Trillium Moving And Storage Services Inc

I chose trillium after comparing different companies, and reading multiple reviews, I had a good feeling when going through their website.
Our move went smoothly and the customer service was always very courteous. Although a box went missing, it was resolved fairly. I have never dealt with such nice customer service when something goes wrong! Overall, I am pleased with my move and the service I received.

My husband and I had a one-bedroom move from Ontario to BC – all small boxes except for a filing cabinet and queen box spring/mattress. At the time of researching moving companies (May 2013), Trillium had a Better Business Bureau rating of “A”, and a Homestars.com rating of 9.7! The company counteracted negative reviews with logical reasoning as to why some customers had negative experiences. In addition, the team responded to phone calls almost immediately compared to other moving companies we contacted. The women answering the phone had youthful and pleasant voices – a refreshing change compared to other companies. Kate, our moving planner was prepared to provide us with a “stress-free” move. Everything went perfectly smooth, until they had all of our possessions. After this, we had a cascade of stressful and negative experiences that cost us sleep and dominated many of our conversations for weeks.

A few things you should know:
1) We used VERY sturdy and new boxes for our move.
2) We strategically packed each box, using plenty of packing paper, newspaper, Styrofoam, and bubble wrap.
3) We created our own labeling system for our boxes.
4) We wrapped a band of obnoxious purple duct tape around the perimeter of each box and item we packed.
5) All of our items made it safely and undamaged likely due to the above.
6) ***We used a bathroom scale to weigh all of our items and wrote the weight of each box on the box itself.*** This would give us peace of mind as to what we should expect to pay. We informed the company we planned on weighing our items in this manner.
7) Family members helped facilitate the arrival of our items, as we were not yet at our destination.

The BIG issues:
1) The company used an outdated inventory system. On each of our boxes they stuck a thumb-sized sticker with a number on it that matched their paper list. On the paper list, they wrote a “condition symbol” – a number corresponding to a legend on the inventory sheet. Half of our new, undamaged boxes were listed as “scratched.” Our new filing cabinet was listed as “scratched.” Our rolled up and bagged carpet was listed as “chipped, scratched, and marked.” Most surprisingly was our box spring and mattress, bought brand new less than a year prior – listed as “chipped, scratched, loose, marked, and unknown condition.” The mattress and box spring were double bagged. My husband did not notice that the conditions were marked on the inventory sheet before the movers left. Beware; this company may assess your goods as already having damage to prevent a discrepancy should your items come out damaged at the other end. We were told the following day we would be contacted with the total weight of our items.
2) We had a very difficult time getting a hold of our moving planner Kate once they had all of our stuff.
3) We waited over a week to receive the weight of our load. We weighed our items to be around 1600 lb (we had difficulty weighing the mattress on the bathroom scale and accounted generously for this). Finally Kate’s email stated our weight was 2860 lb! No scale printout or scan of the weigh-in was provided.
4) We contacted Kate about this weight discrepancy, saying it was impossible our items could weight this much. To diffuse the situation, and save her and us the re-scaling procedure (and possible fee), she quickly offered to meet us half-way between our estimated weight and Trillium’s “scaling.” We requested a re-scale of our items at a weigh-station in BC. Note: BEFORE the truck could be unloaded, the full payment plus a $200 rescaling fee needed to be paid. Kate ensured us over the phone that if the original weight and the re-scaled weight differed by 200 lb or more, a reimbursement on our VISA would occur IMMEDIATELY.

Here’s the kicker:

Kate’s claimed weight = 2860 lb (amounting to $2283 + $200 re-scaling)
Our re-scaled weight = 1301lb (amounting to $1187)
Weight discrepancy = 1559 lb (amounting to $1294 owed back to us) - YIKES!

Other issues:
The movers unloaded a flat screen TV, and table (both heavy items) that did not belong to us, and were clearly not listed on the inventory sheet the movers wrote on. There was also no purple duct tape on these items. Thankfully our family caught this error; otherwise we may have ended up with some rather expensive items that did not belong to us, and it would have worked against us in our re-scaling!

We were charged a storage fee of $108 we were not informed about.

Kate NEVER APOLOGIZED, or explained how this rather large error occurred and made little effort to correct the issue. Because it was extremely difficult to reach her by phone, we dealt with the money reimbursement via e-mail. When a company begins to ignore your phone calls (they always asked who was calling), and taking a long time to respond to urgent e-mails, you feel totally helpless and frustrated.

We were initially reimbursed $935 about a WEEK following the re-scaling.

We had to fight to receive the final $360, which somehow took an additional week despite persistent requests.

We had a meeting with a lawyer as we were prepared to take this further should the company not cooperate.

