Vega Line Moving threatened to hold woman's items 'hostage,' she says

A Sydney Mines woman is telling her cautionary tale about a moving company after her experience moving from Alberta to Cape Breton.

Darlene Fry and her husband Gordon sold their house in Lac La Biche, Alta., last fall. They needed to return to Sydney Mines, N.S., quickly to care for Fry's 87-year-old mother.

Fry says she found a moving company online that looked professional and was offering a promotion of $1.15 a pound, which sounded reasonable.

Fry says Vega Line Moving and Storage of Richmond, B.C., gave her a quote of between $2,000 and $3,500 to move her things to Cape Breton.

But Fry says when the shipment arrived, the company demanded $7,878.80 before it would deliver the goods.

She says Vega Line told her the shipment was heavier than first thought.

Vega Line Moving told CBC News the shipment contained 136 boxes, or 5,580 pounds, for a total cost of $7965.05. 

The company says it adjusted the weight to 4,094 pounds, and the charges to $6,000, in an attempt to satisfy the customer. The operations manager for Vega also says Fry refused their offer to rescale the shipment. 

The company says it did not hold her goods "hostage" and that everything was done following standard procedure.

But Fry said hasn't been able to get the company to send her any of the paperwork to prove that.

"I've been trying to get them to send me the waybills — and they just say it's going to be emailed, but they never email it," says Fry.

"And when I call them now, and start talking to them, they say, 'Just a minute, I'll get someone for you,' and they just leave me on hold and won't come back."

Fry says she managed to talk the company down to $6,500. She says she paid the bill, even though she believes it was still inflated, because the company was threatening to put her things in storage, at a cost of an additional $100 per day.

"They had my stuff hostage," says Fry.  

"It's already a stressful situation when you're moving and I just felt overwhelmed. I just thought, I have to pay and get it in the house, and then deal with them afterwards."

According to the company's website, Vega Line uses "certified scales." But she says until the company sends her the paperwork that indicates the reading from those scales, she'll continue to press the company to return some of her money.  

Fry says she thinks a refund of $2,000 would be appropriate.     

An official with Vega Line promised yesterday to email a copy of Fry's waybill to both Fry and the CBC — but it has not arrived.   

The company also said that customers can have their shipments rescaled — or weighed again — if they dispute the charges.  

Fry said she agreed to do that — but was told that rescaling equipment was not available in the local area.

Fry says if she had done more research, she would not have hired Vega Lines.

The company gets a rating of "F" from the Better Business Bureau, with more than 80 complaints.