I had all my home furnishings in storage in Seattle, where they were put while my husband deployed and I went home to Virginia to be with my mom during chemo. When I returned, I knew that I would need help packing the truck and unloading the truck at the new home, as I was returning to WA with our two kids before my husband returned.
I found Ready to Move Now, Inc. On the internet and they seemed like a great value. They repeat over and over on all pages of their website that they NEVER use day laborers and that their movers are all experienced, etc. I decided to hire two men for three hours to help me move.
The day of the move arrived and the men who showed up were NOT professional movers. They were day laborers from a local temp agency! They were nice enough although I was a little nervous with them around my kids, but they had no idea what they were doing.
I rented a 24 foot truck and they were moving our stuff from a storage facility that was smaller than the truck and RAN OUT OF ROOM! They only packed about head high and left so much room unused. As a result, I had to return later to pack the rest of the stuff with just me and the kids and my brother (who was luckily able to help me) which not only took a lot of time and effort, but added about 50 bucks to the cost of the moving truck for milage overages to drive back to Everett and load up and then to Seattle again.
Once we got on the road, the minivan that the men came in broke down on the side of I-5 during rush hour. We had to pull over their minivan, then my SUV, and then the 24 ft. Truck! It was very dangerous and I was more than a little angry. I was told that the minivan was dead and that one of the movers would come to the new house in the moving truck while the other waited for someone to help with the minivan and would come to the house later.
Once at the new house, the man was as slow as molasses, not to mention that my brother was doing most of the heavy lifting. If he wasn't there, the one moving guy could never have moved the couch and TV and such by himself. After taking about 3 hours to unload the truck, the other mover showed up in the SAME minivan smoking and bucking to have me sign both of their time sheets.
When I asked how they were going to give me credit for the time that they broke down, etc. (because travel time was included in my time so I was paying for that too) he asked me how much the extra hour was going to cost me. When I told him a little over 50 bucks, he was shocked and stated that they weren't even getting paid 10 dollars an hour. He said that he would list 4 hours for himself and 3 and a half for the other guy who had been missing in action.
I tried to call the company many times - a few days before the move to try and confirm and I never received either the confirmation phone call OR a response to my phone call; a call the night before because they had tried to charge my credit card BEFORE the job which they weren't supposed to do according to their web site and never heard from them; and multiple phone calls the day of the move to both complain AND to confirm payment which is what their web site states will happen; and finally, multiple calls after the move to complain and tell them that I was not paying the full amount. I NEVER heard back from them.
The next thing I know, I get a phone call from them because they again tried to bill me and couldn't get the card to go through (they wrote down the wrong number and I now won't correct it). When I spoke to the man who called, I explained that I had no intention of paying the full amount given the terrible service I had received. He put me on with the manager who was not only not interested in anything I had to say, but was beyond rude and obnoxious.
When I pointed out that the movers were day laborers and that the web site said it NEVER uses day laborers, he said that "according to Webster's dictionary a professional mover is someone who gets paid to move things." I asked about the fact that they were day laborers and he said that while it said that on the internet, it never said that in the contract! When I told him I was not paying full price he threatened to report me to the police for being a thief and have me arrested!!!
I have tried to call again and again to settle this somehow and only reach the one rude guy who says that he is the only manager, but not the owner and when I ask for the owner, he says that he can't give out that information. When I asked for an actual location to write to, he stated that they were out of Forest Hills, NY (even though the call center is in the central time zone!) I found four different businesses in Queens NY that had similar names but when I tried to call them to see if it was the same business, none answered the phone - the number just rings and rings.
I now have to pay these crooks because they are going to put it on my credit report, which not only affects my rating, but also can affect my husband's career in the military. These people are scam artists, con men and crooks in the worst way.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY OR A COMPANY WITH A NAME EVEN CLOSE TO THIS ONE. I think that this is one of those companies with three guys in a basement answering phones who just then contact the temp agency in your area and pocket the 200 difference in cost. And when you try to complain you get nowhere. They don't even pretend to care what happened. I am sure that when the complaints add up, they change the name slightly and just reopen for business to scam more people.
Claire
Seattle, Washington
U.S.A.
0 comments