Wolf R.

Posted by
Dr. Wolf Rankis
210 Billings Rd
Hermon ME *******

Dear Bureau,

I would like to file a "complaint with explanation" against Liberty Bell Moving. I would like to state in advance that I was misled by (probably cherry picked) positive internet reviews into thinking this company would do a good job at a much lower cost than the typical "national moving companies." I was such a believer that I didn't believe I needed insurance, so I didn't get any. I'm not one of those people that want to sue over a scratch or a true accident. I felt that Liberty Bell was a Maine Company and would therefore take great care to do a good job. I couldn't have been more wrong, as it was a nightmare.

First, they loaded their 26' Van, allegedly 1 of the 17 vans in their fleet. On my moving day they told me that they had only the one van available and that I would have to rent a U-Haul truck. I asked how large and they told me a medium size would do. Once I rented the truck, they said "since it wasn't their equipment" they now demanded two-hundred fifty dollars per hour to load it.

Having just purchased a new house 80 miles away, I was already running low of available funds and elected to hire three men from a reputable local auctioneer who we gave some of our furniture and other belongings to sell. We had a large 4 bedroom house and were moving to a smaller three bedroom house.

These men loaded not one, but TWO medium U-haul trucks even after the auctioneer collected items to be sold. So much for their professional estimate. I supervised the loading of these trucks and locked with high security locks them as soon as each was full. I was the only one with the keys.

On my day of moving, I watched the Liberty Bell movers literally throwing some of my items on to the grass below. They saw me watching and then bent down to let my belongings fall to the ground.

All the cartons were heavy duty cartons and clearly marked with wide yellow tape and black marker as to what room it belonged in. At least 75% were randomly put in the house and garage. OK, but, I'm 72 and had to move everything to its true place. The only good from that was the two pants size I lost moving my items to where they should have been. I am being treated for COPD.

How did my non-insured items fare? One printed paint had the glass shattered. Two large and old oil paintings had slashes in the canvases. A hand painted dressing scree had a hole kicked into one side, a Marine radio antenna was broken in two places (1.5" fiber glassHow do you do that?) One strange observation I made was that anything I had that used a key to open would no longer work with the key for it. I had to drill my 5 drawer file case lock to get into it. I had that cabinet for more than thirty years with NEVER a problem. I had to break open my strong box (fire safe box) by throwing it off the porch to the cement since my key no longer worked. The last insult was that the box of our entire collection of kitchen knives, (many of which were quite expensive) never made the trip. It has taken me months to write this as we had a lot of boxes and I wanted to be sure I knew what I was talking about.

I called the CEO of Liberty Bell to let him know about his service, also informing him that I did not take the insurance and was NOT looking for money. He did not even closely resemble a person interested in my call. I told him his "Company didn't know what the hell they were doing" and I wanted him to know that first hand and not to be surprised when he see's my negative review. All he could say is "that if I continued to use such language the call would be terminated. Given his laissez-faire attitude, I told him there was no point to discussing this matter further.