Let me begin by saying my complaint is with the sales and customer service practices of NEIGHBORS MOVING AND STORAGE. My complaint is NOT with the SUB-contracted moving company.
BAIT AND SWITCH: they use well trained salesmen making promises of their excellent services to get you to hire them (claiming they have the best customer service, never let a customer walk away from a move unhappy, then even telling me about their recent health problems and need of surgery to get sympathy, and talking bad about other moving companies if you mention you are getting quotes from other companies). Then as soon as you've paid them their portion of the money (a deposit of about 30%) they are done with you, so they wash their hands of their agreement they had with you. My price on the "contract" went up from $2200 to $2789 the day after I paid my deposit. Neighbors said they would try to fix it, but never called me back again.
WILL NOT RETURN CALLS: Upon running into some problems with my move, I contacted customer service, who on my initial phone call seemed to be incredibly kind, empathetic, and helpful, but said she could not address the problem and I would need to talk with the supervisor. I never got in communication with that supervisor. Ever. I was given the direct phone numbers to three different staff members, I called all three numbers 3 times per day, leaving a message only once per day. I did this for SEVEN days in a row and NEVER did they answer or return my calls. I am pretty convinced they are screening them.
WON'T HONOR CONTRACT: they "BIND" the estimate by having you pay a deposit that is about 30% of the total quote. They then tell you that the price is now fixed and will not move as long as you keep to the original inventory and do not add more items and furniture. This was bogus. They do not tell you upfront that the sub-contracted moving company does not have to abide by that contract that you made with Neighbors. Nor do they tell you that while you work hard to get a perfect estimate to them of the weight of all your items, that the contract company is going to function off of the number of cubic feet taken up by the items, NOT the weight. After working hard to get my weight down (not even thinking about the area) the new calculation caused the price to sky rocket. It's clear to me now that Neighbors salespeople were willing to tell me any price I wanted to hear to get me to pay the deposit (their cut), then turn me over to a company who could never match their quoted "contract" price.
My complaint is NOT with the contracted moving company, Showtime Van Lines. The staff of Showtime were very honest and respectful. They completed my move successfully and on time. Showtime was great and I hope they will chose to never work with Neighbors again.
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