Move Plus
Complaint 220173 Details

When the movers came to move us to our new house, they were the least professional team I
could have ever come up with. This experience went well beyond unprofessional...and well into criminal/fraudulent. First of all, the movers were scheduled to arrive between 8am and 10am. They pulled up at 10:15, took 20 minutes to finish parking and come to the apartment, and didn't actually start working until almost 11am...if you call what they did working. There were two men. One appeared to be in his 60's, and while he was the harder working of the two, he didn't have the strength or endurance necessary to be a mover, was rude, and would not follow instructions. He was also poorly groomed, with wild hair and beard, dirty clothes, and smelled like he hadn't had a shower in a week. The other man was seriously overweight and in his 40's, and looked like he had never attempted this kind of work before, and didn't care to continue doing it. He was rude and disinterested and exceedingly lazy.

First of all, they moved incredibly slowly and took lots of breaks. Several times, we would
watch them spend 10 minutes deciding on what to pick up, then choose one small item, walk out to the truck, and come back to the apartment 15 minutes later smelling of cigarettes, still holding the small item they were taking out to the truck when they left. When they were taking the boxes out, they would put two or three small boxes on a dolly at a time, when several would fit. Lifting more than 25lbs appeared to be more than either could handle, and it took both of them to move each child size twin mattress. They were so slow that while they were unloading the truck, I walked out with the older man
to grab the mattresses for my kids. We arrived at the truck at the same time. I walked into the truck, grabbed a mattress, carried it by myself into the house, set it in my daughters room, put on her sheets and blankets, walked back out, grabbed the other mattress, carried it into my son's room, made his bed, walked back out, and the older man was just walking into the house with his first small box. The
younger man was even slower. At one point, the younger man was in the master bedroom for twenty minutes. When Ashley went in to see what was going on, he quickly stood up and handed her a CD that was in his hand and walked out of the room. Nothing had been done in the room during that time. We just moved one year ago, had a crew of two workers and a truck, and the total work time was less than
two hours...and that time they had stairs to deal with! These guys took 8 hours, and we have the same stuff now that we did then...and we had no stairs this time!

Second, they were not careful...bumbling even. They dropped the refrigerator (they had no
appliance dolly...seriously?!?) twice, one of our big screen TVs at least once. They seriously damaged our armoire (dropped it on it's back at least once as well), and dragged it across the hardwood floor without padding or a dolly, which seriously scratched the floors in both the old apartment and the new
house as well as the armoire. We have a small padded game chest with handles that when full weighed about 20lbs. When the younger one was about to grab it, Ashley stopped him and asked him to lift it or put it on a dolly, since there is a protruding nailon the bottom that would scratch the floor up if dragged. The man gave her a dirty look, found the nail on the bottom, and intentionally picked up the
other end and dragged it around, making deep, ragged scratches all over the bedroom floor. When the older man was packing the kitchen, Ashley specifically asked him not to put a small stack of dirty dishes in with the clean dishes...which he immediately did. He also put a box of cornstarch in another box of clean dishes upside down and open, pouring the cornstarch over all of the dishes in the box. It took him more than 45 minutes to pack a single kitchen box. There was a small cabinet in the bathroom, which one of them took the doorknob off of and screwed it back in backwards onto the inside of the cabinet, making it so it could not be opened for some reason. Both men, despite multiple warnings, ran into ceiling fans several times with furniture and whatnot.

The third major issue was the charges. The quote was $460, which included double drive time, four hours of work, and four kitchen boxes. We were told that wardrobe boxes would be provided for use free of charge, and that there should be no reason why it would take more than four hours to load a truck from a two bedroom apartment, especially when no couches or dining room tables were being
moved, nor bed frames to be disassembled. Instead, we were charged for a book box, 3 linen boxes, 4 large boxes, 2 dish pack boxes, 18 tolls of tape, and another charge for $40 that wasn't explained. We were charged for 8 hours of work, four hours of drive time, and four of those hours were at overtime at
$105/hr! That wasn't in the quote! We were told that we had to pay cash, yet they had no change. The total they gave us was $1155...nearly triple what we were quoted. Fortunately, I had $1200 cash on me,
but all in $100 bills. The older man said he wouldn't give change, so would just take the difference as a tip. A tip? For taking 4 times as long as other movers and tripling the quote? They started at 11am, but charged us from 10am. They claimed to use 18 rolls of tape, but only used 5 or 6.

Fourth comes the biggest part of their fraud. The “Not to Exceed” form was not given to us until after I had already paid and he set it as $1200. This was supposed to be done before starting work so I could set a limit on how much I would pay. I was also not aware that the extra hours for the “double driving time” thing could accumulate overtime pay as well.

After many phone calls and arguments, I came to an agreement with a supervisor that I would be refunded $450. This agreement was made on 12/10/12. It is now mid March, and I still have not received the check...lots of excuses, but no check.