Colonial Van Lines
reviews and complaints

“In my opinion regarding job # [protected]-CO, Colonial Van Lines transportation broker who hired ESP Motors as our carrier are the most disreputable moving firms anyone could ever hire – STAY AWAY from them! I regret ever hiring them. They will give you a moving estimate 30% lower than actual, deliver goods 13 days late in breach of contracted date and lose 23 boxes in transport. They will hold your goods hostage until you prepay all fees they deem valid. ESP Motors even arrived without sufficient resources to offload the delivery resulting in this 63 year old having to unload half of my own goods from the truck which took three hours.”

Beware! Total nightmare! Colonial van lines contracts out to third party carriers and as a customer you have no control of the quality of that company or drivers. I was contracted with "top cat movers", a totally unprofessional and unreliable company. After numerous complaints to colonial van lines they backed up their vendor vs, the paying customer. I asked repeatedly for another carrier but they could not make a change! Top cat was delayed from the beginning... Scheduled pick up on oct 9th. Did not pick up until the oct 12th. The truck was 3/4 full and could not accommodate my 8100 pounds of inventory. They said they would schedule another truck and split the load. Colonial van lines promised me that all my property would be on one dedicated truck and not co-mingled with other property. The driver (Owner) was patronizing, rude, sarcastic and totally unprofessional. I received my first load on oct 18th which was damaged, wet, and moldy. The driver did not have support to unload and place my items in the house, so he shoved everything in the garage. I found out the driver left my property overnight in my backyard with the sprinklers on! I expected the 2nd load on oct 30th but after five no shows the 2nd load arrived on nov 25th. The load was incomplete and damaged. All the disassembled items on pickup such as the bed frames, table and grandfathers clock components were incomplete (No bolts, rails and missing weights and pendulum for the clock) and therefore could not be assembled. I believe the company has stolen m items including a dyson vacuum, jewelry boxes, clothes, tv, heavy duty dolly, clock components, dresser large mirror, two end tables, dining room chair, card table and chairs, etc. There must be over $10, 000 worth of damage, lost and stolen items….80% of my property has been compromised. I was working with the colonial van lines escalation department but to no avail. The driver continued to lie and make excuses as to why the load was late and damaged. I still do not have my complete list of inventory and in fact I have other people's property in my garage. I paid over $3500 for this move of 1000 miles and it was a true nightmare. The treatment was unprofessional and no resolution has been made to compensate me for the late penalties, damaged goods, missing items, and my costs to hire outside help to move the items from garage to house. The driver was threatening and I had to hire security to ensure the driver did not attack. On top of the $3500 for the cost of the move, I had to pay over $1500 for outside support. Cvl sent me a final agreement in which they would compensate me for $331 that the driver failed to pay in penalties if I would sign a liability waiver that I would seek no further action and retract my complaints and negative feedback…. I refused to sign as I will seek legal action for this disastrous move. Do not contract with colonial van lines... They will not support you (Even though they are responsible) for the conduct of their third party carriers. Job #[protected]-co

I have asked the company colonial van lines to move my items from florida to new york. They picked the stuff as we agreed, but I didn’t get the whole boxes. It turned out that they have left them somewhere. I complained about it and asked for compensation. Within 3 months they were naughty and only promised something. But recently they refused to compensate anything and told me that u needed to be happy that I got some of the items at all. Seriously, it was very irresponsible and inappropriate.

Deception, poor communication, substandard services, and the absolute worst customer care/ claims department of any Corporation that I have ever dealt with! It would be in your best interest to avoid any dealings with Colonial Van Lines, their Relocation Division (Relo Van Lines), or any subsidiary of this corporation! In November of 2014, I contracted with Colonial Van Lines to move items, from Tennessee to Florida; and I am still trying to recover compensation for late pick up and delivery times, damaged personal belongings, and stolen items! (Left on the truck and never returned!) I also, never received confirmation of a load weight; that was said to be in excess of the initial estimate! After negotiating their three month claims response time, a multitude of paperwork, and endless phone calls and emails; I was given an insulting, low ball offer! It was not until I provided audio proof of my conversations with the driver, and following several BBB complaints; that they would even consider some of my losses; and they have yet to include all lost/ damaged items! It appears that I will be forced to seek legal action, before I will see any conclusion to this nightmare! It is my hope that, anyone seeking a reliable moving company will look elsewhere!

