colonial van lines

Had a great experience with Colonial Van Lines for my move from San Francisco to Seattle. Communication leading up to the move was great (I could always get a hold of someone at the dispatch office if I needed to). They were transparent about pricing (I ended up paying what I was quoted). The movers were very professional, efficient, and got the job done. Nothing more I could ask for. Would hire them again.

Edit: Donna from the resolutions department did a wonderful job to resolve our grievances by compensating us for the time, inconvenience, and items that were damaged. She was wonderful to work with and very kind and sympathetic. Original review: ZERO STARS. DO NOT USE. DELIVERY WAS WEEKS LATE AND EVERYTHING BROKEN. This company is horrible. We used colonial van lines to move out of state. The worst mistake we could have made. First, they were weeks late in delivering our stuff and had horrible communication the entire time, moving the deadline multiple times, and at one point telling us they no longer had an ETA for delivery (meanwhile we were staying in our new home for weeks on end with nothing but an air mattress, miserable). They didn't even call us to tell us this; we had to call them to get any information after they didn't show up multiple times. Our account manager on the phone was nice, and said she would have her manager call to discuss a per diem late fee per the contract. He never called, however, and when they finally showed up they demanded the full price. He got the manage on the phone (although we're still waiting for his call, days later), and reduced the price by a fraction of what we expected based on what our account manager had promised. The driver/main delivery guy was extremely rude, expressing no sympathy whatsoever, saying "I'm just the driver". Throughout the unloading he barked commands rudely at the other two movers, barely letting them have breaks. He also told me to put away anything valuable because he didn't want my husband to accuse them of stealing and then "remember later he just took the jewelry it to get cleaned". Once they started unloading, we noticed how HORRIBLY they had handled our belongings during the haul. Almost every box was smashed with broken items inside, some were even torn open. EVERY SINGLE piece of furniture arrived broken, bent, dented, or scratched, including my grandfather's desk which they basically broke in half. Our mattress was stored folded in half and now has a permanent bend in the middle, and is ripped on every corner. Multiple dining chairs are busted out the back. Our sofa is smashed in on one side and the leg on that corner no longer touches the floor. Our brand new Weber grill has a HUGE dent in it... just to name a few things. The photos speak for themselves. Still, the driver was extremely rude and unapologetic, going so far as to say we didn't pack the boxes right (I used TONS of bubble wrap in every box), and that my grandfather's desk was made cheaply and that's why it broke. They also delivered some items that weren't ours. Luckily we caught that before they left so they could load them back on the truck. For how much we paid for this, I expected some semblance of quality. This company is absolute garbage in every way. Couldn't be more sorry we hired them.

I give Colonial an average of three stars. I award 5 to Donna with their resolution department who treated our issue with respect and understanding meanwhile working with us to find a compromise after we were put in a very difficult position by Colonial. Colonial has only earned 1 star in regards to the move itself. We hired Colonial Van Lines to relocate our ENITRE household out of state, 815miles. Fully understand what they are offering before signing a contract. Be wary of any offers to price lock your move as this is misconcieving. Colonial grossly underestimated the size of our move and subcontracted our job to another company who showed up with a truck that was too small for our belongings. The truck was not a semi as is pictured in advertising. We were then told by the hired company that we had to choose what was going to get transported and Colonial would help figure out the remaining items. After a week of waiting for a resolution, Colonial decided that they were not going to transport the remainder of our belongings. Colonial told us we had to create a new contract with them that would require additional payment on our part, even though I provided photographic evidence that some of the items on their "Binding" agreement was still at our old house. We received our dining room table but the extension leaves were left behind. We received a box of toy fruits/veg but the Fisher Price kitchen was left behind. They left our patio furniture set behind. Every time I spoke to a customer care representative, they deflected all responsibility of the left behind items to their subcontractor and/or us. After another several days of debate, the resolution we came to was that we would be responsible for moving the remainder of our items and they would not charge us the additional $2,000 for the load we did receive. Our only option now is to move the remaining items ourselves with a UHAUL as we are in a time constraint with selling our other house. Overall we are not happy with the service provided by Colonial. And now that we are asking for the additional charges to be removed since they did not complete their contract, we are being pressured to change our online rating to 5 stars.

