Where do I even begin?
12/17/08- I get a call from Baker Moving for my move from Chicago to Michigan. Baker Moving guarantees that they will beat any competitor quotes. They did come in with the lowest price. They assured me they are a mover with offices in every major city.
2 days later I book my move with Baker Moving. My move is supposed to occur on December 30th and that I will be called on the 29th to confirm my pickup time.
On the 29th I receive a call from Chicago Moving Systems informing me they will be at my house the next day to pick up my belongings. I was a little confused at first and I called Baker Moving asking them what was going on. They told me that Chicago Moving Systems was their local Chicago office. So I went with the flow.
12/30/08- Chicago Moving Systems shows up at my house in a yellow Penske rental truck. There are 3 men. They all looked like shady characters from the get go and in retrospect I wish I would have just sent them home packing immediately.
They begin to load my stuff into the truck and the guy in charge keeps speaking of how I have all this additional stuff and how as a result my price may be a little more. I told him that over the phone Tom quoted me 728 cubic feet and that the price was guaranteed no matter what to be no more than $1500. He proceeded to tell me that Baker Moving has nothing to do with his company and that I was going to be paying what he said or else they were going to take off with the furniture that was loaded and wouldn't give it back until I agreed to pay the new price for it.
This is blatant extortion.
At this time I called Tom at Baker Moving who wouldn't answer my calls.
The mover told me that I could call his boss. So I spoke with this Dary guy. He proceeded to tell me that i was sending more stuff than they had anticipated up front and that is why it was taking more space on his truck and that I had to pay for that space.
The truth is that I didn't have anything more than what I told Tom about up front. I asked this Dary guy to look at the estimate and he would see that item for item it was exactly the same and that I was not to pay a penny more than $1500. I told him that I felt his obviously incompetent employees didn't know how to load a truck and that is why if anything that my items would take up more space than he anticipated.
He got progressively angry and aggressive with me over the phone with each question I asked. He told me that based on what his foreman was telling him about space in the truck that I would now owe about $2600 on just space alone and probably another $450 on "materials".
I asked him what he meant by materials and he told me that his guys were packing my items up with special materials to ensure safety. This was the biggest line of BS I had ever heard. His employees were anything buy careful with my belongings. I even saw them drop one of my dressers.
The final insult came when I inquired about the math he was using to determine what these charges were. I had put down an initial deposit to reserve my truck and he wasn't even calculating that in to anything.
He told me that I should ask Tom about that if I want that back and that his company had nothing to do with Baker Moving.
In the end I payed their inflated prices. Not only did I pay, they demanded that I only give them cash at delivery despite the fact that I was willing to give them a money order as their paperwork stipulated. I had no choice, I wanted my possessions. They delivered things to me 8 days later which completely threw out the same day to 1 day delivery that was promised by Tom.
Now that I have my stuff, (about 25% of it broken mind you) I am becoming aware of how this whole scam outfit operates.
Tom and Baker Moving are a big charade. Baker Moving doesn't really exist. Tom is the initial point of contact for this criminal outfit. He sweet talks you to sign up then to launder his money he passes you on to Chicago Moving Systems which are the actual entity that physically interacts with the customer. They send bum, thug looking men to your house to try and shake you down and intimidate you once they've inflated your price and then only accept cash at the delivery to avoid paying taxes on the money. I bet none of these people have paid taxes in years all the way from Tom to Dary at Chicago Moving Systems.
1 word describes these poor excuses for scum, and that word is criminals.
Movegonebad34
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.
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