Care about your belongings and your time? Then do not work with these people!
Getting Diana, the sales representative to return my phone calls and e-mails should have been my first red flag, but I gave these folks the benefit of the doubt - don't do the same.
A week before the cross-country move that I had scheduled months in advance, I received a very curt phone call from the driver asking if I could move 4 days earlier. After explaining that the reason I had made a date is that I was planning my entire summer, including my employment around that date, he gruffly hung up. This made me and my husband panic, as this iritated man would be driving everything we I owned across the country. We didn't have any confidence that he would show up on the correct date after that phone call, and as with most people who hire a moving company, we had an extremely tight deadline that could not be changed.
We called Broadway Express and explained the situation to them. They said they would speak to the driver and call us back... They did not return our phone call, so the next day, 6 days before our scheduled move, we called to cancel. Suddenly, they were more helpful than they had been the entire move, with both the office and the driver calling us begging us to reconsider. We told them that we couldn't trust them with everything we owned, and had scheduled a Penske rental to do it ourselves (which we'd always done in the past and will always do in the future). They begged and apologized profusely, but we didn't budge.
We asked that our deposit be refunded and a confirmation be sent in writing. As with all other communication, we had to call back routinely to get this in writing. Great strategy to take with angry customers with access to the internet.
Note: In his panic not to get in trouble with the office, the driver divulged how things really work: What they tell you is that you load your belongings with the help of the driver and they travel across the country to your destination secure and having no one else touch them. Not so. We were going to be the last ones in the trailer, and the last ones out on the east coast, yet there were two other people, one in the midwest, and one on the west coast in ahead of us, so our stuff would have to be moved out to get their stuff out. I can only imagine the loving care that these drivers would give our stuff when no one was around.
The office acted as though the driver's request to change our move date was not ridiculous. However, when you book your move, they assure you that the date will be firm, and that you will hear who your driver is at least week prior to the move. We heard from him 6 days before the move; their cancelation policy states that you must give 5 business days notice.
Bottom Line: Do not use these people to move! It's far less stressful to rent a truck and do it yourself.
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