International Van LinesReviews of internationalvanlines.com

Moving companies are difficult to judge based on internet reviews. IVL seemed to be the best of the bunch, so I got a quote for my move from an apartment in Chicago to a small house in Atlanta. They were initially quite responsive and gave me a quote over the phone. In the end, the price I paid was around $1,000 more than the quote. The departure movers seemed good - efficient, friendly, and helpful. I would eventually learn that they misplaced a painting (it was just gone - sorry) and broke a dresser. I was told it should take 1-2 weeks to get my things in Atlanta. Once everything was on the truck, the communication stopped. There was no response to multiple e-mails per week asking for a general ETA. 3 weeks later, I was e-mailed and given a date in a few days. The destination movers were less efficient and friendly - I get the sense that one of them had hired the other on craigslist. It's been 6 months, and I'm still waiting on my check for the insurance on the things they broke. And note, they offered me a larger cash settlement that would have prevented me from writing a review. It makes you wonder if there's a reason that they have fewer negative reviews than their competitors. In summary, my things arrived later and at higher cost than the initial quote. Multiple items were damaged or downright missing, and the commutation was poor after they had my initial signature. I won't use IVL again.

I have been working with IVL for 6 months now, and have come to know the company and how they work very, very well. Look carefully at all of the reviews on ALL review sites about International Van Lines. Notice how literally all the five'star reviews are under 100 words and all have exclamation marks! They have a 100% !!! rating!!! Then, look at all the one-star reviews and you will see these are extensive horror stories about how IVL treats its clients and ends up charging them several times more than they were originally quoted. You'll read cases like mine, where THEY HAVE LOST MY CAR by not filing customs documents and abandoning it in a foreign port. IVL's omission of not filing required documents has cost me $28,000 in warehousing, legal and other fees, so far, plus my car. Do you think all these 5-star !!! reviews are a coincidence? I probably have a higher probability of winning the lottery than IVL's reviews being real. This is the scam they run: 1) They advertise and use digital marketing tactics to get IVL in front of people who are planning a move. 2) They promote that they are the top-rated moving company and have won a bunch of awards, which in most cases, are just misleading paid ad placements. 3) They collect your personal information to get a quote for your move. 4) They give you a quote that is significantly lower than other reputable moving companies. 5) They sell you hard and get you to make a down payment. 6) The incompetence and negligence begin when planning the move, and for us, 5 months after it was supposed to arrive, we are still trying to recover our property. 7) They deny all of their mistakes, and instead, attack and blame the client. Never get a "sorry", never a "we'll try to fix this". Always an obfuscation of their omissions and negligence and denial of the damages that it has caused me. 8) The real cost of the move ends up being several times the initially quoted price. 9) IVL continues attacking you. In our case, we are disputing the credit card charges, for obvious reasons, and they have reported us to a collection agency, damaging my credit record. I have lost everything and am on the verge of bankruptcy due to the damages that this company has caused me. If you have also been a victim of this company, file complaints by googling "FMC complaints", "FMSCA complaints", "florida attorney general complaint", etc. Then google IVL reviews and leave your experience on all the review sites. We can beat companies like this if the voices of their victims are heard. There are legitimate moving companies out there. Do your research, question masses of similar overly-positive reviews, and good luck with your move. I hope you can learn from my mistakes.

