I chose the movers based on the stellar reviews they had received. They were great at setting it up pretty much last minute and the person on the phone was great. The packers would come on Tuesday and pack what we hadn't finished, and then they would move on Thursday starting at 9:30, having been already booked on Wednesday elsewhere. The packers did not finish packing everything and when I was unpacking there were quite a few items that were very carelessly packed (it was amazing some of the fragile items survived) and they severely bent the sails and masts of one of my kids favorite playmobile boats.
The movers (two different guys from the packers) arrived at 12:00, because someone called in sick and they had to scramble to replace them at the last minute. They moved heavy furniture without putting down runners, scratching the floor. They did not fully take apart the couch, so it got stuck in the elevator and they had to take it apart in the elevator. They took 6 hours to pack the truck from a two bedroom condo. They kept unlocking the elevator for residents of the strata to go up and down the elevator.
When they finally finished packing, when they put the ramp in the truck, they somehow manage to stick the ramp in, making it impossible to pull it out. So when I come out to get them the papers they need that they left on the counter, I see the younger guy tying a strap to the tree out front, next to the bush that they wrecked. I inquire with concern about why they are tying a strap to the tree. "oh, we're going to try to pull the ramp out by backing the truck up over the sidewalk and attaching the ramp to the strap and driving forward." I not so calmly informed them that this would not be happening and they finally relented and got it free somehow. They disappeared with the truck for an hour and half, not letting me know that they were having supper. (I'm okay with supper, just not being informed was stressful)
Wes, the owner, actually did come down to our new place to make sure the unpacking was going okay, which I did appreciate. But after he left and it got later, I had to repeatedly ask them to stop shouting and singing (it was after 9:30!) so as not to disturb our neighbors. They finished the unpack at 10:45. The new place was a fifteen minute walk away from our old place and it took them almost 11 hours to move a 2 bedroom condo.
They manged to:
-keep one of our couch cushions (which has been returned a week and a half later)
-crush the edge of our solid wood TV cabinet which survived two across country moves without a scratch
-lose four bolts from the couch so I couldn't put it together until we made a run to ikea for replacements
-chip and scratch our dining room table
-take the pillows and decorative candles from the old place's lobby when they were taking stuff out to the truck, so we had to go back and replace those at the old place.
I wrote the owner an email detailing the problems and while he tried to justify why these things happened, a great deal of it seemed to come down to incompetence on the part of the two people who were doing the move. I was charged per hour and was told I would be refunded 200 dollars, which I have not yet seen three weeks later.
So while the organizing of the move was really easy and efficient, the two particular movers who moved our stuff were very inexperienced and did not really effectively do their job. read more