A bunch of deceitful people working for this company. My husband and I just recently got married and were moving cross country from sc to ca. We initially were going to go with a pod, however, their sales (Liars) associates got our number somehow and told us they could do it for cheaper as well as provide movers for free. They also lied and told us pods loads and unloads the containers at a 45 degree angle (Which is not true at all).

So sounds like a great idea right? Wrong! Their supposedly "knowledgeable" representatives had us walk through our entire apartment and garage (Twice!) pointing out every little thing we owned as well as assured us they were over estimating the weight. After the second call they up'ed the price even more and forced us to put down more money for the deposit "just in case".

Well, finally the day of the move comes and their outsourced driver, could neither fit his truck in our apartment complex, which colonial said would be no issue, and were going to charge us $700 to get a smaller truck to move our things in and out. Secondly, the driver told us because the people before us were scammed (Yes he even admitted colonial are crooks). The people before us were quoted under the actual weight and doubled their order. Because they doubled their order, they could no longer fit all our things in the same truck. Colonial stated that we would have to pay for our own storage for our remaining items, that the truck could not load, and it could take anywhere between 2-4 weeks!

Well naturally that was unacceptable and because they could no longer hold up their end of the deal by providing us services that day (Since we were forced to move out of our apartment that night!), we assumed that colonial would give us back our deposit. Nope! After speaking with over 5 different reps, none of them had any sympathy for us or even seemed to care that they did not hold up their end of the contract and refused to give us our money back since the driver came (Even though he did nothing!). Finally, without coming to an agreement the day of the move, we were promised another call back that night to discuss things further, however, they did not call us until the day after 5pm. Let me remind you that we could no longer stay in our apartment and had already arranged travel plans across country the day of our supposed move.

We understand colonial wanting money for a driver coming out (Even though once again he did absolutely nothing, but $1600 is a little ridiculous. Colonial van lines still refuses to give us back our deposit, however. Not a single cent! Needless to say we went with pods instead. They are much easier and straightforward than these crooks!

Whatever you do, do not go with colonial van lines.

My family and I have moved quite a bit over the years as my work requires it. Colonial van lines was the absolute worst I have ever dealt with and I wouldn't recommend them to move a towel across the bathroom. They showed up 2 days late to begin with to load the household. We weren't there as we had already moved our family so we had a friend let them into the house. The packing job looked as if a 2 year old did it as multiple things were broken and many breakables were not even wrapped. Trained goats or probably untrained goats could have done just as well. To top matters off they were 4 days late in arriving despite assurances that they would be there on day 1, day 2 and then day 3. They arrived with my belongings on sunday however the driver couldn't off load them as no one was in the office to take the payment (Because obviously no business ever gets done on sunday) I had a supervisor at colonial assure me saturday that they would unload on sunday and payment would not be a problem. They were very nice but I am not sure the movers ever spoke with the supervisors. The movers didn't like each other and they certainly didn't like colonial. The movers at least had a little personality. I talked to numerous people from colonial and no one had the same answer twice. The supervisors since then have called and been smug and simply unprofessional. My wife and I lost days at work because colonial told us when they would be there and were not. Now after the 3 stooges moving crew and a plethora of calls from everyone from the janitor to multiple 'supervisors' colonial offered me $50 to settle and sign a confidentiality agreement. I suggested they use the $50 to take an online course on customer service. I would not use colonial again under any circumstances. I am now finding out colonial apparently hires 3rd party movers and it makes a little more sense. I can only share my experience with you and hope this saves someone else from making the mistake I made and using this unprofessional company.

Colanial van lines has lost all of our possessions. When confronted about the fact that our things weren't delivered on the promised date, they couldn't even locate the truck! Now customer service will not return phone calls. What are we supposed to do? These items that their company was in charge of can never be replaced!