We hired Partner Moving in Palo Alto/Mountain View, Ca in June of 05 to move our stuff to Arizona. We thought we had properly vetted the company through the normal channles (BBB, the state, etc) and they came back clean with no complaints or lawsuits.
Big mistake, when checking out a potential moving company, always run the founders as well as the company. After our debacle, we discovered that the CEO of Partner Moving has quite an unsavory history in the moving business. Matter of fact, we did not go with a competitor to Partner Moving (Safari Moving) becuase they had 20 recent complaints with the BBB. What we found out was that the current CEO and founder of Partner Moving was Sean Blum (or Shai Blum) and he was the CEO of Safari before leaving to start Partner Moving.
Small tip concerning hiring a small moving company: Many of these guys open and shut businesses or hide behind DBA's to cover up their problems in the past.in this case Partner Moving is owned by G.S.B.international inc.
They arrived to pick up our stuff with the understanding that we could expect delivery within 7-10 days on 6/15/05. With our stuff gone, we headed to Arizona to await the delivery.
Several days after they picked our stuff we got an early morning phone call from Sean (Shai) telling us that the truck that had been carrying our stuff was involved in an accident in the early morning hours (1:05 am) of 6/19/05
He told me that there was an accident but gave no details about the circumstances, only that the truck had rolled and about 20% of our stuff sustained damage. He claimed that he had gone to the accident scene and they transferred our stuff into another truck that was currently making its way to us in Arizona and to expect delivery on Monday.
He claimed to have felt so bad about the accident that he had done us a great favor: He created a new agreement, with bogus dates of signing and pick up, that inlcuded an extra $600 option for additional coverage that we had not originally purchased through a third-party carrier called "Moving-Insurance.com" which he was glad to paid to movinginsurance.com on our behalf!
Now, in addition to having our stuff trashed as a result of this highly suspicious accident at 1 am in morning, in order to get compensation we were going to have to commit insurance fraud as Sean's partner in crime.
Sean felt that he had done a good thing by trying to rip off movinginsurance.com. He created a new contract, back-dated it to make it look like that we had signed our contract on the 19th of June (which of course was not true) and that they had picked up our stuff on the same day 6/19. He knew when he bought the policy from movinginsurance.com that there was going to be a claim. The accident already happened!
He didn't feel bad at all that in order for us to collect, we had to victimize an innocent third party in movinginsurance.com as well as break the law. What a guy!
A few words on the accident itself: It was a single truck rollover on the North Bound 101 fwy off ramp at Rengstorf exit. Sean could never explain why the truck, if it was really on its way to us in AZ, was traveling North bound on the 101 fwy and not South. There was only the driver in the truck, no passenger. This is really strange considering that it takes at least 2 people to unload if it was really on the way to us in AZ. Sean could never explain this either.
When the truck arrived the damage was far worse than the 20% number given to me by Sean. Almost eveything in terms of furniture was either 100% destroyed (as in wood particles) or had things missing (4 dining room chairs, 2 totally destroyed, 2 missing its legs etc). Some of the boxes of our stuff never even made it. As a small bonus, the boxes that did make it were full of dirt, shrubs and rocks from the accident.
We are now in insurance hell between the parties. Partner Moving did not pay the $6 per day to Ryder (who they rent trucks from) to have cargo insurance. Brilliant move.
Partner Moving is claiming that they have no knowledge of our stuff being damaged to the insurance carriers even though I have both contracts (the real one and the one Sean made up to commit insurance fruad) as well as the police report (Report # 6-187 California Highway Patrol Redwood City office)
3 things I learned through my ordeal that are worth mentioning:
Partner Moving was involved in 3 accidents (including mine) within the space of 2 weeks of my move with Ryder trucks. The other 2 accidents were also single-truck accidents. I could not confirm if there were more as there are multiple companies that rent trucks to them.
Sean (Shai) Blum was the CEO of Safari moving when another party being moved had thier stuff destroyed in a single-truck accident as reported on this web site.
The CHP officer on the scene (officer Rephardt) stated in his report that the driver was not intoxicated or impaired in any way, just that he was driving JUST FAST ENOUGH to flip the truck on the circular off-ramp without getting hurt himself. Amazing...
The thing that really sucks is that there are some things that cannot be replaced. All the other stuff (furniture, lamps, clothes) can be purchased, but the stuff that most people care about;the old family photos, hierlooms, etc can never be replaced.
Bottom line: avoid Partner Moving at all costs.
Aaron
Mesa, Arizona
U.S.A.
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