This company was a major burden to deal with and is NOT recommended to anyone, unless you want to be ripped off. Since our move, Trillium’s Better Business Bureau rating has gone from an “A” to a “B” and their Homestars.com rating from a 9.7 to a 7.5. We are not surprised. Avoid, avoid, AVOID this fraudulent company!

Anything this company writes below as a comment is likely questionable. We are thankful our things made it without major damage or missing items, as others have not been so fortunate.

Trillium’s slogan is, “Making your move the ultimate experience.” Our experience was “ultimately” bad.

On behalf of both of us, Kate, you should be ashamed of yourself!

Our experience with Trillium moving all of our stuff + 1 car from Montreal, QC to Maple Ridge, BC has been dreadful. Here's the reader's digest of what happened to us:

1. The removers were scheduled to arrive at 1PM to pick up the stuff, but they arrived at 9PM instead, with a half full truck already. They kept loading the truck all the way until 4AM, which was obviously a problem, because they were overtired and working poorly, and we had to stay awake to direct them and didn't get any sleep at all on the day before the flight to Vancouver... At 4AM we also realised they had deliberately left behind quite a lot of stuff. We convinced them to deal with that too. In the end, they left our baby crib and a couch behind.

2. I was already in Vancouver at that point, and had to call pretty much every second day to ask for updates. I think I received two calls from them in total throughout the process. I had to get in touch with the car movers myself as well. The vast majority of times we would agree on a follow-up call or email, this would either not happen, or happen far later in the day than the agreed time.

3. It was promised that the stuff would arrive on July 14th, it arrived one week later. The car arrived even later!

4. Our estimate was 100% lower than the final cost, which may be fair depending on the weight, I suppose. I have not verified this, I must admit. Still, either we have much more stuff than the average 3 storey house, or their calculations are broken.

5. Our stuff was quite damaged, particularly cupboards and such. We were also missing nuts and bolts from the disassembling process, which made my reassembling of the furniture quite challenging. I filed a claim on July 23rd. They promised that the damage claims would be addressed in 60 days. On the last week of the waiting time, I got in touch with Trillium myself and asked about that. Yet another unfulfilled follow-up promise. It's now October, and still nothing regarding the claim!

6. The missing stuff: as written above, the removers left a crib and a couch behind. I decided to give up on the $400 crib, because I had already bought a replacement for that, but I wasn't going to give up on a $700 couch. They were incapable of organising this. I had to step in to get it done. When I brought this up, they said they weren't going to accept responsibility for the missing couch because it was not in the list of picked up stuff! Bear in mind I had listed this couch before the move even occurred, it was just the removers making the inventory who didn't put it in, obviously, given that the left it there despite our request to pick it up. I find this beyond belief, but it's the truth.

7. I managed to eventually get the bloody couch, but it took another month or so, and they made me pay an extra $100 just for it. Not once did they suggest that they should accept responsibility and maybe refund us of something, or whatever (not surprising, considering our damage claim is still unaddressed, I suppose). Not once were we treated as valued customers.

Conclusion: You want to move and have to worry every step of the way? Are you delighted when everything is late and schedules feel pointless? Do you like your stuff to go in functional and come out broken? Do you like to donate pieces of your furniture to new tenants? Do you like to be treated like you aren't worth anything and that your time is worth even less? Do you like overpaying a service? Then Trillium is the company for you. But if you are sane of mind, you'll go to someone else.

Trillium's customer service was excellent as my calls and e-mails were answered promptly, courteously, and honestly. The movers were polite and friendly and handled our possessions carefully, wrapping and taping items thoroughly. They were right on time both for the pick-up and the delivery, calling to confirm. We will definitely use Trillium Moving and Storage Services Inc. as needed.

On August 27 my move from La Combe, AB to Verdun, QC was completed.
My sales representative was Chloe and she was wonderful to deal with, always having answers to my questions right away, providing clear and honest answers and being available for my questions almost everytime I called! My emails and messages were always returned, all in all a great experience with the office staff.
The men who came for my pickup were friendly, professional and quite organized. They wrapped everything very carefully as requested, put protection on the floors and were in and out in no time.
The delivery was excellent as well, the truck was a little delayed, but Chloe got in touch with me to let me know the crew was an hour or so behind schedule due to the job before mine so I didn’t sit an home and wait without reason.

I have moved a few times and this is the best experience so far, without second thought I would use them again!

Was initially told it would take 10 days to come across country, then told it could take 20 days. I even called and was told it would be there the following friday, well it is now over 3 weeks and still nothing. A text was sent on tuesday to find out if it would arrive this week.... no reply. I have moved from Nfld to NWT in 14 days, from NWT to ON in 12 days, but cant make it from BC to NS in 3 weeks, really! Not a happy camper and will never recommend this company!