TLDR - I have good reason to believe that one of the movers that works for this company stole my engagement ring and a watch from my fiance. The owner, Jay, then dragged out resolving this issue for two months and ended up doing nothing. Also, Rapid Relocations is not in good standing with the state of Illinois.
I really wanted to like this company. Jay seemed like a really great guy when I first called and hired Rapid Relocations for a May 30th move. However, issues started almost immediately, particularly regarding communication. I asked for proof of insurance, which they assured us they had, but did not provide until very late the night of the 29th, even though I asked multiple times and was left on read.
The day of the move comes and they arrived nearly 2 hours after the END of the hour-long window they had given us, and repeatedly lied to us about when they would arrive. There was one foreman and two men working under him, one of whom was a new guy. I was cleaning up the apartment we were moving out of while my fiance was at the new apartment. When they were close to finishing up loading everything, I saw that my engagement ring that was in a medicine cabinet in the bathroom was now missing, and so was my fiance's watch that he had left out and meant to put on before going to the new apartment.
I talked to the foreman, and he asked his guys if they had seen our missing items, and they said no. He then called Jay who had the movers sit in the truck at our new apartment while Jay drove down to meet us, which took over an hour. Once he got there, Jay says he made them turn out their pockets, but we didn't see this happen. Jay said none of them had our items on them. So they finished moving our stuff. To finish off this terrible day, the final total was way more than the estimate, I'm pretty sure we had to pay for the hour of the movers sitting in their truck or the massive delay in them actually arriving to move us.
We did not get the police involved at the time because we were really hoping that, knowing they'd been caught, they'd put our stuff in a box for us to find later. After a little over a week, we had unpacked everything and didn't find the missing jewelry. We did our best to keep Jay updated with what was happening. He made the offer of reimbursing us at least partially for the stolen things if we agreed to sign an NDA, and we did verbally agree to do this. He continuously put off actually coming to terms for the compensation or alleviating our issues, dodging calls and texts and making excuses for why he ignored us. He would repeatedly set deadlines and miss them, then ignore our texts or scheduled calls. We can now only assume he has lost interest in neatly resolving this with us.
I hate assuming someone stole from us since we don't have hard evidence, but we just knew where the ring and watch were before the movers arrived, and then they suddenly were no longer there. What else are we supposed to believe happened to them? If it was one item missing, we could have believed that we misplaced it, but it was two valuable items. One of the guys could have easily seen the watch on the windowsill it was sitting on (it was left there to have the time set by radio signals) and taken it. Then go to our medicine cabinet looking for prescription drugs or something (as there was nothing in that bathroom that was supposed to be moved) and find an engagement ring instead! There was plenty of time to have had someone meet up with the thief in the alley the truck was parked in and hand it off before I even noticed they were gone, or hidden somewhere in the truck, and then some more time after they knew I knew our jewelry was gone and before Jay was even involved.
The most disappointing part of this whole situation (aside from having such a sentimental item stolen) has been getting the runaround from Jay. He never reached out to us, it was always us trying to contact him. And it was always like pulling teeth trying to get him to do anything, whether it was just trying to get a quick text update from him about his insurance or setting up a phone call to discuss the problem. I understand that he is busy, as he is usually working moves, but this is an unprofessional way to run a business!
Additionally, it is worth noting that Rapid Relocations is no longer in good standing with the state of Illinois as of this post (you can confirm for yourself by searching for Rapid Relocations Family LLC on the Illinois Secretary of State website.)
https://apps.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/CorporateLlcController
If they can't even be bothered to keep their business in good standing with the state, should they really be trusted to move your stuff? read more