TLDR: Paid $4,000 to have my things destroyed. Complete nightmare…read more
Details:
I hesitated to trust my only possessions to an unknown moving company, but Zippy Shell representative Gregory Forrester assured me that they would carefully wrap and cushion my items for a cross-country move. He insisted they were professionals that Zippy Shell had worked with before, and that they regularly packed for overseas moves.
The movers used zero common sense. A few items were partially wrapped loosely with paper, no bubble wrap or plastic or moving blankets, and nothing was cushioned at all. Completely ineffective. Even worse, everything had been tossed carelessly into the pod as if it were a dumpster headed for the landfill. My things arrived scratched, scuffed, beat up, filthy and, in some cases, completely destroyed.
They broke a large cabinet because they tried to load it while still full. They didn't wrap any of its contents, so when it collapsed during the journey, the contents were scattered on the filthy floor, including a printer with a tray ripped off and my stereo which had fallen from an upper shelf. What kind of mover doesn't wrap electronics for a cross-country move??
Two expensive round nesting tables had been loosely wrapped in paper (not even a layer between them) - they had been rolling around on the ground and were scuffed and scratched everywhere. A decorative wall hanging had been squished under a load of heavy wooden slats and pieces of bedframe - none of which had been wrapped. A decorative wicker storage cube with boxes inside clearly labeled "Treasures" and "Fragile" had been tossed carelessly onto the pile, arriving scuffed and dirty and with an inexplicable smear of something like cement or dog poo that won't come off.
The pod sat in my area for five days because the Zippy Shell customer service line wasn't answering or returning calls around the holiday. Now everything reeks of dank, musty basement, despite that they claim their storage is climate-controlled. It's possible the smell came from the pod itself, which was filthy, but that would've been mitigated had my things been properly packed.
Everything had been in like-new condition at the start of the move, neatly organized in a very clean, climate-controlled storage unit. This was everything I'd intentionally saved from my house and life in Oregon. If these were things I didn't care about, I wouldn't have paid Zippy Shell $4,000 to have them shipped, after paying to store them for five years. I'm devastated to have lost these things, some of which had great sentimental value to me. If I'd known the condition they'd arrive in, I would have flown out to drive them across the country myself.
To add insult to injury, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Zippy Shell's customer service on moving day to request a claim form, which never showed up. I've since contacted customer service six times over the past two weeks to try to get the form.
Use Zippy Shell only if you're shipping something absolutely indestructible, or if you genuinely don't care what condition it arrives in.
