Nightmare in March - Moving Review

As we had never moved with a full service company before, we were very apprehensive. We did a lot of research online beforehand and got a lot of different quotes.

When I first received a call from Great American, their price was higher than others. When I mentioned that we had received better quotes, Nathan G. offered to match, and I requested the quote in writing.

A few days later, I realized I had left some items off the inventory list. I contacted Nathan to inform him of the items, and asked how that would affect my quote. At that time, he offered to send a FULL TRUCK, just for us, which would go straight from our house to Maryland for $2,000 flat. I made sure that it was a binding quote and asked several times over the phone and in e-mail for him to assure me that no matter what we had, it would go on the truck at no extra charge because this is a flat rate. Everytime I inquired, he assured me that was the case. So, we made the reservation. So far, so good.

Then moving day arrives. The movers (Elvin and Jerome) arrived a few minutes early, took a look at our stuff, and assured us that everything would fit on their truck (which looked sketchy and didn't have any markings on it).

Then, the trickiness started. First, they didn't like the way that we had boxed up stuff and wanted to sell us their boxes (at $20 each) and their tape to use for re-packing. I refused and went to Wal*Mart for more boxes. They insisted they would have to charge me for the tape that they used to tape the blankets on the furniture.

After they had about half of our stuff packed on, they started saying that our quote was only for a 1200 cu. ft. truck, and the one they had driven down was 2000 cu. ft. They insisted that if they filled it up, they would have to charge us extra. But I fortunately got everything in writing through e-mail and was able to show them my binding quote for a FULL TRUCK.

I still had to go back and forth with the company on the phone for several minutes before they agreed to stick to their quote. Also, the moving company failed to inform the moving crew of the piano.

Before they ever started moving anything onto the truck, we were told that we were expected to provied a 15% ($300) tip (this came after I was required to sign a piece of paper saying that they couldn't ask me for a tip- real classy).

On moving day, we were surprised to learn that the ground floor apartment we viewed was not the one we were getting, and it would be a second floor apartment- up three flights of stairs. Additionally, they could not pull the truck right up to the door. Upon learning this, they were very angry and became rather surly.

They told my husband that they could write up the extra distance and stairs officially on the company invoice and we would be charged anywhere from $300-$500 additional, or we could give them the $300 as a tip. We felt that we did not really have a choice, as we needed our stuff and we could not afford the extra either way.

However, the movers made my husband and the friends that had showed up to help us unpack carry most of the boxes up the stairs. All they did was unload the truck and carry up the heavy furniture. Not only that, but it took about 3 hours longer than it should have.

They truly manhandled and damaged an antique wardrobe, and didn't put half of my furniture back together.

The only thing that saved us from being gouged by this company was that I did research, got a binding quote, and made sure to get everything in writing. Despite the positive reviews you will find online, working with this company was a nightmare.

In all, our $2,000 "flat rate" move ended up costing $2,676 including the outrageous tip they demanded and the tape they used to tape blankets onto our furniture.

I WILL NEVER USE THIS COMANY AGAIN, AND YOU SHOULD RUN QUICKLY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.

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