Father And Son Moving And Storage

Father & Son movers out of Billerica should be shut down for unfair and deceptive practice, inflated fees, holding goods hostage and on demand cash payment. I DO NOT want anyone else to go through what I, and numerous others, have gone through with these people over the past few months. Unfortunately I had the same experience as at least 181 other consumers as reported on this Consumer Affairs website. On May 17, 2017 three men arrived at my residence in Marlborough, Massachusetts 4 hours after the agreed upon time. Their excuse was an emergency at 6 am which would delay my job. Although they called several times saying they would show up they didn't arrive until 11am, which caused them to delay finishing my job until after 10pm. In order to settle my two little girls into a hotel on a school night I had to leave at 7pm with instructions to my neighbors to lock up the house and had to give the key to the storage facility to Mike, the lead mover, where my belongings were to be stored in Northboro, MA 15 minutes away. The three guys were nice to my face and commented how awful their previous customer was, that she didnt offer them water or a tip. Unaware that the men were mistreating my belongings I gave each of them a $100 dollar tip and even bought them dinner. Later, after investigating Father & Sons I discovered numerous others in different areas of MA, NY as well as NJ complained how the movers got them to give them extra tips, which suggests this is a common practice in their company and not just the movers exclusive to my job. Before leaving I paid Father & Sons in cash as I was told that if I used a credit card they would charge me a 3% fee. I was quoted on the phone around $2,600 for my moving job. Mike (the lead mover) asked me, how much do you want to pay? I was unsure what he meant. He told me hed see if he could get me $600-$1000 off moving materials and asked, How much do you want to pay? I said I was quoted around $2600 and asked why I was supposed to tell you what I have to pay? Mike made a show of calling Father and Sons to say he is taking off $600 from my bill for packing materials. I gave him $2400 cash plus 100 tip for each of the 3 guys and even ordered them dinner. One week later I got a call from Kristin,the receptionist at Father and Sons (who happens to be Mikes wife) who informed me that my belongings would not all fit into the unit I had rented in Northboro, MA. This was a surprise as I had secured a 4 bedroom storage unit and had confirmed with the manager at the storage location that the unit was large enough after I clarified what I was intending to store. Kristin told me they had been calling for a week, which I denied, informing her that she had all my contact information including my cell and email for months and no one had called me or emailed me. I found out a week later that half my belongings were in Northboro and the other half an hour away at their facility in Billerica, MA, which I didnt authorize. Kristin informed me they were charging me $600 for storage at their facility, and extra labor because they didnt finish until 10 pm. I am now afraid they will hold my belongings hostage as I have read about other people on the Consumer Affairs website having the same issues. Father and Sons continues to violate the Attorney Generals outline of unfair and deceptive practices. On June 14, 2017, I went to check on my belonging at the Northboro storage unit and was horrified to find my things just thrown into the storage unit. My new memory foam mattress was bowing and I am not sure if it is ruined or not. It did not look like it is properly stored. The integrity of the mattress may be compromised. I need to have a mattress inspector inspect it for defects. When I called Father and Son upset and crying over the condition of my belongings Kristin blamed me for leaving the movers unsupervised when I had to put my little girls to bed at the hotel. The consumer shouldnt have to stand over the movers to ensure they do their job. I documented with photos the items I could access in the storage unit. I had the manager at the storage facility Diane look at how my things were packed to which she commented how she had never seen anything packed liked this before. She sympathized how many of my things might be ruined noting the mattress simply placed on top of my treadmill unsupported. I also sent pictures of a box of glass items that were simply thrown in a box with no paper or bubble wrap. Kristin replied it was my fault because I didn't ask the movers to wrap them. Although my mother used Father and Son movers out of Worcester without complaint I was scammed by these movers along with numerous others. I later found out Father and Son was sued by Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2012 for over $200k dollars for deceptive business practices, abuse, inflated prices, holding goods hostage and demanding on the spot cash payments. Consumers like me question how these people are still in business? Father and Son representatives are nice over the phone and in person, but are rude and abrasive once you confront them about anything they have done wrong. They deem the consumer to be culpable for their poor moving practices and have their excuses ready. I sent a very long letter of complaint to them today and have not heard a word. I don't want them to move me to my new location for the second part of my move. I want to hire another mover to get my things out of storage. I just sent them an email stating that I was contacting a lawyer, the attorney general and the BBB. Thursday June 15, 2017, the owner of the moving company just called me after I told the receptionist that I was contacting the AG, lawyer, BBB, consumer affairs and a news station. He is now refunding me $600 for storage and sending movers for free down to Northboro storage location to store all of my belongings. I just heard from the owner Bryan, he said he wanted to make things right. He offered to send the three movers back with all my stuff to Northboro and move it back for free. He seemed sincere on the phone so I accepted. He said he would refund my $600 he charged for the storage in Billerica. Today, June 16, 2017 the movers showed up with my furniture from their facility in Billerica. I rented another storage unit in Northboro to fit the rest of my belongings. The same three movers arrived including the lead mover Mike. We spoke and I explained my concerns. These guys are such smooth talkers. Mike kept saying he would give me such a good deal if I let them move me for the second half of my move. All of them apologized but they kept saying there was no other solution to the problem as it was 8 at night when they arrived at my storage facility which was closed by then and not