Colonial Van & Storage

Colonial Van and Storage are out at our apartment today packing up our household goods for a military move across country– yay! They arrived at about 8:40 this morning; exactly as scheduled. Everybody introduced themselves and were very kind to my husband and I (who were clearly a little exasperated from preparing for this transition). We showed them around and they got right to work!
It’s been a few hours now, and they are still working very very hard to pack everything carefully. I’ve watched each of the three «packers» for a little bit this morning and they are all extremely careful with our belongings. Everything seems to be going really well and we feel really fortunate to have such a nice group of people helping us during this crazy time in our lives.
They are packing everything today into boxes and will pick everything up later in the week for shipping. It seems to be a fair enough process in terms of timing. We are ready to get our road trip started and cannot wait to see how everything arrives on the other side.
Happy trails!

This company is the absolute worst. We hired them to pack and move our belongings from Sacramento to Seattle. The packing and moving was so poorly coordinated it took them an entire day to load a 2 bedroom house (it normally takes 4 hours. I know because I’ve hired movers to do so twice before.)
Additionally, their movers damaged and lost some of our items and the company refuses to reimburse us the $ 30 they owe for the missing furniture. I’ve asked them to reconsider their position and they refuse.

I can only give three stars because I only got as far as an estimate with Colonial /​Allied Van Lines and did not utilize them for the move. However I was generally pleased with the estimator and the estimate and wanted to give Colonial, and in particular the estimator Darrin La Vrar, for good service and professionalism through the estimating process. Darrin communicated with me before-​hand, arrived on time, and was professional and very thorough. We decided to go with another large van line company whose estimate came in about $ 700 less. All things were generally equal — meaning that we were equally as pleased with the other company’s estimator, their process, etc. as we were with Colonial /​Allied. For that reason, there just didn’t seem to be good justification for spending the additional money for what would essentially be the same service. However I would be happy to recommend Darrin and Colonial /​Allied, and would certainly consider them for a future move.

Our move was a total success! Everyone we dealt with at Allied was awesome! Our driver Curt and his crews on both ends were the absolute best!!! They were very professional and they treated all of our items with extreme care. We couldn’t have asked for a better move all the way around! We will definitely refer anyone needing movers to Allied.

I did a corporate move from Southern California to Sacramento using Colonial, who was subcontracted through Allied via Darrin La Vrar. Initially, there was a scheduling snafu, but Darrin made sure things were taken care of. I saved $ 1500 on the move compared to quotes from multiple other comparable long distance moving companies. The two guys Colonial sent down were awesome — Mike and Tea (pronounced Taya). They were efficient, worked hard, took care of our belongings and really went out of their way to make sure that they took care of us. Fortunately, they were available for the unloading leg in Sacramento, too. Seriously, just a great group of conscientious hard working nice guys. These guys will take good care of you.

Could not be happier. Workers moving our things to and from their storage unit were extremely professional and careful of our furniture. Price was much better then expected. Highly recommend you call these movers first!

Horrendous service and poor professionalism! Moved from FL to CA. Originally contracted with Allied as the overhead company but colonial was the local agent. Problems with the whole process and no one would take blame. The estimate was half what was billed! What’s the purpose of an estimate of it isn’t close to the cost? Delivery was late. Kept being a no show and later we get a call pushing it ahead and ahead and ahead. We wasted multiple days sitting at home without any delivery. Was lied to repeatedly by the local agent. Told us our stuff was in town but the driver calls us from SF. We called multiple times a day for the two weeks after our pickup and never once did someone call us back. No or EVER called us throughout the month process, we only got progress when we called in over n over and they eventually answer.

Absolutely horrible company! A week late with my niece’s belongings. She has to sleep on the floor and eat fast food until her things arrive. They did not give her any notice at all that they would be late. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY EVER!!!

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!! My daughter had them move her from California to Idaho and in summary most of her furniture was ruined. And, I mean RUINED!!! Her expensive dining room table was completely broken and taped back together. Her very nice hutch has a huge chunk of wood broken off of it. Her washer had a foot of her sectional imbedded in the top and it doesn’t work now. Her boxes were completely smashed and upside down. Furniture was filthy and completely scratched and gouged.
First of all they told her they would be there Thursday morning between 8:00 and 9:00 am and about 30 minutes before they were to be there they called and said they couldn’t make it and would be there the next day. This was not okay as they had to be out for the buyers of their home were moving in the next day. After much frustration they agreed to send a truck out later in the afternoon when a truck was available. A truck arrived around 4:00 in the afternoon and the crew of two were pissed off that they were sent out so late to load her house. So they sat and waited for more crew to get there. An hour later another tiny joke if a truck showed up with more people who began loading the trucks. By the end of the day there were about 10 guys loading at her house until 11:00 at night and still didn’t finish. They said they would be back in the morning and told her a timeframe in which they would be back the next day. They were a couple of hours late. The new homeowners were waiting with their belongings to move into the house. So, they picked up her furniture in three different trucks and moved it to a warehouse in Sacramento where it sat for almost a week before being assigned to a driver. Then it was picked up there and taken to Reno where the truck picked up another load and in the process unloaded a third of her belongings in order to fit the Reno load. The truck then went to Montana and delivered before making their way to Boise Idaho. She was never told about her belongings being taken to a central warehouse and that everything would be unloaded and stored there until a driver was assigned. Nor was she ever told her belongings would be taken to another central warehouse in Reno and again be unloaded. She was promised her load would be delivered within 5 –7 days from the date they packed her load. Originally she was told by the salesman that they could have her delivery made the day after they loaded it. It was when they made her delivery to Idaho that she found out a third of her load was not there and that it was left behind in Reno. And of all things to leave behind, they left her refrigerator!!! Unbelievable. She has already been living out if her suitcase with two small children, herself and her husband and using an ice chest for their food. And when her delivery comes, they don’t bring her refrigerator??? Who decided what items to leave behind? Nothing should have been left behind in the first place. They had a guaranteed rate that didn’t matter what their final weight was. It has now been 5 days and they still don’t have a driver to deliver her remaining items. She had to go out and buy a small refrigerator for the meantime and is in fear if what condition her stainless steel refrigerator will be in. Oh yeah, they did deliver the handles to the refrigerator. When she found that her dining table was broken she decided to set up another table for her family to eat on but couldn’t do that because she didn’t have the legs to that table and two of the chairs to that set weren’t delivered. She couldn’t put her sons bed together cause they didn’t deliver all of the parts for that. The driver had a shower curtain wrapped in paper that he gave my daughter. When my daughter told him it wasn’t hers he went on and on about how he now has a new shower curtain. They also tried to give her a ladder that didn’t belong to her. When she told them it wasn’t hers, they said «so you don’t want it?» Really??? Shouldn’t it go back to who it belongs to or at least a lost and found?
It would take me for ever to write everything about this nightmare of a move. Everyone with this company lied and did not provide what they said they would. Brandi in the office is a joke and doesn’t seem to care about customer service and is a bit sarcastic. The movers, if that’s what you want to call then, are completely incapable. They are suppose to be professional movers and they are everything but!
In Boise they had two guys helping with the unloading if the truck that were not Allied. Apparently they subcontract with other people to help unload. One if these guys told my daughter he has never seen anything like this with do much damage and she should get an attorney.
DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF USING THIS COMPANY!!!

