ALS Van Lines/Air-Land-Sea

The driver and the three guys were fantastic to deal with. They helped us so much and they were careful with our belongings. They were able to put everything together for us and put it in its place in the new home. They worked fast and pretty late into the evening to make sure they completed the job.

I have 9 typed pages denoting my experience with this company. And I may not yet be done.; I still have four antique mirrors to unwrap that were packed by Arpin staff. I began keeping a diary of the move after the first 10 minutes of the moving day got off to a bad start, thanks to definite changes in the program than what had been told to us by the sales representative (VP of Sales & Marketing) who began his vacation that day and never said a word. I am keeping my legal options open at this time, and I am in contact with MovingScam.com. My entire move was misrepresented to me; and there are so many red flags that came up almost immediately AFTER the ink was dry. I am missing parts of my load; my antiques have been devalued; my newly-painted walls and baseboards have been chipped; and things that were taken apart by Arpin staff were not put together at all, or put back together improperly. Additionally, things were taken apart after they had been wrapped and taped -- and without permission to do so, and done after the original loading truck was an hour away. If I could upload my report and photos here I would.  DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

UPDATE: February 2014...
I have been offered $75.00 on a claim of $1,453.18 -- and that was the minimum claim. There were other things we decided we could live with just to get on with finishing up. This company is hideous. I have filed a claim with the federal gov't reviewing agency and I hope that they will vigorously investigate them. With Arpin, it is a systemic pattern of lying, evasion, and non-communication -- not just a bad player or two.
AVOID ARPIN MOVING VAN LINES AND ITS AFFILIATES.

This was my third major move with Paul Arpin Van Lines, and used their local ALS affiliate for this move.   There were so many problems with this move, that it is hard to remember them all.    

When called, Jack Walsh came out and did an estimate.  Jack was very pleasant, the bid was competitive, and since we liked our previous Arpin experiences, we went with ALS/Arpin.

Our bad experience started with the packers.   The packers were not very professional,, and left after half a day, stretching out the packing to 2 days.    Also, one wanted to buy mattresses we weren't moving, and since it was for his son we sold it to them for less than half their value.    Despite the deal, he did not pay for them, and I contact ALS about it and never heard anything.    In addition (though we didn't know about this till later), they did a terrible job marking boxes.   What was in the boxes frequenlty had no relationship to the actual contents or room.     4 weeks after arrival, I found all my home office equipment in a box marked "glass vases".  There were no glass vases in the box.   

The next major problem was  2 days before our move.  We were scheduled to begin the move on Thursday, as we had to be out of the house by Friday noon per our closing agreement.  On Wednesday, I got a call asking if we could move the load to Friday, as the driver was delayed.  I said absolutely not as we had a requirement to be out by noon Friday, and needed time to clean etc. after the load.  Plus it is a big house, and at least a full day.  The Arpin rep said no problem, and got back to me to say the driver would be there at noon on Thursday.    Noon on Thursday passed with no driver.  The driver called and told my wife he woudn't be there till Friday morning.  When I called the ALS/Arpin office to inquire, the rep told me that he had thought the driver would be there late Thursday evening to inventory.  At that point it was clear to me that the rep had known all along the driver wouldn't be there Thursday, and just lied.     The driver did come and inventory Thursday night, but we were out way past our contractual deadline.  The new home owners were very angry, and could rightfully have sued us.

Upon arrival, we could hear from the driver's cell phone conversations that he was late for another pickup and promised to be there by 6:00, which was not possible.    They did a very fast unload, dumping many items that were marked for a room into the garage; I would say half our boxes were in the garage.     Also, the boxes that were brought into the house were often in the wrong road.    

At this point, I wrote a complaint describing our problem to Jack Walsh (ALS rep), as well as on the Paul Arpin website.  I never heard anything back.

Finally, to add insult to injury, there was a billing issue.    I had a "not to exceed" bid and my move was direct billed to my company.   I had to approve the invoice, and noticed it was $900 more than the bid.  I emailed Jack and called the Paul Arpin corporate office where the bill came from.   ALS told me that Arpin had made an error and would correct the bill.     The Paul Arpin corporate office called and indicated that ALS had specifically told them to bill an extra "fuel surchage".     With this being direct billed to my company, it makes we wonder if ALS didn't think they could sneak in an extra charge, but I have no proof of that.

Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend this company

They came right on time. They were fast and efficient. They protected the walls and floor well and were pleasant to deal with.

My husband's company hired Atlas to take care of our relocation to Atlanta. I didn't choose them but I was pleased with the job they did. They finished packing everything on a Friday, including some large items that had to be crated, like a piano, motorcycle and marble countertop. I asked them to wait until Monday to deliver it since that is when I was arriving in Atlanta. They came out Monday as promised. They did an amazing job.

IT WAS AN EXCELLENT EXPERIENCE AND THEY TOOK CARE OF EVERYTHING. WE WERE VERY PLEASED. I WAS RELOCATED BY MY EMPLOYER.