I filed this formal complaint with the Attorney General's Offices in Colorado, Florida, Texas and Arkansas against Midland Van Lines for Unfair and Deceptive trade practices.
I contacted Midland Van Lines for a quote to move my daughter from Garland, Tx to Arkansas, and expected to receive a fair and accurate quote. After giving them details about the two-bedroom apartment she lived in, and giving an extensive list of items needing moved, I was given a rate of $ 2,883.83. I agreed to the rate and signed the contract. After helping my daughter pack, we realized there were some items I had missed. So, she contacted them a second time, gave them the "Exact" list of All items as well as the number of boxes that they would be moving. They instructed her that the rate would need to be adjusted, and that we would owe an additional $ 420.68. Now the total move was $ 3,304.51.
When the movers arrived to pick up all the items that had been detailed, and requoted, we were told that we would owe an additional $ 1,920.78 due to the additional space they would need to use in their truck. Midland Van Lines response when we complained, was that we could just agree to let the movers put what would go on their truck, up to the agreed rate, and move the rest ourselves. At this point, my pregnant daughter was all alone and had to be out of her apartment in three days. We couldn't cancel the movers, nor would we have gotten a refund of our original deposit, if we had. We were basically held hostage, until we paid the additional cost. We had no other option at this point but to go forward with the move. Now, the total cost of the move was $ 5,225.29, almost double the original rate these "EXPERTS" gave us. This is where I feel Midland Van Lines uses Unfair and Deceptive trade practices. We relied on the original estimate, which, in good faith, we believed was an accurate rate based on services they would provide. After all, they are the experts and should be able to give a more accurate quote.
It is our understanding, after talking to the mover, that this happens all the time. He estimated that probably 75-80% of the time, the customer is not given an accurate quote. I have since found numerous complaints against this company online, that reflect this same problem. Customers are given "low" quotes, and then rates are increased the day of the move when the customer has little option but to comply.
The day the movers were scheduled to deliver my daughter's household items, she was told that the moving truck could not deliver to her address, so she would owe an additional $500.00 dollars for them to take the items off the truck and put them on a smaller truck for delivery. While she does live on a paved county road, hay trucks, logging trucks, chicken hauling trucks, feed trucks and cattle trucks (all 18 wheelers) have no problems traveling on this well-maintained, paved road. And, she has a large driveway that would enable them to turn around. She was told adamantly that they would not deliver to her with the truck. At this point, we instructed the driver that we would meet him and unload our items, and that we would NOT be paying MORE money. We were out the additional cost of renting a U-Haul (which was far less that the $500 he wanted). The driver stopped 40 miles from the delivery address, instead of meeting us closer, which he certainly could have done. When my daughter arrived with the U-Haul to get her items, the driver had dumped them out of the truck on the pavement.
Midland Van Lines did not complete the agreed delivery to the location that had been grossly under quoted, nor did they set up her items like the contract said they would. Of course, they will say it was because we refused to pay the additional $500.00 to get our household items back.
I believe that they quote the minimum rate to get the business and has nothing to do with all the "details" they ask the customer. I (mistakenly) believed that these "moving professionals" who are the "Experts" in the industry, would give an accurate, UPFRONT, HONEST, rate for their services. Evidently this is not the case, as evidenced from our experience. As a customer, we became hostage to what I feel are their unethical practices. They grossly underestimated our move, knowing that they would have us "over a barrel" so to speak in order to get our move completed.
As you will see if you do a search online, this has happened repeatedly to other consumers.
I requested that an investigation be done regarding Midland Van Lines' business practices.

This has to be one of the worst professional experiences of my entire life. There is a ton of stuff that went wrong so i will try to format this so it is easy to read, if you're considering using this mover, what follows should hopefully change your mind.

Communications were outstanding when starting to work with the company. I dont have his name off hand but he made me and my fiance feel very comfortable with the choice to move with them.

We were quoted $5000 for our move from wisconsin to texas. A month later our movers arrive to take our stuff, however they were a full 24 hours later than expected. The discpatch woman, dominique, or dominica, something like that, offered us $150 off the total. Totally cool with that, helping us out and earning our trust.

When the movers did arrive, their truck was literally smoking from under the hood, the driver says its because its a diesel, but given my background i knew that wasnt true. He then looked over all our stuff in our apartment, and proceeds to claim we were under quoted, needing more space on the truck.

Side note, the apartment was 1100sq ft and the quote was for 850 cubic feet, and the driver claimed we needed 1000 cubic feet of space, and that we needed to pay an additional $1700 for him to take our stuff. We were 48 hours away from needing to be out of our current place, so a last minute shift like this really put us in a spot where no other choice was available. The driver kept insisting that he does not work for Midland but a third party, so we had to pay his rates or not move our stuff, so we paid it and they took our stuff on 9/29/22.

Fast forward to 10/19/22. I begin receiving calls from a new driver, tells me he will arrive in 3 days to deliver my stuff, cool. Only problem was when he showed up on 10/22/22, he was in a 53 foot semi truck, not a box truck like we were told to expect.

So then this driver, contacts this dominique woman mentioned earlier, they talk, and he tells me what they can do is get a Uhaul, transfer our stuff to it, and then move everything in if i pay an additional $1000, if i didnt pay, my stuff would stay on the truck and he was on his way to florida with it. Again, no other choice was given. So we paid.

When we hired midland to move our stuff, the sales rep on the phone assured me that the movers would wrap up and and all big furniture, take apart any beds, desks, couches or other items that would need to be taken apart, even our bedframe. He also assured the same treatment upon delivery, our items would be upwrapped, rebuilt and put in their respective rooms.

