Prime Van Lines

Here’s a copy of the email I got 16 days ago STILL WAITING!!! This was the worse military move EVER! You lost things and broke them. We couldn’t even tell what was missing because it was labeled garage items! There was a picture of my Great Great Grandpas in one of those Boxes!
Congratulations! Your form has been successfully submitted.
We will contact you within 4 – 8 hours or earlier.
Please see a copy of your message below:
* * *
Jan 1, 2015 8:42 PM
Customer Service
GPL: HAFC0030533
Hello, Your Company Packed Up Our Items in 2010 From Gulfport MS to Belleville IL. Our items were crated when the items were loaded in GPT but when it arrived in IL it was NOT. We had several boxes that were missing but couldn’t identify what was missing bc it was garage items. What happens to missing boxes? There was something in one of them that means a lot to me! Please tell me you have found my missing boxes.
* * *
Best Regards,
Customer Service
Prime Van Lines Moving & Storage

This was my third military PCS move but first time using government contracted movers. We relocated from Long Island, NY to Yorktown, VA.
Pre-​move communication was very poor. Despite the contract being awarded a month before my move date, the first contact I had with the movers was a week before my move and that was because I initiated the call. I was then contacted by phone asking me about all of our major furniture pieces and any unusual items. I walked around the house giving an inventory of all our furniture and was told since our stuff sounded pretty standard they would not send out an assessor. When the movers showed they had a work order with 7,000 lbs estimate despite my having entered an initial 10,000 lbs estimate into DPS (I knew we had at least 8,500 lbs from weight docs from previous move). This severe underestimate resulted in the movers questioning the space on the truck early in the first day. This added unneeded stress that could have been avoided if they had sent out an assessor ahead of time. Pre-​move comms get a 1 star.
Now to the actual move… where they failed in comms they made up for in the move…5 stars here (which to me is the most important part!). They sent 3 very professional, nice, and accommodating movers. They packed all of our stuff and loaded the truck (10,500 lbs) in 2 days. They even worked around timing of naps and bed time for our 18 month old making sure to get her bedroom and surrounding rooms completed when she wasn’t sleeping. Despite an awkward layout of the house and location of heavy items (large treadmill on 2^nd floor) there was no damage to the house at all. They packed the truck to the last inch, literally! We requested direct delivery which resulted in the dispatcher wanting to have our hhg’s arrive a day before we ourselves were going to arrive at the new house. The lead mover went to bat for us and got them to agree to delay delivery a day. They never unpacked the truck enroute, they simply parked the truck in their lot for a day. The day after we arrived at the new house, the same truck with same crew showed up and delivered our items. We have the majority of the house unpacked and have nothing damaged! They did a great job!!! Thanks to the crew for making this a very successful relocation!!!

I have done many moves as well, and this is one of the worst ones. Despite pack date being confirmed many times, crew did not show up on the date confirmed. Company’s excuse was to the effect of «it’s summer and we’re busy.» The required delivery date was July 26. In July 26, we were told that «due to circumstances», our household goods will be delivered on July 27. On that date, nothing came… Today isn’t looking promising either.
Crew packing overall was good, the operations side seems to be messed up.

Full truck of my residential furniture and belongings was to be delivered to my new Belford, NJ residence on June 22^nd 2013 between 9 & 11 am. Truck never showed. I called corporate number and representative and manager. I got no answer when called. Never heard from Prime. StIll waiting for my furniture. This is NO WAY TO DO BUSINESS.