We have moved several times cross country with different movers and International Van Lines were absolutely the worst. The most important thing to know about International Van Lines is that they are a middleman and they exist by charging a premium on existing movers. We went for the premium service that would include everything and here is what we got: Their communication is terrible. You might be able to get a hold of them, but either record or closely pay attention to everything they say because they lied to us on multiple occasions. They lied to us during the initial phone call. We wanted to make sure that we would have a full service move that would include packing, boxes, and moving. They promised us that in a full packing move, everything would be provided and that movers would pack everything up and then upack everything. But in reality, they lied to us on the phone and gave us a different contract when we paid a deposit. Turns out the movers didn’t actually unpack anything and just left us with boxes. In our contract, apparently movers were only responsible for re-assembling the furniture, but since they didn’t unpack anything, they only re-assembled a desk and a dining table, but all other furniture was scattered across boxes and we had to put it back together ourselves. This privilege cost us a few additional thousands of dollars. They promised us on the phone that we would get some sort of tracking number or would be able to keep track of our things, but when the movers picked things up, they actually had no way of tracking things, and we just had to hope for the best. They couldn’t give us an exact date when the movers showed up, so if you’re moving cross country, consider getting a hotel and consider getting flexible flights because the movers are not bound to a specific pick up date. They lied to us on the phone saying that if you overestimate how many boxes or how much stuff you have you can get a refund on unused space (since you are paying a deposit & moving fees based on that initial consultation). Turns out that was a complete lie and you’re better off underestimating since you can pay the difference, but won't get a refund on over-estimates When we did our initial consultation, they asked us how much stuff and how many boxes we have. They never explained anything, and it turned out we ended up paying double for both the “box volume” and for the stuff that went into it. For example, we had a vacuum cleaner, and they charged us to “move” the vacuum cleaner, and to “move” the box for it, so we ended up paying double for almost every item. Finally, when our nightmare of a move was over, we reached out to them about our issues and they told us that we didn’t know “industry” terms such as full pack and unpack and it was our fault for not knowing what service they provide (which apparently is just collecting a 20% deposit) The company they hired for our move was Velocity Moving which was just as bad as their middleman. The movers did not give us an exact date, which makes it incredibly difficult to plan when to leave a city if you are moving long distance. When the movers picked up our stuff, the foreman rushed us through the contract and landing papers and did not give us a chance to read. The foreman made INCREDIBLY clear that he wanted to receive a tip based on the price of the ENTIRE move, which came out to be $500, which costs even more then just moving within a city. It was written in their contract. They were terrible at packing. We had a lot of damaged stuff when we unpacked. I know movers can be rough, but this was over the top. When they were packing things, they lied on their landing form of what was “customer packed’ and what was mover packed, because anything customer packed was not considered their responsibility, so they marked a bunch of boxes as self-packed, even though we clearly saw them pack them. On arrival, they supposedly couldn't get the moving truck to our home, and they charged us an additional $800 to get a smaller truck. The driver didn’t even bother to drive a couple of blocks where there was enough space to park. Once again, it absolutely does not cost $800 to do a full move within a city, and when we mentioned it they said it was not their problem and if we could arrange something in half an hour we could HIRE DIFFERENT movers to get our things back. They refused to unpack anything and left a ton of things unassembled, even though they were supposed to reassemble everything. We also reached out to them with our concerns about the extortion tip, that they “needed” to charge us an additional $800, and for the refusal to re-assemble things and they told us that were out of luck and that is how moves normally work.

I really wish I had read these reviews before going with international van lines. Now that I’ve, I can 100% vouch for all these reviews. They are this horrible. I don’t see how they are even still in business. We moved from Virginia to Texas and the whole moving experience was nothing short of a worst nightmare. The only time they are nice and prompt and helpful is until you sign the contract. After that, you will not even get a email response from them. And yes, they are a broker company and outsource your job to the worst possible movers out there. There is no communication and leave you stressed until the move date. And yes the binding estimate is a joke. They charged us $9,000 over the estimate. What a rip off. And the damages that were made is ridiculous, just to mention a few, they literally ripped apart my daughter’s huge wooden brand new toy kitchen set. They did not mind to break the pieces and packed them all in a big box. Did not assemble it back obviously. And they broke our expensive sofa in half, literally two halves. I’ve no idea how they could manage to do it. And broke our zgallerie study desk and scratched the breakfast table and our front Mahogany door and lost a couple of step ladders and many more. And the worst is yet to come, they have a company who settles their claims and this is a joke. They make you do so much paperwork that if you spent all that time working for someone you could actually make more money than the settlement claim check they give you at the end. I was outraged seeing the check, which was a stupid $86 amount for all these plus many more damages they have done. The whole experience is a nightmare. Please believe these reviews and never ever go with international van lines.

You get what you pay for with this firm. Quotes come in so low because they hold your goods hostage until you pay more money at the end. The firm that unloaded our goods said it was the worst pack job they had ever seen. Showed up on Sunday to pack ~60%, and then not again until Wednesday (day before cross-Atlantic flight). We bought the crew lunch and they left their trash everywhere - no foreman present. Many items broken, boxes half empty, fragile items tossed in the bottom of boxes without wrapping. They will tell you they are so much cheaper because they handle every aspect of the move: packing, loading, unloading, etc... This is not true. Do not be fooled by the quote they provide. I could go on for hours, but you get the point. If zero stars were an option, I would choose. When I complained to management with photographic evidence, no one responded.

