, we pull up to our new place and find the movers in the neighbours garden STEALING fruits and veggies. Neighbour came out and gave them heck. Driver was just throwing our boxes out of the truck onto the ground. No care was taken. Almost all boxes were smashed/dented. Any box marked fragile seemed to have a target because they ALL had something broken, including 100 year old china. All our wall units had the bases broken somehow. One we had to throw out it was in that bad of shape. The movers also did not wear shirts, tried to sell their company (these guys must have been hired through trillium). After delivery of all items were made some of the movers disappear. Come to find out they raided the garden again. I'm sorry that is not your property. I would not recommend this comapny. We were shocked at how much our stuff weighed because we thought we were pretty close, but came in 3000 pounds more. And if we wanted a rescale it would cost us 200.00 for the labour and if it was within 200lbs we owed the 200.00 still but less than 200lbs the fee would be waived, and funny enough the movers showed up after scales were closed.

Service cost: $4800

I hired Trillium online to pack up and move my mom from Northern to Southern Alberta. They denied I hired them to pack, AFTER they sent their guy out. They sent only one man to do the entire job, brought no boxes or packing material, no way of moving the big furniture by himself. The company then proceeded to hold my mom's entire life in their truck demanding 3 times the amount quoted, and they wanted the funds in advance of delivering. We had to report them to the police who said never ever pay by credit card in advance.

They were disgustingly rude, nasty, stupid people. They stole everything my mom has ever had, including all her keepsakes from my late father, and personal records. The mover himself had to be helped by other seniors at the Manor in collecting dirty boxes and newspapers from dumpsters and liquor stores to pack her stuff and then the company attempted to charge me further for those boxes.

Please DO NOT HIRE THESES HORRIBLE CROOKS. They have destroyed my mom, she is sitting in an empty apartment depressed and very sick.

This company makes me sick. This is no lie, I swear, and we have many many witnesses to this crime and travesty.

This company is the nightmare you never think will happen to you. They even harassed me until I had to change my phone number. We have reported them to the BBB, police and lawyers. DO NOT USE THEM.

Service cost: $4300