I live in an apartment complex where the parking is restricted and the access can be tight, so there are limited areas where a large truck can be parked. This complaint has to do with two moving people I hired though Express Pro Moving for Less, who smashed one piece of my furniture, used poor moving techniques that caused visible scarring of the concrete steps leading to my 2nd floor apartment, repeatedly ignored requests from the apt. Complex security guard to move their truck to an area that didn't block traffic, and ultimately abandoned all my personal goods in a public parking lot after dark and drove off, leaving me to figure out how to get 8 large, heavy pieces of furniture and a lot of boxes and smaller pieces into my 2nd floor apartment by myself. This was around 7 pm—much too late to try to contact another company.
I've moved quite a bit and have even been a mover myself, and I have never experienced this level of arrogance, incompetence, and indifference in any movers before. The job of these two was to unload a moving van delivered by another company across a parking lot, about 150 yards, to my apartment.
Initially, they wanted to park their truck next to my apartment and weren't allowed to do so. After about 45 minutes of wheeling furniture and boxes by hand, in the process destroying a butcher block kitchen cart by losing control of it halfway up the stairs, they decided to load their truck from the moving van out in the parking lot with the intention of driving it 150 yards to my apartment, where they would unload it. The security guard had already made them move their truck from the area where they intended to park it, and I reminded them of that, but they ignored me and took the truck to the outside parking area next to where the moving van was parked, where they blocked traffic off and on as they loaded it and caused trouble for the security guard, who had been nice enough to let the moving van park in an area where it impeded traffic flow already.
After the two movers got everthing moved from the moving van to their truck, the security guard again told them yet again that they would not be allowed to drive through the security gate to my apartment, and that they would have to park in exactly the same spot as the moving van had been. This whole waste of time took one hour.
At this point, I made the mistake of calling their office (888-558-8998) and telling them what was going on. I told the woman on the other end who had dispatched these two incompetents that they had destroyed a piece of my furniture, and that I didn't want to pay $65 for the wasted hour of time. She got on the cell phone with them, and reported back to me that they told her the truck loading had taken only 20 minutes. I told her that they were lying to her. I had timed it—after all, I was paying for their time—and the process started at 5 pm when they went to get their truck and ended at 6 pm when they parked their truck in the same spot that the moving van had been in. She offered me $60 off the price, and I refused, saying that $130 would be fair compensation for the wasted hour plus my smashsed cart. She continued to say that she belived her people, so I gave her the cell phone number of the moving van driver, telling her that he had witnessed the whole thing and could verify what I had told her. She said she would call him.
Ten minutes later, neither of the movers had moved anything else to my apartment, so I went out to the parking lot to see what was going on. They were in the process of unloading the entire truck and putting all my stuff in the parking lot, which is open to a public street. I got a bad feeling and asked them to stop unloading the truck and to start moving it into my apartment. They said, no, they had to unload the truck first, and they continued to do so. When they were done, they drove away and left everthing sitting there, where anyone could have taken it.
I spent the next 3 hours moving everyting back to my apartment with a two-wheel dolly that I was fortunate to own.in the process, a neighbor took pity on me and helped me move the large pieces into my apartment. So it turned out okay—I paid them nothing, got everything in, and didn't have to pay them for their shoddy work. So technically I guess it wasn't a rip-off, just unprofessional conduct. Although they did smash a piece of furniture, it wasn't an expensive one, and things could have been a lot worse, since nothing was stolen. But I'm going to ask for references next time I do a move!
Paul
Richmond, California
U.S.A.
0 comments