Bekins Van Lines Reviews

Despite misleading customer service claims on their website, nobody from Texas Moving Company or Bekins took any accountability for this. Emails and letters received no response. They spew complete garbage about how they care about their customers and how they go out of their way to make sure customers' needs are met, but proceed to treat you like complete crap. Misleading, disingenuous and flat-out lies. They don't care about their customers or their belongings. Doing business with this company is a huge risk that you will likely regret.

-- Excellent sales chatter before you sign the contract and they're very happy to take your 50 percent down payment (in our case about $4,500).

-- Once you sign the contract, you're assigned a "personal moving coordinator" as your contact who then never responds to your calls or emails.

-- They give you an initial three-day window but won't take into account your needs for confirming a specific day. For example, in Washington, DC, you can only get the required city-issued no parking signs for two days, and you have to put them up three days in advance. I kept telling our "personal moving coordinator" this, but she just ignored me.

-- Prepare to spend hours and hours on the phone with people who keep making promises they can't/won't keep.

-- And then, they never show up and try to keep your down payment!

After three tries of having American Van Lines fail pick up our stuff over a series of days and each time having it postponed by them, and facing a looming closing date on our house, we informed American Van Lines that they were in breach of our contract and we had to find a mover that would actually show up to move our stuff (they then tried to keep our money, which is their pattern, which we finally got back by lodging a dispute with our credit card company). With American Van Lines having failed to pick up our stuff on a Friday and Saturday, I called Russell, told him my tale of woe, and asked if Bekins could move us ASAP. That Saturday he arranged for our stuff to be moved on Wednesday (the earliest possible date since, as noted, DC requires you to post no-parking signs three days in advance) at basically his original estimate despite the late notice. And he was nice enough to not say, “I told you so.”

My experience with Bekins’ office staff was the exact opposite of dealing with American Van Lines. Everyone was professional, courteous, easily contacted, and genuinely concerned that the move went as smoothly as possible -- which it did at both ends. Bekins saved our move, acting swiftly and efficiently to resolve what was quickly becoming a crisis because of American Van Lines (the new owners of our house were moving in later that week). I cannot recommend Bekins more highly or thank them enough.

As the movers (different than before) loaded our items, they would draw attention to damages or poorly wrapped items, so we would know it wasn't from their movers. Once things were unloaded into our home, we noticed we were missing a mattress and box springs as well as some other damages. We contacted Bekins Claim adjuster and were asked to write out our concerns. We did this and sent it in to them. We received a letter of denial. When we contacted them again, she told us that they send out that letter to everyone at the beginning! Really?? Automatically? They offered us $96 for the damaged freezer door. Nothing for the missing mattress and box springs or any of the other damaged items!!

Their response was that we had agreed in advance in signing the paperwork when we left our home- only we had received no paper work at that time. We only got a list of the items loaded at our home, at the end of the arrival to the storage unit. And the mattress/box springs were listed! Then they said they couldn't be responsible for the items when it left the storage unit. We wrote them again to say how offended and disappointed we were and that we would like to work together to come to a fair agreement but to no avail. Just so unprofessional. They don't care about your things- Trust this and other reviewers, use a different company in moving the things you care about.

After getting to our destination, we were told a driver and movers were coming on August 9th. That was the absolute last day before Bekins would have to pay the late delivery fee of $100 per day. When the driver showed up, that’s when he told us there was not enough room for all our items on his truck and that 2K pounds were left behind. When I called corporate in Indiana, they had no idea. So now we’re waiting for ANOTHER delivery and we had to wait for Bekins to schedule another driver. All of our TVs were part of what was left behind.

Weeks later, we were told that our items were coming on August 19th. When I asked about compensation for the late delivery, they said that “load backs” (their terminology) were not part of the company’s compensation plan. So in a nut shell, we had zero, nothing to do with why the load was late, but Bekins were not obligated nor wanted to compensate us for the late delivery of 10 days. Incredibly insulting. Corporate just pass the buck to others and no one will claim responsibility. To add insult to injury, we suggested Bekins to a neighbor and they used them as well. Don’t use them. Even if the salesperson seems knowledgeable and committed, if anything goes wrong, you’re on your own.

Anyway, I had use another moving company and they came in, packed everything, and then delivered my belongings my address. I call my experience with Bekins learning-by-burning. Their office people are great. The driver on my route was disrespectful and reprimanded (!). I silenced him by reminding him that I paid for his services and I wouldn't sign-off on his paperwork if he didn't hold his tongue; that did the trick. Make your own decision about hiring Bekins.

I even just asked for the extra $500+ dollars I paid for the insurance back and didn’t get that either. I have made four large moves across country. I have never had an issue with repairs previously. This company is terrible. DONT USE THEM. RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Their sales people talk smack about the other companies to get you to feel like they have your best interests at heart. They don’t.

- Sales rep assured me that his quotes were always low so there would be no surprises; his bid was actually $3k too low (nasty surprise). The Company told me that this was acceptable per their standards and wouldn't release my goods until I paid.

- Driver did not show up on the date of loading and our goods remained on a truck for three months after they put us to the back of the queue. Very little correspondence from the company unless I reached out and pushed them to give me an expected timeline. My family of five had no idea when our truck would arrive. For three months we lived in an empty house (3 kids, ages 8, 8 and 6). No sympathy or sense of urgency from Bekins.

- When the truck arrived, we learned that the back hatch was broken and did not close properly so our goods were exposed to rain as they drove from Washington state to Georgia.

- Considerable damage to our goods when we unpacked them. In the claims process, Bekins references all the fine print in their inventory sheets/contract and the company has been unwilling to do what is right.

- If you do go with Bekins despite my experience, make sure you check through every single inventory item at delivery. We had items that were missing and the company is unwilling to reimburse for those because we did not call these out at the time of delivery. It will take several additional hours to inventory everything and the movers will need to stay there until you are done, but if you do not do this critical step the company will not take responsibility for losing items.

In my opinion, if you do not have a good lawyer willing to handhold the bid/moving/claims process from start to finish, do not do business with this company!