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

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

Your AMAZING! Chloe was my rep and she was great! she walked me through the entire process and was really flexible with my dates and neediness. I'm pretty sure she is sick of me by know. The service was professional and very accommodating to my family and me. A few days after my delivery I received a call to make sure the delivery went well and to make sure I was happy with the service which was nice because it seemed like they really cared. I recommend that everyone try this company if they want the service I received asking for Chloe. Thank you so much to Trillium you made our move perfect!

Service cost: $1000

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

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

I have never had a more frustrating or expensive move, and I have moved a lot.  Most of my valuables were damaged.  I was charged an additional $700 upon delivery for an extra pick up, extra drop off and warehousing fee, none of which were true.  When I didn't want to pay the extra charge, the movers held my goods hostage.  Upon calling head office in Toronto, I was told they would refund $211 and insisted they did not know what I was talking about regarding the rest, even thought it was on the bill.
I am continuously asked to hold off on receiving my refund.  It has been a month now.  Nobody at all has contacted me regarding the damaged goods.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

Service cost: $5000

We chose Trillium to move our household and Parent's houshold from BC and Alberta Respectively in May 2013. I am not even sure where to start. First I was informed one week before the move that they would arrive one week early because that was what was convenuent for their driver, so we had to stay in a hotel..not very great for us! When our stuff finally arrived in Nova Scotia it was almost at their convenience not ours, but I put my foot down and had to force them to come 2 days before I had to start work, otherwise their preference was to deliver after I started work. Every single item was damaged..boxes were squashed and ripped open, there were footprints all over every piece of furniture including the broken bookcase I used to have. All of our glass items were smashed and broken and our big screen TV was completely smashed which was packed by Trillium who charged us an additional $100 for the TV box! Trillium also charged me an additional $250!because their truck could not make the turn into our driveway but this was eventually refunded to shut us up about the destroyed furniture and boxes, but only after I emailed the photos to Kate. NEVER use this moving company if you want your things to arrive in one piece. We were not provided with a weigh slip until we demanded it as the cost to receive our smashed and broken belongins was $3000 approx. over what we were quoted in the beginning.   My parents had an identical experience and they were in the Military and had never had anythingarrive broken and damaged before. We would like to warn people not to use Trillium as that is the only recourse we will ever have. Thank you, Trina Gree.

Service cost: $8914

If I could give this "moving" company a NEGATIVE rating I would, considering they are NOT an actually moving company they are a dispatch company that hires other companies to more your things for them. Right from the get go I should have noticed the red flags, they seemed to be kind and greatly priced once I said I would hire them to be my moving company it all went down hill from there. Not only was it impossible to get ahold of my customer service rep, but when it came down to actually having… read more a dispute and told her I was tired of the nonsense and wanted to make a complaint she told me this was not necessary and did not give me the information of her manager until I insisted once again. Once I finally got ahold of their so called "manager" I figured things would work out, boy was I mistaken. Not only did I waste numerous time and patience with this woman, they have now also wasted my money. I could send this woman 3 emails before she would get back to me and trying to get ahold of someone in the office in nearly impossible as they seem to ALWAYS be "out." After all the issues I have had with this company I have not been given a single apology, or explanation as why they seem to utterly incompetent and rude. A move that would have cost me 3000$ with any other moving company has now cost me 4500$ and did I mention I still haven't received my items. As of tomorrow I "should" have my items finally after being almost half a month late, and I will be posting pictures as I can already assume there will be damage and missing items as they continue to astound me with their incompetence. Not only is Trillium moving the worst company to do business with, the actual movers they hire are beyond rude and always late. They give you a 4 hour window to when they will arrive and still can't even manage to be on time. First time they showed up they were an hour late after the window they had given us, the second time they were 2 hours later after the window they had given us, so I expect nothing less when they arrive tomorrow. No only were they late both times but when they did arrive they did not give us an explanation as to why or a single apology, not only this but they were extremely rude when they spoke to us and took no care when moving our items. I will be posting more after they show up AGAIN tomorrow, but I would like to reiterate Trillum Moving is the WORST company you could ever chose to move your belonging. If you care about your belongings, time, money and patience DO NOT use this company and inform anyone you know who will be moving to do the same as I will be with all of my friends and family.

Service cost: $4500

Terrible service. Rude and argumentative upon pickup. Damaged furniture, one box soaked in grease and dirt. Took a month to deliver possessions. After two and a half weeks of being led on about delivery date was given 24 hours to procure three times the original quote and only after actively asking for total amount. Charged for wrapping which was declined and a storage fee even though it was made painfully clear to the company we required our shipment as quickly as possible. Worst customer service I have ever experienced.

Service cost: $2300

I was ripped off hundreds of dollars by these guys. The movers forced me to use their packing service when things weren't packing according to their standards (they said they wouldn't pick it up unless they repacked) and then after I paid the sales rep told me it was just a suggestion that I didn't have to use it. They also lost about 8% of my items and claim that everything is there meanwhile I am using their own inventory list. Worst service ever. The movers at the time of delivery were nice, but the people in the head office making all the arrangements have no common sense. I would never recommend them. .

Service cost: $8000