Summary:
I recently moved from Sacramento to the bay area and was given this company as a referral from my Realtor. To his and my surprise this company significantly failed to perform anything close to a professional grade moving service, and I strongly advise against using this company to move or store your personal property anywhere in or out of the Sacramento area.
Pros: The crew were friendly, especially the delivery crew. The delivery crew worked hard and efficiently. The estimator was friendly, responsive, genuinely cared, and attempted to provide a quality service when the remainder of the company management, storage, and pickup crew did not.
Detail:
My move was 2-​part in that they 1) pick up items from my house in Folsom and store those items for 3 weeks before 2) taking those items out of storage, picking up the items at my girlfriends apartment in Davis, and moving everything together in 1 truck shipment down to the bay area. Those were the terms of our arrangement which ended up changing on the delivery day (with no notice given to me).
I observed issues noticed right away with the initial pickup. The crew consisted of 3 which turned out to be a lead who until recently had experience doing commercial work, and 2 rookies with no prior experience. The lead had to oversee and give direction to the 2 rookies, who couldn’t work independently on their own. They couldn’t even disassemble a table without messing that process up. That could also be due to them not bringing any tools with them. The biggest impact from all this was a 6 hour pickup job that ended up taking 10 hours total; thus driving up my costs. The second impact was the rookie mistakes, e.g., dropping furniture pieces (right in front of my eyes).
On the second pickup day they were 2 hours late with no phone call to inform me either. When I called in (which I had to do a couple times due to failed followup on their part) I was told 2 stories; a morning meeting ran 25 minutes late (which doesn’t add up to 2 hours), and the assigned truck needed to be unloaded that morning. Regardless of the excuse they were late and failed to inform me. When I spoke to a manager (Brandi) she gave excuses with no effort to take accountability. They ended up sending 2 trucks and 5 men to perform the move, also increasing my costs.
Damages: A major issue with this experience that many may not have to deal with is the 3 week temporary storage that I had to use. The crew responsible for unloading, storing, and loading the items from my house into temporary storage «vaults» severely mistreated the items and the state of my furniture and boxes indicates the crew exercised little to no care to any of my property.
Boxes were torn and crushed, and furniture had heavy scratches and abrasions. Items marked fragile with (up) arrows were upside down and placed under other heavy (clearly marked) boxes. The initial packers went through extra effort and detail to keep my tempur-​pedic memory foam bed completely flat; only for me to see on delivery day that it was stored vertically.
My washer had several gashes down to the aluminum and my brand new wooden dining table surface is completely ruined from abrasions and deep scratches all over. Boxes were smashed and split open. I just moved so I have yet to look inside to see the full extent of the damage to my personal belongings.
They delivered some other persons sofa with my items; I hope it makes it back to its actual owner. My inventory didn’t add up but I’ll confirm whether things are indeed missing when I get through unpacking.
I wish I could upload and share pictures; because one look at the condition of my items should be enough to deter anyone from using this company. I am strongly pursuing all avenues to make sure my experience is heard because this is not even remotely close to how a moving company should act and perform.

I have worked with Colonial Van for 5 years now and they are great people. Colonial van takes great pride in all the moves they service. I would not hesitate to recommend them for any home or commercial move you may need.

I am 2 years late on this review, BUT it was in good reason. We had moved overseas with the help of this company and have forgotten about Unilocal (say it ain’t so) since South Korea doesn’t exactly use Unilocal.Since we are getting ready for our upcoming move, I had to go through some paperwork and ta-​da, found a record for the move with Colonial.
I had a 2 man, 1 woman team and they were professional and quick! Can’t say that about the previous movers we had the month before. Everything was listed neatly with description on the inventory list. The 2 packers packed up everything in layers and layers of packing paper and put everything similar together. No disorganization here! None of our boxes came damaged and none were lost from the overseas move. Overall, the experience was fantastic and hassle-​free.