LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — A&L Movers released a statement explaining why they chose to call police when a Lafayette doctor refused to pay the full price of her moving bill.

The following statement was posted on the company’s Facebook page Wednesday evening.

The statement reads as follows:

On December 28, 2020, A&L Movers performed a residential move for Dr. Threvia West. When she called for a cost estimate, she stated she would have everything boxed. We had given Dr. West an estimate that included 2 movers and 1 truck, at the price of $110/hour with a $75 trip fee.

When our crew arrived Dr. West was not at the residence. Approximately an hour later she arrived for our crew to begin moving. When our crew entered the residence nothing was boxed to move. Our crew started moving the furniture out of her residence. After they finished loading the furniture they assisted in boxing the residence. Dr. West ran out of boxing material and left for approximately an hour to purchase more, while our crew waited.

Upon her return they finished packing up the residence and departed to the first unload destination. The destination was a local storage facility on the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor was never discussed during the booking process because she had not reserved a unit at that time. She needed a form to be able to access the storage and left for another hour while our crew waited. By the time she returned, the storage facility employee had left for lunch. This added another 30-45 minutes of waiting time.

Our crew leader had called us at that point requesting another employee to assist in the unload. We made the decision to send the third employee at no charge to Dr. West. After they finished unloading onto the 3rd floor of the storage facility, they departed to the next offload location.

Dr. West at no point contacted management about not being comfortable with the time.

After our crew finished unloading Dr. West at the second location, they attempted to collect payment. At this time Dr. West refused to pay for anything over 3 hours. Our crew leader called us again, and we contacted Dr. West. Upon answering the phone, Dr. West was very rude and shouted obscenities at us. She indicated that we could take her to court because she “always wins.” We tried to explain to Dr. West that we told her, based on what was discussed on the phone, that the move she originally described usually takes around 3 hours. These 3 hours are based on the understanding that everything would be boxed up and ready to go.

Unfortunately, in this case, because the boxing had not been done and because our crew was forced to wait for Dr. West on multiple occasions during the move, the move exceeded our estimate. We did everything we could to satisfy Dr. West but were met with legal threats and a refusal to have a rational conversation about the situation.

In order to document the incident, we made the decision to call the authorities for theft of services. Our decision to involve the police was not racially motivated. We are a family business, and we simply wanted to be paid for the time we spent moving Dr. West’s belongings. At this time, A&L Movers does not wish to comment on the nature of Dr. West’s subsequent interaction with the police.”