everything would fit. They said they called me twenty five times and called every hotel in Marlboro leaving messages everywhere for me. I told them they did not call me. I also told them that the sales rep at Father and Sons had my cell and my email for months so if someone wanted to get in touch with me they would have. Today, they showed me their cell phones from the numbers they supposedly called me from. It showed my phone number and the dates and times each of them called and texted me. I took down two of their phone numbers. Later that day I called Verizon and asked the rep to look up those phone numbers and see if there was a record of these two movers calling me. I explained to her what happened and I had exact dates of when they supposedly called me that week of May 17th. There were no records and I printed this out. She said there are all kinds of fake apps to make it look as though people called when they really had not. Such a scam!!! I got all my stuff back to Northboro storage facility today but I am really worried about the condition of my things and wont know how my furniture is until I move into my condo on July 5, 2017. I believe the only reason the owner Bryan sent the movers with my things back to Northboro is because I threatened the AG and a lawyer. July 5, 2017 moving day. I hired another mover to do the second part of my move from my two Northboro storage units to my condo in Northboro. I wish I had hired these movers in the first place as they are fantastic. They were one of the movers that came to my house to give me a quote. I regret not hiring them. I explained my entire situation to Mary the office manager and James the owner of Fresh Start Movers. They were so nice and understanding. They felt awful about my situation. I told them I wanted to take the move slow so I could take lots of pictures as proof of what Father and Son movers had done. They sent over 5 guys to do the move and they could not have been more helpful. They offered to write a letter stating how horribly everything was packed. They had never seen anything like this before! They kept saying that if they had packed the things like Father and Son had they all would have been fired. The owner of Fresh Start is going to write a letter on my behalf stating how terribly wrong everything was packed including all the damage to my furniture. Nothing was labeled, there were random kitchen things thrown in with toys etc. Nothing made sense as to how they wrapped things, packed things, labled things. It was a mishmash of all different rooms just thrown into boxes. Furthermore, I had packed 60 boxes and bins myself so I am not sure why it took them ALL that time to pack up a 3 bedroom house of which I had gotten rid of most of my furniture! I had already gotten rid of my dining room set, kitchen set, sunporch furniture, outdoor furniture, grill, a huge leather couch and my daughters bedroom furniture. Here is a list of all the things the movers did wrong or destroyed, I have pictures of everything: They charged me over $600 for packing materials yet they used ALL of my blankets, towels, curtains, pillows, bedspreads, electric blankets, my girls bean bag, sofa cushions and sofa pillows and anything else they could find to wrap ALL of my furniture in!!!! They used all of my fleece blankets to wrap up my flat screen tvs. We could not even get the tape off of all my blankets. The new movers I hired were in absolute disbelief. They used my electric blanket to wrap breakable glass candles in, all of my beautiful knickknacks were wrapped in all of my bath towels, no pictures were wrapped just thrown in boxes (around 50 pictures), my cleaning products were in a box with my sofa cushions on top of it along with glass kitchen items being protected by more sofa cushions and my nice couch pillows. Hot wheels car set just thrown into the storage unit with a million pieces everywhere. My girls stuffed animals had a halloween carving knife just thrown in the box with all of their animals and my daughter cut her hand on it. My long rolls of Xmas papers were folded in half with tape wrapped around it. I had to throw them all out. My nice area rugs just crumpled up and wrapped with tape around the non slip padded rug underneath so it ripped when the tape was pulled off the non skid rug. Mattress protectors were left on the beds. There were holes in the plastic they wrapped around my mattresses so all of the matress protectors were dirty. Twin mattresses wrapped together not separate as they should be wrapped. They took apart my whole tv stand and the black nipple things were missing to shut the glass doors, so the doors no longer shut, the new movers said no need to take any of that apart. I was shocked to see my desk as Father and Son said it would be cheaper to buy a new one rather than them spend 2 hours trying to disassemble my desk. They told me they would destroy it and throw it out. But it managed to make it to my condo and the new movers said easy to take apart and put together not sure why in the world they would say that. Father and Son told me it would cost $150 dollars an hour for them to take apart might as well buy a new one. Tv stand missing feet, all my furniture missing the bottoms of the feet (not sure why they didnt need to be removed), end tables, sofa table etc. So now when you look at my furniture it is dark furniture except for very bottom where feet should be it is an unfinished cream color. Step stool missing. Digital scales broken as stored incorrectly. New movers surprised tvs not broken as not stored correctly. Scratches and dents all over all my bedroom furniture,my girls furniture, my coffee table, sofa table and end tables..... All of this furniture went to germany and back with NO scratches. All of my pictures frames are dented and ruined and I have a few that were $100 dollars (professionally done of my kids) and more because NOT one picture wrapped. Lightbulbs thrown into boxes of toys randomly loose. Lamp shades thrown randomly about all dented. Beautiful dining room fancy candleabra were just thrown into my hamper on top of electric blanket...shocked not broken. Expensive new welcome mats left behind. My silverware was just thrown into a box with other random items. I asked the new movers how this is supposed to be packed and they said with an elastic around spoons, forks, knives etc. My girls bean bag chair was thrown on top of a bunch of kitchen items and taped to a box completely sticking out of the top of the box. Many of the boxes were not even taped. I was shocked nothing broke as about 15 serving dishes were just stacked on top of each other with absolutely no paper or bubble wrap in between or around them. My tv cord missing. Random remote controls, electronics, plugs etc just thrown into all different boxes.