I have only written 13 yelp reviews, all 5 stars because I don't waste my time writing reviews unless I really appreciate the excellent service/food. But Puma Moving was the opposite and deserves zero stars.
I hired Puma because of their good yelp rating and immediate availability as we signed a new lease on the 28th of the month and were looking to move ASAP. They came on Sat to pack everything into boxes and move the boxes/furniture on Sun. Sun morning, I needed some items that they had already packed the day before. While opening a few boxes looking for the items, I quickly realized the packing job, which we paid $1100 for (this is just for the packing for our SF condo, not moving) was a complete disaster and would probably lead to damaging our things if moved. As an example, one of my laptops was haphazardly thrown into a box on top of misc shaped hard items with zero paper packing/bubble wrap. I also have a large bonsai tree in a delicate mud filled glass pot, which they oddly put in a cardboard box, unlabeled! It did not even have an arrow stating to keep upright and the branches were bent to fit in the box! Given how poorly the boxes were packed, we didn't trust the same movers to come back the next day, so made the hard decision to cancel the move.
Things started out poorly. They showed up to pack items with just flat boxes and tape, but brought a giant moving truck and were so rude to my door man, that he actually called up complaining about the movers being "very aggravated" as they were trying to park. Puma had asked us to reserve parking for the move day. We live in a high-rise condo/hotel and reserved the loading bay that fits semi-trucks for the move day/Sun. There are many large van sized visitor spots available in my building anytime, but not moving-truck sized spots without reservation, but Puma had scheduled a move for another customer immediately after our packing, so drove a full sized moving truck here. They eventually found street parking and told us we were responsible for any parking tickets they received. I asked if it was an illegal spot to make sure they wouldn't get towed, and the manager Ricardo said it was two metered parking spots, but they didn't bother filling the meters. When I asked him why he didn't fill the meters (which can be paid by credit card) he tried to convince me the parking tickets would be cheaper than paying the meter. Obviously not true, so my wife went out to pay the meters. $8 later, problem solved.
They quoted us over email $300-$360 for packing material, which seemed reasonable (it's just my wife and me in a 2bdrm SF condo and they did not pack one of the bdrms). When they finished packing, they charged us $760 for packing material. As I found out later, they did things like pack a rubbermaid storage box into a cardboard box 2x its size and otherwise empty (see pic), so it's not surprising they came out to double the estimated packing material. Also, we have a white cashmere throw on our couch and later found it in one of the boxes, as they had used it to wrap a statue as packing material. Wtf?
I also packed a bookshelf of books. When I opened a box of the books, the books (along with my nice book ends) were thrown as if they just swiped their arm across the shelf so that none of the books were stacked in the box but in every direction. They did the same thing with shoes, throwing them randomly jumbled in a box, though they said they would layer the shoes and put packing paper in between the layers, when we asked how they pack shoes.
I feel bad giving any business a one star rating, but this was a completely failed job. It was a tough to cancel the move because we didn't want to delay our move past the weekend and have to take time off work. Also, EVERYTHING of ours was packed in boxes that were poorly labeled only with the room (e.g. kitchen, office) or not labeled, so we had to search through a lot of boxes to even find clothes, toiletries, cups, etc. to last us to when we can find another moving company.
The only positive thing i can say about them is the manager Ricardo packed carefully, but the other workers clearly were very sloppy. I actually tipped them after the first day since they seemed to work hard, and I was not there for most of the packing, so didn't realize how poor of a job they did until the next day when I opened some of the boxes. Zena, the office manager, who was our main contact, was responsive and professional, and when she saw the way the boxes were packed, said that wasn't the usual way they packed and only charged us for the original packing material quote ($360 vs. $760). She also let us cancel the move without a fight. We still ended up paying the $1100 for packing, but my wife and I spent our Sunday repacking more than half the boxes that they packed so poorly. Money wasted, time wasted, and still no move. Hopefully, our replacement movers do a better job. read more