I have never used movers until now, but have heard some horror stories from others. My wife is in the middle of a 3 week ordeal trying to ship a family heirloom (basically a large piece of furniture that was handcrafted by her grandfather for her grandmother) from France to our hometown. In the last three weeks, her piece of furniture has basically been held hostage by a locally contracted mover (picked by the international shipping company) who wants an additional $500 to release the piece of furniture for mistakes that were made by the international shipping company. This is on top of $6,000 that her family has already paid (in full) to ship the piece originally.

The shipping company initially lied to us about the reasons for the charges and tried to get us to pay them, although NOW agrees that the charges were their fault. However, they have dragged their feet paying this guy. Meanwhile, the local mover doesn't answer his phone, doesn't show up to meet us at pre-arranged times at his warehouse, and has now decided to add an extra $300 for delivery of the piece (despite the fact that he was originally contracted to deliver the piece to the destination of our choice), OR $100 to release the piece from his warehouse if we choose to have a separate moving company pick it up to deliver to the final destination.

Anybody here ever used movers? Is this basically what I should expect from this industry? As a side note, any suggestions on trying to compel these people to get this piece of furniture back into my family's possession (legal action, BBB complaint??).