Both delivery drivers had one guy helping, both of them told me that these men were just friends of theirs and not actual employees to them, their company or midland who had contracted them. The first drivers help was extremely rough taking our stuff up and down the stairs, causing a lot of noise at 9 at night on a Thursday, and upon delivery none of our stuff was unwrapped, nothing was rebuilt, there were razor blades left all over my place, and my garage filled with all my boxes of stuff, so nothing was put into the rooms they needed to be in, as was part of the deal i signed on for. When i asked about the boxes the driver responded with, " im tired man, thats good enough"

And to include, a lot of my stuff was damaged, holes that my fist fit perfectly as if someone punched holes in the boxes, almost every box marked "fragile" was damaged and could barely support the weight of anything inside it.

Obviously i tried to reach out multiple times to Midland, always getting the same dominque person, I spent a week doing an inventory of everything that was damaged or missing, (including a my comic book collections and a box of old cassette tapes and unopened hotweels were never seen again). The claims department had the audacity to take in my claim, roughly $3500 in loss and damages, and offer me $175 for all of it.

I am now taking legal action against this company for not only losing AND damaging some of my things, but also because they failed on almost every level to uphold their end of the deal on what i agreed to when i hired them.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS, CARELESS AND UNPROFESSIONAL
DOMINIQUE AND MICHAEL O'MALLEY SHOULD BOTH BE FIRED FOR LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM WITH CUSTOMERS WHO ARE SPENDING ALMOST $10,000 FOR A MOVE. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY

>>> This company apparently operates under Midland Van Lines, Planet Van Lines, Western Van Lines, and Swift Van Lines, and every single one of them have 1-star reviews when you start looking in the right places, stating the same situation that we had…all customers say they got scammed.

>>> My mom used this company to move to a different state. 1st, they screwed up her car delivery and they told us the driver canceled on us the DAY OF the car move, and then charged us $600 more in order to get the car out that same day! Apparently, they have pulled this 'bait and switch' with others by knowing your back is against the wall at the last minute. We finally went through another company to get the car transported, and they did everything smoothly, but we still had to pay the higher fee bc it was a last minute deal.

>>> Then the real scam happened. Midland Van Lines sent my mom an estimate of what it would cost, and after they had everything packed in the back of their van, that's when all the hidden fees were revealed. We were flying out the next morning, so had no choice but to accept these hidden fees, which added $200 + upon arrival. Strike #1.

>>> When my mom originally booked Midland Van Lines to ship her household items, she told them her apartment in the new state wouldn't be ready until 1 1/2 months after her move date. They told her they would hold her things in storage for 30 days for FREE and then charge a small fee until her apartment became available. They said to simply call them 2 weeks prior to when we wanted the items to be shipped. 10 days later, I receive a call from the driver saying that her household items would be delivered the next day! What?! We never called them to tell them to ship the items! When I called the company to find out what happened, Dominique said I signed a contract stating that the delivery date was October 19. Lie #1. She said she had the contract in front of her and she was looking at the exact date- Oct. 19. Lie #2. Then she told me since I signed with that date on it, that my mom would now need to pay for her own storage unit and pay for new movers when her apartment was ready in Dec. When I asked to speak to her supervisor she told me she IS the supervisor. This is how they scam people into thinking they are getting 30 days free storage. I got off the phone and had my sister send me the contract that I "supposedly" signed with the Oct. 19 date on it. Shocker to find the delivery date BLANK! They said originally that it would be left blank since she would be storing items at their facility for a little over 30 days. Then, since they wouldn't answer the phone for me, I had my husband call. She told him the same thing, but when he said we have a copy in our hands and the delivery date is blank, she said she all of the sudden couldn't locate the contract and needed time to look into it. We never heard back from her and they are no longer answering their phones. Strike #2.

>>> Next, the driver, Adam, calls me and says, "if you can't find a storage unit in the next 3 hours, I'm taking your mom's items to New Jersey and dumping them." What?! He also told me that it would be an extra fee if the storage unit couldn't fit an 18 wheeler near our storage unit. When I said, she only has 1 room full of items, and it was packed into a small moving van, he said, "not my problem. I'm shipping multiple items from different people in an 18 wheeler, so either pay extra or you don't get your stuff." By this time, my mom, sister and I were all in tears trying to sort through all of this. Strike #3.

>>> We scrambled at the last minute and finally found a place. The next day the driver said he would only accept a postal money order, so my sister text him and said, I'm getting a postal # order for $2,2180 (remaining balance) and making it out to Midland Van Lines. He text back "ok". When he arrived, he said that he worked for a different carrier and she would need to go back and get a postal $ order that had HIS company name on it. She had to drive to 2 different post offices to get that done. Strike #4.

>>> Then they said we owed an additional $200 b/c my mom's apartment was more than 75 ft from where the van was unloading. Seriously? They said they would only accept cash, and when we said we weren't comfortable paying in cash, the driver said, "I can't work like this. I'm taking the rest of your mom's items and driving to Vermont and dumping them there." I told him I would call the police if he left with her items, which he simply replied, "Call them." Strike #5.

>>> We finally got his boss to accept a payment from Venmo, and they came back and unloaded mom's items. Later, we noticed an additional charge for a credit card processing fee of $218, and we NEVER used a credit card to pay! When I inquired, they said they would refund us, yet I haven't heard back, they aren't answering their phone, and shocker…. No refund. Strike #6.

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND WALK AWAY FROM ANY OF THESE COMPANIES WITH THE NAMES I LISTED ABOVE! THEY ARE SCAMMERS AND MADE MY MOM'S MOVE A LIVING HELL!