I do not recommend anyone to use this company! We paid $28,819. for them to move us from California to Alabama. Only Our Furniture and Belongings would on the truck. They said they would pack, Wrap, disassemble and reassemble our Furniture. They lost all the parts to put our furniture back together. Most of our custom and antique (heirloom) furniture was severely damaged or rendered useless due to missing parts. 18 of our belongings and 19 totes filled with nostalgic collectables handed down from my husband's grandparents are missing. The Shuttle crew was 6 hours late and left us with mounds of debri all around the outside of our house at 1:00 AM. My husband is a Retired Navy Veteran, Cancer survivor, Fed by a G-Tube and we both have respiratory issues. We did not get the professional service that we paid for. We were taken advantage of. After filing a complaint with Colonial Van Lines regarding all of this they were first going to reimburse us $500., Then $1137. Now $2000. to retract our review of their company. Not worth it. I want people to know how they do business. This lack of Service and Care in America has to stop!

PLEASE READ BEFORE CONSIDERING TRUSTING COLONIAL WITH ALL YOUR BELONGINGS! I trusted booking my cross country move with CVL because they appears on Us Weekly’s highly rated movers and a few other sites. I did lots of research comparing different company’s in terms of price point, timeline, guidelines, etc. Shoutout to Renee Erazo for lying directly to my face from the start, everything she said was a lie, literally everything. They picked our stuff up on the first day of our pickup window which was great, however 2 movers from Posh Moving & Storage showed up. I was told multiple times that colonial was not a broker, yet they hired Posh to do our move. My mom and I printed off my moving documents, combed through it, circled, highlighted, took questions back to our sales rep Renee and no where did it say Posh was doing our move until the day before. However, the two movers did a great job packing up my furniture- taking inventory, labeling, wrapping everything in moving blankets and tape, and I packed my boxes myself and packed them very securely. Thank god I placed an AirTag in a box so I could track my boxes, best decision ever. My delivery window was 10 days which was totally understandable. However, my stuff then went to sit in Las Vegas NV for 2 WEEKS!!!! Not a single movement and no update on when they could foresee a truck coming toward the state I moved to. I called everyday for updates, begging for my stuff, worried I’d never see it again. Finally, it was put on a delivery truck and went right down the road and sat there in a broken truck for an entire week with no update on when the truck would be fixed. Then, the truck was fixed a week later and then it broke AGAIN! I was feeling hopeless, finally at a breaking point, I had owned my house now for 3 weeks and couldn’t move in because I had nothing. The truck finally made the move and showed up a week later. It was one guy who showed up to unload everything…I didn’t know when I hired “movers” that only one guy would do everything, that’s hard work for one guy!! And he showed up with his 7 yr old kid running around who eventually pooped his pants and had to come in to use our brand new bathroom, I felt bad for the kid… When he came up to our house, he said he was ready for the final payment and we said “we’re not paying until everything is off of that truck and nothing is missing” and he said “I wished it worked like that, I can’t touch a single box until we have the payment” which was crazy… He opened the door to the truck and boxes just started falling out onto the street, I couldn’t help but laugh, what kind of joke was this???? He said “don’t worry this isn’t your stuff, it’s for a move in CA”, yikes! He proceeded to unload and my husband ended up getting a dolly and helping him the whole time, we didn’t have him assemble any furniture, I trusted us to do it more than him. Boxes had gotten wet from the rain and destroyed some of my things, no furniture was damaged thank god! It felt so good to have all my stuff back. The trucker had assured us he’d never worked for Colonial before let alone even heard of it but confirmed that they were a broker and this is exactly what brokers do, they hire out to have someone else do the job. After being reassured the entire time that CVL was not a broker, they surely are! They knew I had an AirTag in my boxes and they’d call daily and say “where is your tracker today?” Like shouldn’t you be telling me where the truck is?? It was a nightmare. I wish I would’ve spent double the money to have a much better experience. What was supposed to be 10 days ended up being one month!! I know delivery windows aren’t guaranteed but geez, figure it out. Do not hire. Ever. Update: Donna from resolutions was able to compensate for the issues during our move. Although it doesn’t change our moving experience, I would still rate CVL 1 star, but 5 stars for the resolutions department.