Alfa Moving
Do not hire. Avoid at all costs.
This details my nightmare experience with the shady, discriminatory moving company, Alfa Moving.
I employed Alfa Moving to ship my home and studio back to Ireland.
I do not recall right now if I clicked through to the get a quote link from a Google search result or emailed directly from a Google search result. However, I have looked and the information you have mentioned is not on the “Get a Quote” page.
I received move instructions at 1:32pm on the 5th of March. The move was for 9am on the 7th of March.
As you may be aware moving home is listed in the top 5 or 6 most stressful things for a person to go through after death or divorce.
I hired Alfa Moving for their relocation services. I was informed by the paperwork and by Alfa Moving representatives that the men would help me pack.
At no point did any of the two men remind me not to pack the medicine or the documents.
At no point did they remind of anything. While being aware I was packing medicine and documents by virtue of seeing me pack them and my saying I was packing them.
They saw me pack documents. The box was marked documents.
They saw me pack medicine.
They said nothing.
If Alfa Moving even believed or held that this point of the matter that the shipping information given 1.5 days before and never referred to again was a valid defence. They would have used it in correspondence by now.According to an Alfa Moving employee, SM, who was kind and honest enough to inform me. My shipment was then taken to a warehouse, based on an order from management, searched for illegal drugs.
No customs were called. No police were called. SM told me this was specifically done because I was “not white, wealthy, Finnish from a semi-detached house in Espoo”. Categorically stating that the search was based on discrimination both my nationality and looks. That this had come from management.
SM had to prevent employees from removing other items from my shipment, including my empty gas lighters.
Apparently when they found vitamins for after the gym, in a jar to keep dry, which according to SM they got excited thinking they had found MDMA. They did not call the police then. Why if Alfa Moving are apparently searching my belongings for drugs, did they not call the police when they thought they had found drugs?
Alfa Moving then removed all my legally prescribed medicine and went through that, against Finnish privacy laws and laws about private and confidential medical information. They then refused to ship my shipment. Their employees opened sealed medicine boxes. These boxes have my name and pharmacy identifier with them. Additionally, with the shipment was a large box of documents that held close to five years of medical records and prescriptions for all the medicine.
It is illegal in Finland for a private citizen or company to go through private and confidential medical information without permission. Alfa Moving have dismissed this.
At no point was I informed of any special requirement for shipping home medicine. At no point did the movers who came to help finish the move tell me I should move the medicine to one box.
Their website state that they understand how overwhelming relocation is and how they aim to minimise that. Their documentation says the same. Their representatives reassure their workers will be there to help. I was reassured I would get help.
That is what I hired.
At no point did the Alfa Moving removal men or representatives observe their own guidelines.
If they had; when SM, Peik Leka and their representatives were repeatedly informed there was a box of documents and medical information. They should also have informed me I should not be shipping the documents box.
There is no reference to this in the correspondence. In fact Alfa Moving then request I ship more sensitive information with the medicine. Demanding my full medical history. I now have a company of movers that know more about my medical history than most of my friends.
There is no reference to this because Alfa Moving know they and their representatives are at faulted and acted discriminatory, suspiciously and outside the law.
Why did Alfa Moving move specialists remain silent? Why did they not alert me to this whilst moving me? What motive did they have to remain silent and get my goods to the warehouse to search?
Who, according to SM, in management gave the order to search my belongings for illegal drugs?
Why if those guidelines are there, when my goods were searched did they not also bring the documents to my attention?
Why did Alfa Moving initially try to lie and say they were repacking my goods? They lied repeatedly in the beginning and now have pivoted to saying “it is their right to search my goods.”
If they were searching for illegal drugs, why were no police or customs called?
Alfa Moving have refused to admit any wrong doing in this and even though I was alerted by one of their employees, repeatedly told me I am lying. Peik Leka, a Finnish Alfa Moving representative, refused to apologise stating “he did not believe they had done anything wrong” and bizarrely said he “was not going to offer a good will gesture because he knew I would refuse it”. I do not understand this or where Peik got this idea.
A Danish VP of Sales, Bille Larsen involved himself, cancelling the shipment stating he was going to defame me to other shipping companies. Or, “warn them about me.” Peik would then give me seven days before Alfa Moving destroyed my life’s work.
Still trying to figure that one out. If he wasn’t going to lie about me, what was he going to say “This artist does not like employees searching their belongings, taking things and us threatening to destroy their belongings and life’s work”? It is certainly puzzling.Alfa Moving attempted to charge €350 euros for me to get my belongings, which I refused and they have threatened to dispose of or destroy my belongings if I did not pick them up in 7 days.
This entire matter has, as it happened during the middle of an International move, cost me quite a considerable sum and it has been hard to acquire the lump sum needed for another moving company.
Alfa Movings VP of Sales Bille Larsen has since taken a particularly aggressive stance on this, telling me they will block my emails, and that I am a bad person who is not due an explanation and not owed anything and that I have no right to be upset at the treatment. Essentially Bille Larsen is telling me I am not due any human rights or customer service rights.
I am being accused that this is some how my fault.
I have been forced to explain why I have medicine.
