Absolute Vanlines

My wife and I hired Absolute to move our furniture from Alberta to Ontario, and overall we are pleased with the quality and service of this company.

The day of the move, the guys who arrived were a bunch of yokels, about 18 or 19 years old and didn't speak any English. I watched as they tried to jam our $1,000 dining room table through the doorway without removing the legs. Every time I offered to remove the legs for them they shooed me away. Their foreman was aggressive and a bit rude. Other than that, though, they got the truck loaded quickly. I understand the company sub-contracts work when they need to (as in this case).

We drove across Canada and awaited our stuff in Ontario. After a couple of weeks I received a phone call from Absolute that our stuff had arrived in Mississauga.

I asked for the final invoice, which had doubled from the original quote. Almost all of the extra cost was in weight, which I had under-estimated. There were a few other costs as well, such as a fee for stairs and things of such nature. Because I had been expecting about $1,000, and the final price was closer to $2,000, we just didn't have enough money to pay for it all right away.

My wife and I were sitting on the floor of our new place and sleeping on an air mattress. My uncle, who knows Mississauga well, and I went to the Absolute offices and spoke with Meghan, my representative, and Brock, who might be the owner.

They were very friendly and professional and Brock is a decent guy who was willing to negotiate a mutually-acceptable final price. We brought it down to $1600 and arranged a move for the coming weekend!

The movers who delivered our stuff were so much better than in Alberta. There, eight young guys who didn't know what they were doing had manhandled our things into a truck. Here, two very professional Jamaican guys carried everything in (we helped where we could) in just over an hour!

These two guys were friendly and obviously knew what they were doing; they didn't even touch the walls when moving the sofa!

Unfortunately the yokels in Alberta had already damaged our dining room table and put a big hole in the arm of our new sofa (when they took the furniture in Alberta it was all unwrapped, but when they delivered it everything was nicely wrapped with no damage on the wrapping, so I can deduce that all the damage came from the Alberta side).

Meghan, at Absolute sent me a damage claim form and we're waiting for the results. Nevertheless, the quality of the movers here in Ontario, coupled with Meghan's helpfulness and Brock's willingness to negotiate make this a great company. Add to it the fact that we got our stuff from Alberta to Ontario for $1600 and it is one of the best-priced companies around!

I highly recommend Absolute Vanlines for moves in Ontario, but because of the damage and the dummies in Alberta, I have to give them 7 stars instead of 10 (but all 7 of those are for the Ontario end).