Samson's weak removal service

On Sept. 6, Samson Movers Company was supposed to pack and move our furniture from Kemayoran to Kuningan, based on an agreement with Andre, its removals manager.

After a week of phone calls with him, he showed up with five workmen at 4 p.m., instead of at 12 noon as agreed, with lame excuses and minus tools (luckily my husband had a box of tools). Andre, after surveying the furniture in the apartment, estimated that it would take about two hours at most to complete the packing.

Hopefully, the whole process of unpacking at the new place would be finished by 9 p.m.

They started to pack but finished as late as 11 p.m. Many times my husband had to lend a hand because of their obvious ineptitude at dismantling some of the furniture, which one would have expected professional movers to be able to handle with ease.

We preceded them to our new place; they were supposed to catch up with us within 30 minutes at that late hour. We kept in touch with Andre who, every time he spoke, would say they were quite near. To cut a long story short, it appears he was lying all the time and his drivers didn't know how to get to Kuningan. They showed up at 3:30 a.m. on the next day without Andre, and wanted to unload the furniture and leave without unpacking.

It was only after my husband threatened not to pay them at all that they unpacked, reassembled the furniture and finished at 7 a.m. We paid half the bill as we were very unhappy at Samson's service and wanted to complain to the management.

The second day we found a few items missing (a carpet, standard lamp, etc.) and many items broken. I called the company to complain and was transferred to the manager, Wijono, who claimed, rudely, that he had no knowledge of the matter, the whole thing had been done behind his back and Samson bore no responsibility for what had happened.

My husband spoke with him later and he, Wijono? promised that he would sort it out. Five days later he tried to avoid my husband's calls and absolved Samson from responsibility, turning the whole thing into a personal argument, never once expressing his regret, although we had in our possession an official receipt from Samson. When my husband told him that the law would force Samson to make redress he went berserk, swearing.

Clearly Samson Movers management fell miserably short in their professionalism, credibility and customer care.

ROHAYU KUTEP Jakarta