Move Me Again

I wish I hadn't been fooled by Tara's (their relocation consultant) charm. Up until you make your payment, they will promise you the moon on a silver platter. Afterwards, all trace of professionalism or even basic respect is lost. They called us the afternoon before our scheduled delivery to say they would be coming at 7-8 pm instead of 7-8 am because they took on a new job that interfered with ours. They offered us a 5% discount for the change. We opposed this change for many valid reasons including our friends having taken the day off from work to help us unpack, having made arrangements for our dog to be boarded during the move, our new building's policy of not allowing move-in activities after working hours and, most importantly, the fact that we were leaving the country in 2 days. They assured us they would arrive at 10 am (we have that in writing). The next day was a series of phone calls to inform us they cannot make it at the scheduled time (first 10 am, then 11:30 am, then 1 pm, then 4 pm, then 5-6 pm). The reasons provided were quite diverse: the drivers were tired and had to stop to rest; the drivers got stopped by the police for 2 hours; a client suddenly requested the delivery of his/her belongings which were held in storage; a client misplaced some vital medicine in the moving boxes and the delay was necessary in order to look for it and retrieve it; another (or possibly the same) client unexpectedly had 15,000 lbs of stuff to move and that took much longer than anticipated. They eventually arrived at 7 pm and left around 11 pm. The move-out had been uneventful, but the move-in was very sloppy (their employees told us they were scheduled for yet another job after us!). They refused to reassemble our bed, which they themselves had disassembled a few days before (we had paid 75$ specifically for this service) and they lost half of the pieces to a bookshelf which now cannot be reassembled either. We naturally complained about all of this and we were told to file a complaint. After 3 weeks, their response was that (a) they are not liable for "delay caused by highway obstruction, weather conditions, faulty or impassable highways, or lack of capacity of any highway, bridge or ferry, or cause by breakdown or mechanical defect or vehicles or equipment or from any cause other than negligence of the carrier" (hello? You gave us completely different reasons for the delay, starting with having taken on a better paying job as a result of which you were offering us a 5% discount), (b) With regards to the missing pieces of your bookcase, [...] Please check carefully while unpacking, as you will find the pieces in question taped in place, and (c) they completely ignored the claim about the failure to reassemble our bed. So this is what you may expect from this company. We are moving forward with a formal complaint to the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services for misrepresentation under Section (14) 1 of the Consumer Protection Act (2002), because they promised to deliver a service or product when they knew or should have known that it was not possible. "Businesses" like this should not exist.