Beware using this company to move! We had a nightmare experience with Total Care Moving. Our first clue should have been when they showed up for the move in a rented truck. (They do not have their own trucks.) I would never have booked this company if I had known this or been told about their payment policies upfront. (Do yourself a favour and ask these questions.) What started the whole negative experience was that they refused to unload anything before payment was made. This was never explained until all the furniture was loaded, and we were all on our way to the new house. While I was driving, I received an e-mail from Jenna with an incorrect invoice attached. She expected that I would somehow receive and pay the invoice while I was driving on the QEW. When I arrived at the new house, I had to pay upfront while they held our belongings hostage and then hope for the promised refund if they did not require the amount of time that they estimated. We have never in the past had to pay for a move before the job was done. One of their preferred payment methods is e-transfer but my bank flagged it as a security risk because someone else (not the person to whom you send the e-transfer) deposits the e-transfer. It took almost 2 hours to straighten it all out and we were charged for this time, while the men sat in the truck and refused to unload, even though we showed them that the funds had been withdrawn from our account and their office had received the e-transfer (the issue was on their end because of the way they were trying to deposit the funds). In the end, we had to cancel the e-transfer (however, the funds had already been removed from our account and we had to wait 72 hours for the deposit back into our account). Meanwhile, we had to pay by another method, or they would not unload. They wanted debit, but we certainly were not going to make TWO "cash" payments, so we paid by credit card. We never got the promised refund (promises, promises, promises) for hours lost. In the end, we lost two hours and because the movers were trying to make up for lost time, they banged and scratched most of our furniture; at least two cabinets (that we actually saw) fell off their dolly. In addition, one of the movers sprained an ankle rushing down steps with a cabinet, so for the rest of the unload, we only had two people unloading instead of the three movers for which we were charged. Of course, this meant more time. We ended up just letting them unload boxes into the garage instead of taking them into the house so that they could get done more quickly. The guys themselves worked hard, but unfortunately, in trying to get the job done quickly after the almost two-hour setback caused by administration, they damaged a lot of the furniture and one of them got hurt. Moreover, the administrative policies, procedures, and personnel (Jenna) with her empty promises, leave much to be desired. She is nice and friendly until they have your property loaded and held hostage on their rented truck. They should be obligated to be more upfront about their method of payment. We would never use this company again, nor would we ever recommend them to anyone. What they SAY is definitely not what you GET.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $2,300.00
- Company Response
Dear Melodie Lucescu,
This is Jenna responding to your review directly. I wanted to respond to this as we had discussed this over email and you were twisting my words on how things went then and now. Unfortunately I had the misfortune of having to argue with you back and forth on what actually happened that day versus what you are claiming happened.
Let’s start with this. Yes we lease (not rent) our trucks and we do not hide this or said at any point otherwise. We have a contract with a big third-party company and lease our trucks through them yearly. This is no secret and does not make a difference to your move as long as a functioning and insured truck shows up. I don’t see your point in trying to make it seem like this is a bad thing.
Your move was on October 14th. You emailed me on November 11th, almost a month later, looking to get money back for the time that YOU wasted. If I made any claims or such promises of refunds, they would have been done right away and you would have been on it right after your move, not a month later. You attempted to take advantage of the situation and hoped that enough time went by, but when you realized that it did not work and that we do not owe you anything you went on by calling me names, being disrespectful and threatened to write a bad review. Now another month later you decide to write a bad review when your move has been done and over with since October!
You are claiming that you had no idea when the payment was due… Please check your confirmation email with your deposit receipt where the information is clearly and highlighted and explains when the balance is due. I also went over this with you at the time of booking, the day before your move when we went through the payment methods and on the day of, after we sent the invoice. So I think that mentioning when the payment is due a total of 4 times is more than fair and you had ZERO issues with this. If you did, you should have brought up these concerns at the time that they were explained to you not after the fact because you had payment issues. Please do not pretend like you had no idea when the payment was due, as it was made clear as day when you were required to pay.
We have no preference when it comes to how you pay. You chose the e-transfer option yourself; no one asked you or forced you to do so. It was also explained to you that e-transfer can take time to come through. You were also offered the option of cash, debit or credit card as alternative payment methods.
The moment this was taking too much time and clearly the e-transfer was not working. We offered all the other payment methods. Did you accept? No, you continued to try and get in touch with the bank and spend the time doing so. Instead of just paying a different way so that they could offload instead of standing around, while you figured out what you needed with the bank. We were as accommodating as possible in this situation, we even offered to waive the 3% processing fee for the credit card just so that you would do the credit card payment so the guys did not have to wait. Debit had no extra fee and we also offered that option to you. I even told you that I will put in writing that we will not accept the e-transfer should it come through, in the meantime, if you chose a different payment method, if you were concerned with paying the amount before cancelling your e-transfer. You had no interest in this and were stuck on paying e-transfer which clearly was not working. We did not want to prolong the move, as I explained to your brother when he called, our crew needed to be back for other moves the next day and still had a long drive ahead of them. You were still on the phone with the bank when your brother offered to make the payment for you.
Your credit card is completely separate from your chequing or savings account. You are able to cancel an e-transfer at any point through your online banking. Or you could have done so when you were on the phone with the bank. We could only make the recommendation; you chose not to take it. You could have made the payment on your credit card at any point; it has nothing to do with your e-transfer. You did not make the payment, your brother did. This just proves that there were other options and actions that could have been taken on your part to speed things up.Your bank had some sort of extra security features which had absolutely nothing to do with us. I gave you the option to choose a different payment method over and over again and so did the movers as they had the machine with them, YOU decided to keep trying the e-transfer after it was clear that it was not working. We did not decide to wait this long, you did. Why would we offer a refund or hours back if you had other options that were provided to you? When your brother called to speak with me I mentioned that I brought up the other payment methods to you, he even said to you on the phone "they told you that you can pay debit or credit, why don't you just do that?!" at which point he told you to pay the bill to speed up the process instead of waiting longer for you to be on hold with your bank. You finally paid through MasterCard as he got frustrated with you. To him and us, it was common sense to use an alternative method instead of waste more time.
Once again you are being dishonest. Your move did in fact take longer to complete because of your stubbornness and unwillingness to resolve the matter quickly. I did say to you that if you went over the estimated delivery time that you paid up until, (which you did) that we would not charge you the additional time (which we did not). So you actually owe us for more time that your move took. But we kept our word and did not charge you for the time you went over, even though it wasn’t our fault.
Your personal attack on me is unnecessary. Other than your issues with payment, your move went perfectly. You said so yourself on multiple occasions, and you could not stop praising the movers. I remained respectful, kind and courteous during this frustrating payment process, so there is no reason to say that I was only friendly at the start when I was in constant, friendly, communication with you the entire time. At no point did I treat you badly or speak to you in an unfriendly way. I do not appreciate your attack on my character or how I conducted myself. You are upset but that does not give you a reason to make things up. Even when you got your brother involved and he yelled at me, I remained friendly and respectful. Once he calmed down and I explained to him that I offered the alternative options of debit or credit for you to pay, he apologized to me and begin to yell at you asking why you did not just pay a different way.
Regarding any damages, this is the first and only time that we are hearing about any damages to your belongings. Again, two months later and you conveniently mention damages in your review but not to the company directly?