I read through the other review of this company before posting mine. I was actually shocked by what I read. I had the complete opposite experience with Prime Van Lines.
My roommate and I were moving out of NYC and into New Jersey. Everything was going wrong! Seriously, everything that could go wrong, did. The only thing that did go well was working with this moving company.
The morning of the move out, the movers arrived right on time and came upstairs to introduce themselves before starting. They were all very polite and very professional. My roommate and I lived on the 3^rd floor of a building with an elevator. Of course, the morning of the move our elevator broke — before the movers had a chance to even move anything. They had to take everything down 2 flights of stairs without complaint and were still being extremely careful with all of our things. They were expert wrappers and got everything protected and down to the waiting truck very efficiently.
One of the other things that had gone wrong was that we couldn’t move into our new apartment for another 2 weeks. This meant that we were going to have to store our things for the time in between occupancies. They were wonderful and helped us through that process as well. They made it so easy for us to get everything done.
We just moved into our new apartment this morning and they delivered all of our things (in the SAME condition) to us and again were right on time. They put all of our furniture back together and brought everything in as efficiently as I’ve ever seen movers do.
I really did have an awesome experience with Prime Van Lines. Everyone I spoke to in the office and in the field were friendly, helpful and professional. In the end we saved so much money. We would have had to hire a truck twice and pay for storage, not to mention doing a lot of manual labor. They took care of everything. I will be using them again in the future and will be recommending them to everyone making a NYC or New Jersey move.

I recently used Prime Van Lines for a residential move. At first I was very impressed with their professionalism, attention to detail during our in-​home estimate, delivering of boxes, email correspondence, and prompt reply to phone calls.
When moving day arrived that was a completely different story. My movers showed up 1.5 hours late and when I called the office to inquire about their location, they said that the GPS accidentally took them to the wrong borough. I was very inconvenienced because I had parking spaces reserved at my new address for a certain timeframe as well as an inspection with my new landlord– all of which had to be pushed back and thus, I was charged more money to continue to reserve the spaces. When I told them about this inconvenience, they said «Well sometimes this happens» and didn’t offer any other words of encouragement or discounts to our moving.
In addition, once the movers arrived I found that they were not instructed at all on what they were supposed to be packing and what I paid for. I had to stop them from loading my expensive items «as is» (with no protection) because I was expecting them to be packed properly by the company. Although they were not prepared, my movers did a great job using other materials they had on had to wrap, pack and protect my items which all arrived in one piece. Although they did get moved successfully, the added stress of me having to stop them from packing the items into the truck (literally I stopped them as they were going into the truck) and then making sure they were wrapped appropriately was something I was not prepared to deal with and something I PAID for not to happen. The movers were also unprepared and did not have shrink-​wrap to wrap up my mattresses, which I requested and paid for them to have.
After this round of incidents, I called back the company and requested that I get money taken off of my bill because the experience wasn’t what I paid for. After TWO HOURS of going back and forth with phone calls and waiting, I was called back and told that «overall everything arrived so why do you think you should get money off?» I was appalled. I paid money to these guys thinking that they would take care of me and make my move less stressful. After detailing all of the above they offered me a $ 25 discount. Disgusting. I would have rather had no money taken off than only $ 25 which was a slap in the face.
I would like to clarify that my movers were wonderful. They were a hard grouping team of three that were not given the correct information, so I do not hold them accountable at all and they accommodated and did everything they could with what they had. They were lovely and I feel bad that they were not given the information and are only given a very small percentage of the money that Prime Van Lines got from my move, when they worked so hard.
I would not recommend Prime Van Lines. In the beginning they were great, but come moving day, they did not deliver that same customer service that they pride themselves on which is very disappointing.

Wow, what can I say. I’ve done many many moves through the military, but this was by far my most stressful one. Despite being promised a large crew of people who’d come move me, I ended up with just 2 people to move me. While the actual movers were nice, they were completely overwhelmed. So overwhelmed that they ended up leaving my household items in the middle of 34^th st unattended which lead to someone running off with 2 of my suitcases. Luckily the contents were dumped on 35^th street after he figured out the black market for class A army uniforms doesn’t really exist. Let’s just see if my household items actually get delivered intact and/​or on time. Well the household goods did arrive, albeit many things damaged, but at least arrived on time. The crew was pleasant enough, that’s why they get the one star.