I am VERY surprised to see decent reviews here. My reason for this review is the excessive time it took to complete the move, the lack of professional accountability by the company to address my concerns and the improper charging for a less than acceptable service.
My mother recently signed an agreement to move into a new apartment and part of this agreement included a $300 voucher to use at Covered Wagon Moving. Apparently, the apartment owners are friends with the moving company owners. Her new apartment was less than a half of a mile from her old apartment and it was from a 2nd level 2 bedroom apartment into a 2nd level 1 bedroom apartment, with some items being moved into a storage unit, which . When signing the lease, our agent said that this move shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.
My mother contacted the movers and scheduled a move for May 28 at 9:00 a.m. 2 movers from the company showed up at 9:45 a.m. and immediately began moving items, but after finishing the first load of items, realized they were very far behind schedule. One of the movers told my mother that they were scheduled for a 2:00 p.m. move and would not be able to make it over there since they were only half way done with her move. Once they arrived at my mother's new apartment, an additional mover arrived to help get the movers back on track. They were very careful with her items, but since they used the elevators for everything, the process took a very long time. They were, however, nice enough to help some of her items back together for her, even though it was included in the additional billing and never mentioned.
Once all of the items were off the truck and into the new apartment, the movers went back to her old apartment and started loading items up to take to the storage unit. Again, this took a very long time. When all of the items were loaded into the storage unit and the movers were ready to go, their job had taken a total of 7 hours. My wife and I recently moved from a 2nd story, 2 bedroom apartment into a 2-story house that was 5 miles away and our move with a different company and 3 people took only 2 hours, so this was a huge concern. When I was talking to my mother, she revealed that one of the movers said the company had been very busy during this month and so they were actually just helping the owner out since he was understaffed, and it showed. I recalled watching the movers struggling to park the truck at the storage unit, have trouble with their bungees on the truck that held the door open and the dollies in place and seem quite uncertain how to stack boxes in the most efficient manner. Regardless of these facts, my mother was still charged full price ($600) for the 7 hours.
The next day, I went over to her old apartment and saw that several large items were still left, including an exercise bike, several of her clothes left on the rack in her closet and a few large mirrors. My mother called the movers back to ask them why these items were left and to see if they could come out and finish moving what they left behind. The movers agreed to come out the next day in the afternoon, but never showed up. In the late afternoon, the movers called to reschedule for the next day at 12:00pm. The movers showed up closer to 2:00pm with one mover and the owner. While moving, the owner informed us that he wouldn't move the clothes because they weren't in a box when this information was never relayed to us during the prior move. He did agree to move these items for free; however, he told my mother that there was a miscalculation in what she was originally charged and that she would need to pay the difference in what she did not pay initially.
When I tried to discuss my concerns with the owner, he was very defensive and borderline confrontational. He kept assuring me that his men did everything they were asked, but could not explain why items were left behind. He also assured me that 7 hours was the right amount of time to move from apartment to apartment and invited my wife and I out to watch him move a similar situation if we didn't believe him. We knew 7 hours was indeed not the right amount of time, since he had to cancel his 2:00 appointment that day. He also kept saying that he was not charging my mother, when I knew that he was to account for the error of his original movers the first time.
I understand that moving is a very difficult job and that the movers we had were working very hard, but the service we received was unacceptable. I understand that sometimes people make mistakes or are just moving a little slower than normal, but to send non-professional movers to a job and charging full price is wrong. Also, not being able to hold a conversation about your business practices without attacking your customer cannot go without some intervention. I do not want a refund, just an explanation and an understanding that moving forward, a business cannot treat its customers the way my family was treated. read more
