Demetrius and his team was way over their head with our packing and moving. For packing (which they did not even complete) they charged us 3 times of what Demetrius had initially quoted (which I paid in full) after a complete walk through of our property and then when asked whether they were going to do the same for the move, he canceled at 11 PM the night before the date of move. Did not even call us, simply sent an email. Left us completely stranded and all he could say was that they charge per hour and it takes as many hours as it takes for them to do a job. Complete and utter disappointment and horror at this moment as I have no idea how we are going to find somebody else at the 11th hour to move us.
Response to the comment below:
Demetrius walked through our property to assess what needed to be packed and moved, so commenting on how much stuff we have is completely immaterial. After walking through the house Demetrius determined that 4 packers for 5 hours would be enough to complete the job and sent me an estimate of $1000+packing material. On the day of the move, they arrived on time, but took more than twice the amount of time to do the job and sent me a bill for a sum total of $2800.41, which I paid in full th8e very next morning.
However, seeing that the actual price was almost 2.5X the estimate for packing, I was naturally concerned whether this was going to be repeated during moving as well, which was estimated at another $3000. When I spoke to Demetrius trying to understand the final costing, he wouldn't even commit to a $4000 or any dollar value for that matter. He kept saying this is how much we charge per hour and we cannot commit to any number of hours to complete the job.
Finally, I gave in and said in an email, because it was too late into the game for us to call anyone else, we will accept their terms. However, we received an email at 11 PM the night before the move saying they would not do the job the next morning. We have sold our house and need to move out within the next week latest. We were shocked and my husband got a bit upset, but when we called Demetrius back he would not reconsider no matter how much we tried.
So, here is the crux of the matter, Demetrius seems friendly and efficient, and his crew is nice, but from our experience it seems that Demetrius either low balls his estimate to secure a job or he is not proficient in large moves and therefore has no idea about the time to do the work. So, if it is a small move I guess they will do the job just fine, but for big moves be aware of their pricing policy.
Now, we will have to pay twice over to someone else to make this move happen in such a short notice.
Lastly, the pictures of their work is irrelevant since like I said before, we paid in full for the work we did and speaking of irrelevant we did not ask anyone to skip their lunch or we did not determine in the first place how many trucks we were going to need, after all we are not the experts. So, time run over, need for extra stuff, all of these issues emanate from what I wrote in the last two paragraphs about their estimation strategy.
Response to the last comment:
I do not want to continue this insane conversation anymore, but a few last things I want to say:
1. We did pay in full for the work done without haggling about the bill even though it was 200% more than the initial estimate. Maybe other people have other opinions about, but 200% cost overrun means complete misrepresentation at the time of getting the job. Contractors do this all the time. Quoting low and then changing work orders for more and more money once they get the job. The bill is not the issue, this was a $7000-10,000 job. It is the deception.
2. For the move, we were originally given an estimate for 10 hours, so after the experience with the packing, I simply asked for some idea of how many hours it was really going to take and we were told that there would no commitment provided...14-30 hrs., it could be anything! Even after this, we emailed and told that we had to move and we accepted their terms. We DID NOT cancel or even implied cancelling if they could not finish the job within a certain number of hours. THEY canceled without consulting us via email. When my husband called them after receiving this email , we were told that they had canceled the trucks and they would not do our work under any conditions. I am not sure about you, but this came as a shock to my husband and he got very upset.
3. In the end, let us not forget that our plans, our commitments at work, everything has been upended for the next 10 days because of this moving company. However, the belligerent behavior online despite everything is quite unbelievable. Inability to admit mistake and grow instead of calling clients liars and disgusting is not an appealing quality for a business owner.
I am not going to respond anymore to any comments after this. So, whoever wants to work with this firm, GOOD LUCK! read more