Coleman American Moving

I contracted Coleman American Moving through Allied Van lines for my move from San Antonio, TX to North Carolina. The representative and move coordinator assisted us very well. The moving staff took care of our stuff really well and delivered the stuff on the promised date.

Liars! Do not use them or if you do expect them to lie to you so get everything in writing. Sales person, Karen Mendoza told us our storage fees were so high due to them having to unload our stuff to store it in a CLIMATE CONTROLLED warehouse. What a joke that was! As it turns out our stuff sat in the same trailer for a month in their shipping yard in Texas summer heat. We had fire ants, mice droppings etc. Moving team and packing team were good to work with, but salesperson will lie through her teeth. Also when I contacted the company to complain the manager, Coleman Medina was extremely unprofessional and didn’t even offer an apology. Go with another mover — WE WILL next time we move!

Coleman came out 3 days before Christmas because Best Forwarders Inc (I reviewed as well) said they won’t deliver on weekends. This was a pain because we were set to move into our new home on Friday, December 18^th, and we had to pay out of pocket to stay somewhere else over the weekend since we couldn’t live in an empty house with 2 small kids over the weekend. Apparently they do deliver on the weekends though, according to the reviews I have read on Unilocal where they delivered on a Sunday and from another airman who my husband talked to who was able to get his shipment on a Saturday. Our delivery was scheduled for Monday, December 21^st, 2015 at sometime between 8 – 10 am.
The 2 movers Coleman sent, Robert and Adam, were very professional and gentle, though the guys who did the re-​assembly of our furniture were a little rougher with some items. They used power tools and stripped some of the screws in our furniture leaving some of our chairs wobbly among other things. The bigger problem here though was they were not able to finish the job in one day as the guys working on our furniture couldn’t figure some of it out. Many pieces of furniture were still left in pieces including my son’s bed, our living room furniture, our outside table, a small 3-​in-​1 table, my husband’s desk, and another small table, with opened, unmarked hardware left all around the house. We were unsure where to even pick up the assembly from there with hardware all over the house. They told us they would be back the next day and would send a 3^rd party to assemble the furniture that they couldn’t figure out. They also offered us an unpacking service and though I didn’t necessarily need it, I thought it might be helpful this close to Christmas to have some extra hands. I said yes to having them schedule this and they asked if they could call as early as 7:30am the next day to set up the appointment. I told them that would be fine as I would be up with my kids already.
The next morning, Tuesday the 22^nd, we received no phone call. We waited and then around 10:00am we finally decided to call Best Forwarders Inc. as we realized the movers left no phone number for us, and they also never showed up to finish the job by completing the furniture assembly. We were informed by Lindsey that no one showed up because we didn’t call. We were told they would be calling us and we explained this to her. She said we were supposed to call to schedule the un– packers. We told her that is not what we were told. We also told her that aside from the un-​packers we wanted to know where Robert and Adam were or the 3^rd party that they said they would be sending to finish the furniture (since they claimed there were a couple pieces they couldn’t figure out and so many pieces of furniture were left disassembled). She continued to argue with us about it not being arranged because we didn’t call so they would schedule it for the following day, Wednesday the 23^rd. We told them this would not work because we were set to leave town for the holidays on Wednesday and that we needed our movers to come back and finish the job. She still continued to argue that she could not make that happen because we didn’t call first thing that morning. Furious, my husband was transferred to the supervisor, whose name I am unsure of at this time. He asked her if this is how she treated paying customers to which she said «YOU are NOT a paying customer. The MILITARY paid for your move!». We were floored at the utter disrespect of this! My husband informed her, «I am a Staff Seargeant in the US Air Force working for the military to defend our country and through my service defending this country I think I have more than paid for this move.» I have never been so upset with a company’s lack of customer service skills or professionalism to insult a member of the armed forces. Is this their attitude across the board? Is it because the military pays for our move they feel they can treat us any less or our belongings with such little care because they feel they will be paid regardless of their behavior? After finally getting back with Lindsey she admitted with much frustration that they couldn’t finish the job because there was no one available. So even if we had called, they would not have had anyone available anyway?! We had no choice but to take the Wednesday slot at this point.
We did have to push our travel plans in order to have our shipment and the services completed since Best Forwarders and Coleman would not finish the job until 2 days after the original delivery. They did not send a 3^rd party. They sent Patsy and Emily that day. They were both very efficient with unpacking and reassembly of what pieces they could of our furniture that were not damaged. They also did it without power tools or stripping our screws. These ladies provided the only pleasant experience of this move. I wonder, though, if they had sent the 3^rd party if any more could have been done for our furniture?

