American Van Lines review: Communication during moving was incredibly poor

Other than putting a deposit down, from start to finish, communication with AVL has been abhorrent. You have to constantly call customer service to receive updates about your move, because employees simply do not answer the phone or emails.

My move coordinator, Rosa Gilbert, only introduced herself a day before pickup, which was only confirmed two days prior to my move window because a customer service rep was able to magically get through to her. I had to scramble to pack because of the lack of a heads up.

Not only did AVL outsource the move to another company -- something the estimator, Rick Peveler, assured AVL doesn't do -- but Damir from SOS Moving LLC only gave me a four hour heads up that the driver would be arriving for delivery. No prior heads up whatsoever. For context, this was a cross-country move from CA to NYC and I was given a 7 to 14 day delivery window. You need to give your customers more time than that to prepare. Damir told me if I wasn't there to intercept delivery by the next morning, it'd be $70 for every hour his driver had to wait for me. I was forced to drive from Indiana to NYC over night because of this lack of communication, only for the driver to be an hour late anyway. They also only sent one worker, the driver, to deliver my things. It took him 2 hours to unload 1 bedroom's worth of things because he was alone.

When I complained about my experience, I spoke to Mariano Ortega, who ensured he'd investigate what went wrong and get back to me. He too didn't answer my followup email and hasn't provided a resolution. I won't hold my breath, now that they have my money.

I will be advising everyone I know to stay away from American Van Lines for their moves. I suggest you find another company that actually cares about their customers, because AVL has proven that they do not.

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