I was initially very excited to find Handy Man Moving, as my brother and I needed to hire a local company to move our elderly mom from independent living to assisted living, approx a mile away. We hired 3 men from Handy Man moving to assist in the move. Cheryl was very responsive and pleasant to work with on the front end, and we put down a $610 deposit.
On our moving day it snowed approx 8", which isn't a big deal in VT and was highly anticipated for the entire week prior to that. Even though 2 of the 3 moving men we'd hired lived less than 10 miles away, all 3 of them cancelled the morning of our move and refused to come. I can't tell you how much stress and anxiety this created for my poor mom, as well as my brother who had driven up from Boston and only had 24 hours to get our mom moved. I want to point out that the foreman of the crew (Chad) was excellent, both in his communication and his empathy for the situation his company had created for us. He would have helped single-handedly us move but he had a fractured foot. He was in touch with us several times that day and told us that he had immediately fired the 3 moving men who didn't show up.
The fact that Handy Man Moving cancelled on us last minute isn't the main reason I'm not recommending them, since the men who were supposed to help us were supposedly fired after this incident. I am giving this rating because Cheryl was completely unresponsive to phone calls, emails and texts for several days after Handy Man Moving left us in a lurch. I found it hugely unprofessional that she didn't immediately call me on moving day to apologize and either recommend alternative options or immediately offer to refund our upfront payment. I know for a fact that Chad was in touch with her, but NOT ONCE did she bother to pick the phone to me after that Saturday debacle. She finally sent me a short text several days later, after I'd reached out to her 6 different times on phone, email and text. She never apologized for her moving men not showing up, and only sent short sentences about being currently unable to obtain our refund from their processing company.
I am a very understanding and forgiving person (including regarding the difficulties they were having obtaining my refund), but I found her unprofessional approach entirely unacceptable. It took me constant follow-up for 11 days before I was finally refunded our $610 deposit. . . . and we only received our refund because the foreman of the job personally sent me a Venmo.
I know that Cheryl couldn't control how unreliable her moving guys were, but her lack of a timely, professional response is the reason for this negative review. Big thumbs up for her foreman's communication, but huge thumbs down for how Cheryl handled the situation. read more