Van guy demanding extra money

[sakurasdream]

Hi all, just looking for some advice on what to do about this situation.

The past year i’ve not been the most successful after finishing my uni degree. I’ve now got an average salary job, but have been sleeping on friends spare beds and sofas as I couldn’t afford my own place.

I now have a flat to move in to, and a portion of my belongings are at my kind friends house, think bedding, abit of cutlery, bags of clothes etc and my tv.

I hire a van company online to move my belongings from her house to my flat because neither of us drive, fair enough. It cost me £140 after carefully detailing on the website what has to be moved when getting my quote. My flat is about 10 minutes away from her house.

Anyway, I pay, and my time slot is between 8am-12pm, which is fine. I track my driver on the app and it mentions delayed. It’s now 1pm and no show, still just showing delayed.

Time stretches and it’s now 6pm and absolutely dark and rainy out. No word from my driver, just “delayed”, and there’s no number to contact him on. Finally at 6:30 he rings me to say he’s twenty minutes away and my stop is next.

He doesn’t show up till 7:50, not those twenty minutes at all. He pulled up and his attitude was awful, after having a long day I presume. I load the van myself whilst he sat in the front texting on his phone, until he gets out and demands an extra £20 off me! He says i’ve booked wrong, and when I explained that I listed everything involved and can’t he check the booking, he got further pissed off and intimidating.

I am a female alone with this man in the dark on my friends front porch. I give him the £20 and he finally storms back into the van.

I feel abit shaken, I despise confrontation and I am doubting that my booking was wrong, I checked it over and over again.

This company is reputable, has its own huge official website and everything. Do I suck it up? put in a complaint?

Thanks all.

Was this AnyVan by any chance? They are absolutely useless when things go wrong and will hound you to get negative reviews deleted. They used to be great but have expanded far too quickly.

Regardless, yes, complain. Then review poorly.

Was it possibly Shiply as they don't care, don't make any checks whatsoever and just take a large cut of the money.

Yes it’s this company

I definitely think you should email your full complaint and tell them that you will be making a police complaint.

This is not just about your £20, this about you being intimidated by a man who has all your stuff in his van.

Disgraceful behaviour.

This is a police matter and trading standards.

If you have twitter, you should post it at them.

Anyvan was the one I mentioned in my post.

It's not actually a removal company. It's a database/agency for man and a van type operations. We were well aware of that when we booked, but took the risk. It didn't pay off and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Yeah just read all the reviews and damn. Shame u couldn't hire your own van for 40 odd quid.

This.

plus, tell them in your complaint what resolution you want. In your case i would request

1. an apology for the driver being excessively late and the disruption, inconvenience and distress it caused you
2. a refund of £20
3. a commitment from them to improve their customer service

OP that money was extorted from you

You only paid him because you had loaded your belongings on to his van, he THEN demands money, you are intimidated by him and his anger on a dark evening, on your own.

If that isn't extortion I don't know what is.

He needs reporting.

I bet that isn't his first time doing this either.

Complain to them and on Trust pilot etc.

Wow, shocking to hear so many people have had bad experiences.

I will avoid AnyVan like the plague knowing this!

@LadyMarmaladeAtkins why would you label a complaint without prejudice?

Complain.

It's not actually a removal company. It's a database/agency for man and a van type operations

Say no more

Surprised to see they're rated 4.7 on Trust Pilot though, If they're as bad as people are saying - I didn't think bad reviews could be removed from there?

I posted a bad review recently. They appealed to trust pilot 3 times: once to get booking ref to prove I was a genuine customer (which I provided), once they said I’d used inappropriate language (‘cruddy’ I changed to rubbish) and once said the (deliberately fake which it said in review) customer service name I’d used was “revealing personal information”.

They NEVER got in contact to address the issues but did repeatedly appeal to Trustpilot.

I've used them twice, once was great but the second time was so awful I’d never use them again.

OP - AnyVan will text you afterwards for a review of the driver. You should also add in the issues there.

Report the b*ard, he needs to get what's coming for him. Bloody women get treated terribly, should not happen but it sadly does.

That's interesting to know, MyAutocorrectWishesMeDeaj - many thanks

Check the small print. Most removal companies who ask for a self estimate have a clause which says if it doesn’t fit despite an accurate list of belongings you still have to pay extra. We got stung that way

THIS!!

Horrible experience. Definitely complain. Get your money back - and perhaps even some of the fee for their lack of service - 8 hours late and then rude? I think that's worth a 50% refund.

Once it's resolved, leave them an honest review on Trustpilot.