This is my first Unilocal review and as much as I hate to start on a negative note, this needs to be done.
To start with I did not call Coleman American directly. I called Allied movers as they were pretty good when we used them for a previous cross-​country move. Allied set me up with their local people — Coleman American. I (stupidly) did not check the Unilocal reviews as I kind of trusted Allied due to my previous experience.
The Coleman employee showed up at our house and did a great inspection of our stuff, gave us a quote, etc. He was quite good and organized. It seemed like this was going to go smoothly.
The packers showed up to do our packing — They were responsible for packing our glassware, computers, and anything else that would be damaged easily. They also packed my pantry as it was the last thing and I didn’t have time to get to it.
The two ladies were on their phones quite frequently, and took from 8am to roughly 6pm to get things packed and honestly it wasn’t a lot (The people in Minneapolis had packed our ENTIRE place by 3pm.) I didn’t want to hover over them so let them do their thing as they are «professionals» but let them know if they had questions to please ask.
Everything was packed haphazardly and just thrown in boxes. My iMac was packed using the throw pillows from my couch as protection (one on each side). My other more valuable items and small appliances were much the same. No packing materials and just stacked upon each other. The only thing packed well was glassware BUT packed randomly along with it were things from different rooms. It really made unpacking a huge pain. My husband had beer brewing equipment and bottles and we’ve only just unpacked them (months later) only to find a bunch of spice jars from the pantry and some other random things we’ve been missing. Zero organization.
The driver of the truck for Allied was very nice. The movers in San Antonio helping him however, broke a leg off of our furniture by apparently ripping it off the unit when the screws would not come loose easily. We only found this out when getting to our new place across the country. I guess they knew that nobody would ever see them again.
We had our delivery scheduled by the driver — a Sunday. Which was fine by us but that meant we needed to do a final payment by Friday afternoon. The woman from Coleman called Friday morning to have us do this via the internet. My husband finished the transaction around noon (San Antonio time). The woman responsible either left work very early or did not check her email because she did not process the payment for the driver. When the driver showed up Sunday he almost didn’t do the delivery because he believed the payment had not been done. We showed him the receipt and told him who we spoke to… He was not happy to say the least.
On Monday, the woman called us to tell us that she still needed payment and that our delivery was Tuesday — BUT we had to remind her the delivery had already taken place. She then told us our payment had gone to her «junk mail» folder.
The movers in at our new place were in a pretty big hurry to get the job done. They were throwing boxes around and at one point toppled an stack of 4 boxes down the hill in front of our house. I asked if they had more than one delivery that day and they told me no… just ours.
We have a tricky staircase and were going to put a larger piece of furniture upstairs… They groaned about it and then tried to get it up the stairs without disassembling — marked up the staircase and chipped enamel off of the railing. I finally told them to leave the piece of furniture downstairs and at some point we would do it ourselves as they didn’t want to take the extra time to take the thing apart.
At one point the guys helping the driver ended up fighting in front of us about an upcoming job (they apologized later, but the whole scene was really uncomfortable — the driver had to get mad at the both of them) They finished around noon or 1pm.
All in all it was a bad experience. The driver was really a nice guy and he didn’t select the people that helped him, so I feel bad about the review in that sense, but I would NEVER use this company again. It costs a lot of money to move across the country. You would think that the workers would actually take care of your things, take their time, and get it done right. That was not the case here.
Horrible, horrible, horrible. If there were negative stars that would be my rating.

Military relocation using Compass International Forwarding Inc which in turn used Coleman American Moving to locally ship my stuff. It took 11 days for my stuff (1 pallet of non furniture) to get from Pennsylvania to Texas (pretty standard). Then it took 16 days for Coleman American to deliver my shipment to my house. The shipment site I found out is less than a mile away. They claimed they were too busy. Jim left a message on my voicemail saying that my shipment would be delivered this morning between 8am and 12pm. It is now 2:23pm and I still have not received anything or at last a call. This company is a bad joke that hasn’t ended yet. I am so angry that I just want to cry. I just want my stuff that was shipped 26 days ago. I just want my stuff :’(

Looking back on the experience and my initial Unilocal review, I wasn’t harsh enough. This company is an absolute joke. The whole thing is an endless string of independent contractors. Allied is the brand they slap on their website, Coleman American is the pathetic excuse for a subsidiary, and then they outsource the actual work to some fly-​by-​night circus that no one has ever heard of. I swear to god. If you move with these people, you are begging for a week full of sorrow, disappointment, rage and paranoia. I wouldnt recommend this company to a monk that was moving a tin cot and mattress three blocks away It would still take them 3 days.