This is the worst moving experience I've ever encountered. And I've had my wedding flowers crushed…read more
To begin with, the owner asked that we pay him in cash because his business account was overdrawn. Suspect, but okay. We'll help you out. When the day of the move arrives on Friday, March 15th, they were an hour and a half late. I had to call the owner a half hour in to their scheduled arrival time to find out where they were. He said he had personnel issues the night before and hopefully they would be along soon.
As they packed the truck, the movers managed to break off the base of one of our nice TVs. As they were loading our 3 TVs, they were pushing and shoving them in. We could hear the squeak of plastic-on-plastic and then the base tore off. They said they could screw it back on by driving bolts through the back of the broken base. Thank you, no.
Then, as they were loading our hutch which is a family heirloom, they wanted to place a gliding chair on top with no blankets or anything between. I had to finally tell them to stop and add some blankets. Had I not, they would have left those two pieces to bounce together during transport.
Of our two movers, Nathaniel was great. He was upbeat, moving quickly, great customer service game. The other mover was slow, grumpy and overall had a poor disposition. At one point, the second mover decided he would setup our washer without telling us. I don't mind that level of service, but when we walked by, we think he thought we were Nathaniel because he said aloud "I'm over all this s***." That's incredibly out of line and in bad taste. Then, when we tried to use our washer, we discovered it was hooked up incorrectly and our floor was met with a flood of water. The dryer was left for us to hook-up.
The movers were also unable to move everything we had. There wasn't much: we didn't even have a LR set or dining room table because we sold them. It was a 3 bed, 2 bath house. This would leave everything down to poor packing. They didn't offer to return to the first house to get the remaining furniture, so we had to get our own U-Haul the next day, costing us an extra $100 to get the remaining furniture.
Once the move was completed, we attempted to contact the owner to discuss the damaged TV. No answer. Even though he gave us two numbers to get ahold of him that day, neither us, nor his employees could contact him. We opted to pay everything but $70 pending a callback from him so we could discuss damages.
After we attempted to contact him multiple times on Friday, March 15th after the job was completed, we called again on March 16th at 11:25am which was not answered. This is, clearly, within the 24-hour period required on the contract since the job wasn't completed until after 4pm on the 15th. We were not able to make contact with the owner until March 20th at 3:10pm--5 days after the move took place.
Once we made contact, he advised that he happened to be on his Honeymoon during that week. Okay, I get that. But communicate to your customers that you will be getting married and then on your Honeymoon, therefore will be radio silent. It's odd that the owner gave us numbers to reach him and then failed to answer them when used.
While on the phone, I told him that we discovered that nearly every piece of furniture that wasn't in a box had some sort of damage on it: scrapes, scratches, gouges, and the like. I also reported the customer service issues we had. He requested photos be sent to him and then he would consult a repair professional to discuss repair costs and apologized for our experience and that he would get back to us quickly.
We sent the photos within a couple of days on March 25th. I had to text him myself on April 3rd asking if he received them. He stated he did receive them, but the photos look like previous damage. He mentioned he spoke to his two movers and they stated that we "exaggerated" our experience. He states the damages could be repaired with the amount we didn't pay in full ($70).
We responded saying that we wanted him to honor his contract agreement that they will pay for damages incurred during the move, but he states he wasn't informed of them within the 24-hour period. While we initially only recognized the TV damage moments after the move was completed, it is unrealistic to expect us to note any and all other damages to communicate to the owner and/or his movers before they left our residence. However, we did note it later that evening and the following day. This is what we attempted to discuss with him within that 24-hour period, yet we were unable to make contact.
We are not prone to claiming false damages. There was obviously prior damage on a wooden desk that we even joked about with Nathaniel. At no point have we claimed that damage or tried to scam the owner or his company over it or any other damages. It clearly states in our contract with the company that they "agree to repair, replace, or compensate the customer
