Unmitigated disaster

What an unmitigated disaster! I selected Legend Removals on their good rating and fabulous reviews on Hello Peter. All I can say is, either the existing reviews are all written by friends and family, or I am the unluckiest person alive and have experienced a version of Legend Removals that nobody else seems to. Michael was initially quick to quote and respond to emails. I was arranging a move for my 85 year old (turning 86 the week after she moved) Mother and told him this. His price seemed reasonable – not the cheapest by any stretch but also not the most expensive. It was slap in the middle. I had done extensive research and checked many reviews of the various movers. I contacted 15 movers and got quotes from 11. I took the most expensive and cheapest quotes out, averaged the others and Legend was exactly average price. I also was initially impressed with Michael as he seemed very efficient. So based on the price and my perception of efficiency, I chose Legend Removals for her move. We agreed a collection date of 1 December and he said “we will need about 3 day for delivery”. So, I then asked if the packing day counts as one of the three days or not, i.e., I asked if the goods were likely to arrive Friday or Monday as I had to make arrangements on the other side and book kennels for the cat and flights etc. He then responded “Please plan for delivery over the weekend most likely the Sunday” which I duly did. Things got off to a slightly wobbly start when only two chaps showed up on packing day. They arrived with a tiny roll of bubble wrap – enough for a few items – and some paper. One of my employees and I helped them to start packing using mostly paper. The two first arrivals worked hard throughout the day and were stars! A number of other chaps arrived about two hours later. They however seemed to think they had arrived at a holiday camp and were all sitting around on the beds and chairs upstairs on their phones. When I asked why they weren’t doing anything I was told there was no bubble wrap. I then suggested that they didn’t need bubble wrap in order to start carrying furniture downstairs into the nearly empty house (my Mother was downsizing significantly and had sold a lot of her furniture) which they eventually did. In the meantime I called Michael to ask where the bubble wrap was as the two first arrivals had told me first thing that it was coming with the next team. I was then told it was on its way – it did eventually arrive about an hour later. The rest of the day went ok. The sofas, arm chairs and matrass were all wrapped in matrass tubes. The paintings (18 in total as per my inventory) were wrapped in bubble wrap in a half-hearted manner, but we were running very short on bubble wrap again. When I questioned this, I was told that all the paintings and furniture would be wrapped in blankets as they were loaded on the truck. Anyway, finally after a very long day the truck left. Early the next morning after we packed the house, I received a “final invoice” for R840 more than the initial invoice. When I queried what it was for I was told “the packing and wrapping is a estimate and the biggest cost after the boxes was the amount of bubblewrapping we did”. I wasn’t in the mood to fight over such a small sum so I paid it. In the same email he said “We will be there Sunday afternoon or Monday I unfortunately I cant be certain at the moment”. Then on Sunday morning (the day I was expecting delivery since I had received no communication since Thursday morning) I received the following email “Thanks for the payment. We have had luck this weekend. We have had a dust cover on the propshaft melt, now at this moment we are stuck at a storage unit in mud my truck and trailer, we tried yesterday with no luck with a tlb and tractor. We now getting a professional towing company out this morning to put the rig out. We will only be in Herm**** now on Wed Morning”. Things happen, but I wasn’t happy. So, this meant that I had to book three nights accommodation in a B&B which costs money, change my rental car which incurred a cost, change my flight home which incurred another cost, and miss 4 days of work. Not cool. I had changed everything based on a Wednesday arrival of the goods. Then there were a few conversations were I was told the goods would arrive Thursday and I said that wasn’t acceptable and then Friday which I also said wasn’t acceptable, during which I was told “sorry I thought you were a client from Durban”. Again this just added stress to an already stressful time. Eventually I was told the goods would arrive on Wednesday at 7:00. True to word the truck arrived at the gate at 7:00. However, there was a truck and trailer and they couldn’t fit both into the complex as the road to turn in from wasn’t wide enough. They told me they would go and drop the trailer and they would be back. After nearly an hour of standing in the driveway waiting for them (the intercom at the gate hadn’t been programmed yet) I phoned Michael to ask what had happened. He eventually called back to say some of our stuff was in the truck and some was in the trailer and they were transferring our stuff from the trailer to the truck and then they would be back. Eventually they arrived and we opened the truck. Well, all I can say is it looked like bomb had gone off in there. My Mother’s antique French oak dresser which had left her house in Joburg intact, was in multiple pieces. The two doors had been **********, three of the four feet were off, there was in internal door with little curtains which had been ripped out, there was a removable top / plinth to the cupboard which was now shattered into many pieces and there were bits and pieces of wood from it all over the show. Next an antique card table which while it has a fairly fragile top, has a robust base. However, the base was smashed down the middle while the top was intact. They had also broken an antique gilt mirror, chipped a number of painting frames, broken the riempies on a riempie chair, broken the wicker on a wicker chair, and broken a large terracotta pot with a plant in it. All the plants arrived looking like they had been through a severe hail storm. The matrass arrived with one half of it sopping wet and covered in mud – it had clearly been dragged through the mud (it was a sunny day when they arrived to offload). The rugs also arrived wet and covered in mud. Some of the books in the boxes were also wet when they arrived. Another occasional table arrived broken – it’s sort of a box with a hinge and the whole top had been **********. Then, while they were offloading one of the pieces of furniture they dropped it out of the truck, breaking it in two and smashing the bottom of it. They had also broken a large vase. All the “fragile” marked boxes had clearly been squashed so I assume things were loaded on top of them. To add insult to injury, one of the guys unpacking absolutely reeked of alcohol and was staggering around. I told him to stop working and to go and sit down out of the way. But really the worst part of all of this is Michael’s ***ardly lack of communication. He wasn’t responding to my messages. He asked me to send photos of all the damage etc. which I did, and then he went very quiet again. On top of all that the 50 inch Hiscence TV was missing, as was a Hermes umbrella. The next day I told Michael I was going to report the TV ****** to the police and he responded to ask me to give him a few days to investigate. They then “found the TV in the truck” and delivered it a few days later. The umbrella however wasn’t found.

In the days following the delivery of the furniture, I sent numerous messages to Michael asking if I need to get an insurance assessor to look at the broken items, but I had no response for ages. Eventually he said that I should send him the invoices for the furniture repairs and the carpet, matrass and headboard cleaning. He even suggested a name for an antique restorer in Cape Town. However, he didn’t say what he would do with the invoices or suggest a way forward though. Because of the annual December shut down of most businesses, we had to wait to get invoices. We had to have the carpet and matrass cleaned twice they were so dirty – once in December and then again in January after the shutdown. We only managed to get a hold of someone to repair the furniture in January too. I sent the invoice for the furniture repairs to Michael on 10 January 2022. I then sent the invoices for the cleaning to him on 18 January 2022 as I was waiting for the second cleaner to come and clean and invoice us. I haven’t heard anything back from him. From Michaels second email to me when I was still deciding on which moving company to use: “We have trained staff on all of our vehicles, with blankets and tie downs to secure your items, we also provide a package service if you are interested, we do however prompt you to look at the mattress tubes for long distance trips”. All I can say is that’s a joke. All in all a terrible experience! If I can save one person the stress and distress this has all caused, then this long diatribe is worth it.