It would seem this would be discrimination based on race, based on disability; but Alfa Moving are positive I am not a human being. And if I am, I am, as according to Danish VP, Bille Larsen, a bad person not due any rights.It has taken weeks and a visit to Stockholm to just get an assurance from the Alfa Moving CEO Kenneth Egelrud, that my goods will not be destroyed whilst I attempt to secure both the lump sum funds for and another shipping company.
Kenneth Egelrud attempted some lies about shipping it after all, mostly it would seem as a ruse to get me out of Sweden. But then Alfa Moving began refusing to ship to the original address as it is commercial and “they do not wish to be responsible for it.” And they are now attempting to involve my mother and to ship to my mother. Basic harassment it’d seem. Although this also was not true as when asked why they wanted to ship to my mother, they refused to answer and then cancelled the shipment and are now attempting to charge me for storage of my goods in their warehouse.
Alfa Moving’s CEO Kenneth Egelrud has made confusing chuckling comments that “You know what really happened.” and rather than discuss the matter with me when I traveled to their headquarters Jonkoping in Sweden, created a needless pretend siege like drama, keeping his employees inside a building for an hour and phoning the police on me. When the police arrive I will be sitting on a wall swinging my legs in the sun. The employees will flood down like it is the end of a Die Hard hostage drama. The police would later drop me to a pub.
Always good when your CEO reveals himself to be a gutless coward playing pretend drama, eh? None of this is what you would expect from a company, who is entirely at fault and has refused near categorically to even apologise. But they rather go to war with a single disabled person over, what, to a global company and a millionaire like Kenneth Egelrud, are pennies.
Why were no police or customs called when they thought they had found illegal drugs?
Why did SM, in response to my stating I had to make complaints about this, repeatedly say that he hoped I did and that he “hoped they finally got caught?”
Alfa Moving advertises data sensitivity. If that is true, when why were laws and private and confidential medical information not observed?
Why is it acceptable for Alfa Moving’s story to keep changing. From a repack, to they have a right to search my goods, to Bille Larsen’s I am a bad person not due any rights? And then to CEO Kenneth Efelgrud’s “you know what really happened” And calling the police on me rather than discussing the matter?
Alfa Moving have caused me considerable harm and damage and they have wasted almost four months of my life with this. And have delayed many projects and releases.
The situation with Alfa Moving’s threats to destroy my belongings led me to return to Finland and then travel to Sweden as I attempted to secure word that my goods, my life’s work and home studio would not be destroyed.
This is unacceptable behaviour for a business.
Friends in High Places
Over the course of this and investigating Alfa Moving. I would find quite a few Swedish reviews that cited irregularities and missing goods that Alfa Moving gave no care about. They were often cited as a nightmare.
I would later find out Alfa Moving had been falsely using the UN Global Compact Logo. Which would seem to be a solid case of false advertising.
Alfa Moving proudly displays a lot of relocation and mover accreditation on its website. This is misleading. But then, It helps when your board members are on also on the board or president or ex-president of the very accreditation logos like Fidi, Omni, Intertek and so on, that you’re using to say “Hey look we’re a good company. These organisations say we’re a good company.”
And then there’s Alfa Moving’s discriminatory practice. Well, it helps to have friends in high places.
Response from Finnish Police and Justice Chancellor
The Finnish Police have dismissed any investigation into Alfa Moving’s activities, telling me that “basic curiosity” allows them to seize and search my belongings. The Justice Chancellor has upheld this.
This essentially means any private citizen can search me based on “basic curiosity” — I essentially have no rights. No right to safety of property, no right to private and confidential medical information.
If you’re out there, reading this.
Do not hire these people.
And when you see those accreditation logos; remember they are meaningless.
The Final Arrival of my goods
I received my goods from Alfa Moving during the week.
Another company picked it up and shipped it from their warehouse.
The men who brought it stressed it arrived like that.
It arrived in a mash.
The boxes are in chaos.
As an ominous sign, three of the protective ends for two of my and HaTF’s archive G-Tech stuff are loose in another box to the hard drives. I have not had the heart to look for them yet.
A mixer is dropped sideways into another large box, its corners pining it into an awkward angle. Some things dropped around it. The documents look rifled. One of the dolls has had his hand cut open, presumably by Alfa Moving when they were looking for drugs, that they never intended on phoning the police about.
In another box, a Moog Werkstatt lovingly and fearfully built by two of HaTF sat with its box left open, a t-shirt chucked in over it. For shipping. I haven’t had the heart to see if it works. There’s another synth box open, with packaging gone.
It looks like Make Noise 0coast. But I’m trying not to check, as that was my favourite and was almost like a real person.
I opened only enough boxes to find my speakers.
I need to summon up something to painstakingly go through the rest.
I may not know for some time what Alfa Moving’s employees removed as their employee who was my contact about the search has got cagey and tried to distance himself. Though I know it was detailed enough to decide they could throw bits of my belongings out as they searched.
For drugs they never intended to phone the police for.
As if they had, when they found and got excited about the pink vitamins for the gym that they thought were MDMA.
They would have phoned the police. They did not.
The Finnish Government says this is legal and I have no rights.
That according to the Finnish Police and Finnish Government, any civilian can search me based on ‘basic curiosity’.
Allowing bigot crooks like Alfa Moving, to do whatever they like, it would seem.
If you’d like to donate something toward repairing the damage these crooks at Alfa Moving have done. Feel free to donate, it is very appreciated.