I hired International Van Lines to move from California to Canada and, at first, the communications between myself and IVL were always swiftly answered and it seemed like things would go well. Once my deposit was given though they contracted our move out to AMS Transportation Services and from there it went steadily downhill. I was originally given an average of 3-6 days for the goods to be delivered from the time of pick up, but it took 4 weeks before it actually was delivered (and this was with daily phone calls and emails to dispatch and the IVL employee I'd been dealing with trying to get our stuff delivered in time for our wedding). There are too many problems to describe here but they called the day before our set pick up day saying that they had to reschedule even though we'd planned our international move around their pick up day, when our goods were delivered they came during the only 2 hour period in a month that I said I couldn't be available, and when they finally delivered our goods the movers took absolutely no care and multiple boxes were broken. Even though we were present to see it happening they brought boxes down two flights of stairs on a dolly with a fragile box (that was clearly marked as fragile and which way was up) on the bottom and a very clearly labelled "heavy" box on top of it, squishing the fragile box and therefore breaking the contents. One of the boxes broke in transport, undoubtedly from their poor care, and they handed me several loose items and asked me why I hadn't bothered to pack them in a box.... They have not responded to any of my follow up emails or my questions about why I had such bad service. This was my 2nd international move and my 11th move so I have dealt with a lot of companies, and I have never been so dissatisfied with a moving company. It cost over $8000 for my move with IVL and I would never recommend that anyone else ever use this company.

Do not hire this phony CONTRACTOR! They don’t move your stuff! They CONTRACT the job out to companies you’ve never heard of! Then your stuff gets put into public storage! Who knows if you’ll ever get your stuff at all! Don’t believe anything they tell you about what it will cost you because it will be TWICE the quoted amount! Don’t believe them if they tell you they will deliver your stuff immediately! It’s ALL LIES! Total WASTE of money! DO NOT HIRE! DO NOT GIVE THESE LIARS A PENNY!

We hired International Van Lines to move our used household goods from Portland Oregon, USA to Switzerland in June 2020. We had a contract for door-to-door and packing services. I was surprised when International Van Lines didn't send a representative to estimate the volume of our household goods prior to the move, nor did they send a representative to supervise the packing and loading. Due to the pandemic we had to keep our distance to the team packing up our household items, we were not able to supervise the process. The inventory list I was given by the packing team was mostly illegible. The moving container was supposed to take 6 to 8 weeks to travel to Switzerland, instead it took more then 11 weeks. Partly this delay can be blamed on the pandemic, partly the delay was caused by the sloppy, illegible inventory list. The company that was hired by International Van Lines to get our moving container through customs in Germany contacted me and asked me to put pressure on International Van Lines to provide them with a complete, legible inventory list. Only after I sent IVL an urgent email did they type up a legible list for customs. When the container arrived at our new address in Switzerland we were dismayed to discover that many of the cardboard moving boxes were neither numbered nor labeled. We had to open the boxes in the street to find out what was inside and where they had to go. Needless to say that we lost a lot of time, and many boxes ended up in the wrong place. It was impossible to say if the delivery was complete. To our surprise it turned out that an entire adult size bed, which had not been disassembled, was missing. More dismay when we started unpacking: Our champagne flutes for example had just been wrapped in paper and put into large moving boxes, instead of being put into small boxes with individual compartments for each glass. Lots of our dishes were broken, dress pants and dinner jackets were stuffed into big boxes instead of being put on hangers, our carpet was crumpled up, brown packing tape had been put directly on furniture and upholstery. I emailed IVL with my complaints. I gave them 17 days to answer, but didn't hear back from them. I emailed again. This time I got a very short email from them saying that I hadn't paid for extra insurance, so I was not entitled for any kind of compensation. They did not apologize, nor did they offer an explanation for the loss of an adult size bed. As our moving container had been half empty, I suspect that other people's moving goods may have been added to the load and our bed was accidentally unloaded in the wrong place. IVL denies that. I wouldn't trust International Van Lines with my household items again.