Save Our Home
Donation protected
Hi. I'm Tina and here's our story: we relocated from NC to NJ about a month ago. "We" being me, my husband, my 3 kids (ages 6, 3, and 19 months), and my parents. We hired a moving company through a broker (Assurance Van Line Services) and on March 11th Five Star Vanlines Inc. arrived to transport the contents of our home. That was the last time we saw our belongings.
After being told our truck with the entire contents of our home would "be there tomorrow" for 6 days-- we called the police. The police discover that a truck matching the license plate we gave them had been in an accident on an exit ramp on the NJ Turnpike. The truck and contents took 4 hours to clean up off the road according to state police. The towing company that did the recovery (B&L Towing) has impounded the truck and will not allow us to have our personal belongings until a fee of $10,500 (plus $100 per day storage) is paid.
The brokerage and moving company say it is not their problem. Our State Farm home owners insurance say it is not their problem. The towing company owner doesn't care that my children are crying for their toys. None of them care that a family of 7 basically has an empty house except for the boxes we were able to move ourselves and whatever fit in the cars when we drove up.
Imagine packing up where you call home into boxes, then those boxes and all of your furniture is torn from you. You have to go out and get mattresses to sleep on because you can't sleep on the floor anymore. You have a couple of chairs and boxes to sit on. You cry in the grocery store because you realize you don't have a can opener to open the can of tuna you want to buy. Everything was on the truck. That's what has happened to us.
Now, I am desperately reaching out to anyone willing to help our family pay this extortion fee to the towing company to try and get back what's left of our home that wasn't damaged in the accident.
After being told our truck with the entire contents of our home would "be there tomorrow" for 6 days-- we called the police. The police discover that a truck matching the license plate we gave them had been in an accident on an exit ramp on the NJ Turnpike. The truck and contents took 4 hours to clean up off the road according to state police. The towing company that did the recovery (B&L Towing) has impounded the truck and will not allow us to have our personal belongings until a fee of $10,500 (plus $100 per day storage) is paid.
The brokerage and moving company say it is not their problem. Our State Farm home owners insurance say it is not their problem. The towing company owner doesn't care that my children are crying for their toys. None of them care that a family of 7 basically has an empty house except for the boxes we were able to move ourselves and whatever fit in the cars when we drove up.
Imagine packing up where you call home into boxes, then those boxes and all of your furniture is torn from you. You have to go out and get mattresses to sleep on because you can't sleep on the floor anymore. You have a couple of chairs and boxes to sit on. You cry in the grocery store because you realize you don't have a can opener to open the can of tuna you want to buy. Everything was on the truck. That's what has happened to us.
Now, I am desperately reaching out to anyone willing to help our family pay this extortion fee to the towing company to try and get back what's left of our home that wasn't damaged in the accident.
Organizer
Tina Pipia Fortino
Organizer
Long Hill Township, NJ