It appears I am not the only customer to have serious problems with Destination Movers (see report #296732). The situation I experienced sounds all too similar to that customer's experience.
Their sales people were friendly and helpful. The company gave me a non-binding $1300 quote for 6000 lbs. At that time we had agreed on paying by weight (not volume) and we also had agreed to pay by credit card and the carrier agreed to waive their usual 3% transaction fee. All of this failed to hold up.
We were told to expect the movers to show up around noon they showed up late and in fact didn't leave the house until after midnight! Not pleasant when the community we were in is quite strict about noise and there's an 18 wheeler in close quarters idling for hours especially until the wee hours of the morning.
The movers were unprepared and unprofessional. They didn't have enough blankets and proper packing materials with them. For example, they unfortuately, packed desk shelves and also chairs inside wardrobe boxes — and for the ones packed this way they were *all* damaged upon arrival at the destination (i.E. Two desk shelves *shattered*, holes in chair upholstery). They failed to do a complete inventory of all the items moved. Almost all screws, washers, shelf pins, etc. For items disassembled by the movers ended up missing!
We could go on... But hopefully you get the picture. Once the movers are near we get a call saying we need to have $3300 in order to get our furniture. Needless to say we were a bit shocked. Don't know where they got that price but we told them we had an estimate of $1300 for 6000 lbs. And agreed to pay by weight not by volume... They tells us they never got weighed and they have no plans to get weighed!
We end up "dealing" with some guy named Reuben who was completely unhelpful, refused to honor the original agreement and he claims we have more than $600 in packing materials as if that helps justify a jump from $1300 to 3300! (Note: that's way outside the allowed 110% of the estimate!)
Crazy. The movers threatened to put our belongings in holding if we didn't pay. I'm no lawyer, nor do I want to have to get one just to get my furniture — clearly some people realize the economics that the "little" people will pay just to get through the problems instead of having to hire lawyers and go with their own possessions for weeks/months/... I still don't see how it is fair that when there is a dispute a family loses their furniture especially when the mover has changed the rules mid-transport.
Anyway, we ended up paying over $2200 in a cashiers check (yeah they wouldn't even honor the credit card agreement) just to get this nightmare over but hopefully you can avoid these problems in the future and learn from our experience.
In the ideal world the moving company might apologize and make amends for the hassle, overcharging, damage and lost materials but I won't hold my breath.
Any company that treats their customers like this doesn't deserve your business.
I recommend staying far away from Destionation Movers!
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