I hired Bob to move a piano and some furniture from a suburb of Philadelphia to Massachusetts. We agreed on a price of $1,200, and he said that he and another mover would bring the items. I also asked if he would be willing to move around some other furniture in the house and asked how much this would add to the cost. He said that this would be fine, but never answered my question about the additional cost.
I went to work on the day he came to deliver the piano, and got a call from my wife saying that Bob had arrived by himself because his second mover was sick (meanwhile, my mom, who was at the house in Philadelphia, said that Bob had a second mover when he picked up the piano, and that the person seemed perfectly healthy). Bob was annoyed that I wasn't at home when he arrived with the items because he assumed that I would be able and willing to help him unload the piano and other furniture. He told my wife that he might try to drive around and find someone from a random construction site to help him, but then he ultimately decided to do the whole thing himself. This would have been fine, except that he couldn't lift a large leather couch by himself and had to drag it across the ground to get it inside.
Once he brought the stuff into the house, he complained that it was unreasonable to expect him to move the furniture within the house because he said that I hadn't told him that the house had three floors. I certainly wouldn't have lied about the size of the house, so this means that he must not have asked. He also said that he needed to leave by 12:00 because he had to check out of his hotel. This meant that he was unable to finish putting things into the correct locations in the house, leaving the job for me to complete. Of course, if he had come with two movers, he would have had no problem getting everything finished.
When it came time to pay, he also told my wife that we owed him $1,500. He claimed that this is what he and I had agreed to, when he actually never answered my question asking him for a final price that included moving a few more pieces of furniture in the house. I would have had no problem with him requesting extra money for moving these three pieces of furniture in the house, but it was dishonest of him to claim to my wife that he and I specifically agreed to this amount when we never agreed on anything other than $1200. I also thought it was unreasonable for him to charge an extra $300 to move a chair, dresser, and bed, which couldn't have taken more than 20-30 additional minutes.
When my wife told me that she had paid him $1500, I sent him the following text: "Hi Bob- I was surprised to hear from my wife that you charged an additional 300 dollars to move 3 pieces of furniture in the house. I think it's fair for you to get paid some amount for moving these items, but 300 is not reasonable." He then agreed to refund some of the money. We texted back and forth about how much of this $300 he would return, until he stopped returning my texts. This is the first time I've ever left a negative review online, but this was an unpleasant experience that I hope others will avoid. read more
