We recently used J. Palermo Moving & Storage for an out-of-state move. I obtained at least 10 quotes, mostly from national movers. J. Palermo claims to be a family-run business, and the initial conversation with office staff seemed personable. Their quote ($6900+) was the 2nd highest that we received, but my main concern was, how much are they going to pad the bill after they've loaded the furniture? -- For 2 weeks, I was back & forth with the office manager, and over that 2 weeks, decided to sell some of my stuff instead of having it moved. I asked her a couple times, if the price would change if we removed some items from the list. I never received an answer on if the price would change if we removed some items from the original list. When I received our quote, the manager ASSURED ME that unless we substantially added more stuff, the price given was a firm price. We've all heard the horror stories about moving companies loading your furniture onto the truck, then jacking the price up when the consumer is over a barrel. I took a chance with J. Palermo because I HOPED they, as my hometown, family-run business wouldn't do that. You would THINK $6900+ would be enough for these people? -- Come moving day, I had removed a loveseat sofa, a glass TV stand, a roll-top desk, and my girlfriend removed 2 tables, all heavy items. That's a substantial amount less than what we originally listed. We did add some extra wall photos, and they claimed we added more boxes, which my girlfriend denies, BUT, even if we did add a few more items, we removed WAY MORE stuff than what we originally gave them. -- Once our furniture was on the truck, sure as heck, here comes the phone call from the office. J. Palermo Moving was nice enough to give us use of a dedicated truck, which was less than 3/4 full. We were already being allowed use of 1 exclusive truck. What difference would it have made if we added some small extra stuff? We were hoping they wouldn't pull the bait-n-switch pricing scheme that so many movers are notorious for? NOPE! They wanted another $657 from us! Are you freakin' kidding me?! That's almost another 10% added to the original quote. -- There's NO way in heck that the difference between what we subtracted from the load, to what they added, should've added up to another $657 in charges! -- To the credit of J. Palermo Moving, they did give us use of 1 truck, and 1 employee (they promised 2 employees, but claimed that 1 got sick). The company employees, the office manager and even the owner himself seemed pleasant to deal with. However, padding our bill at the last minute by an additional 10% was uncalled for. I chose J. Palermo because I hoped that being the local, family-owned business would mean they wouldn't bend-over their local customers like they did. That makes J. Palermo Moving & Storage only average in my opinion. The move itself went well. The employees were nice and cordial, but It's a shame that a supposedly well-run company has to extract hundreds of dollars more from customers, when we were already paying on the high end of all the quotes received! read more