Complaint Review: Equinox Movers

Ken (if that's really your name), you seem overly interested in defending someone in a situation you know nothing about. 

Having said that, allow me to correct some of your many errors in what you wrote:

1.  It's not the consumer's fault if the mover doesn't send the correct sized truck for the move.

2.  When my budget was told to the mover up front, and he accepts it, telling me that's enough to accomplish the move I am asking him to bid on, the rest is on him.  He told me that it was enough, then upcharged me additional amounts.  Pretty shady.

3.  Had the correct size truck been sent, there would have been no need for a second trip, so no need for me to waste more time and money.

4.  Since I told them the furniture was the most important to be moved, they completely disregarded what I wanted and did what they wanted repeatedly.

5.  Now here's what I find really interesting about your rebuttal:  you state that you are not with this company or any other mover, but you seem to profess a lot of knowlege about the movers, the time of year, etc.  Seems to me that someone is not being honest.  However, your arrogance at telling me that the mover's time is more important than mine is totally unacceptable.  I run my own businesses.  When I'm not working, i.e. being screamed at by Larry for two and a half hours, my opportunity cost runs in excess of the cost of movers.

6.  You say I was being unreasonable concerning the two and a half hours not being charged to me.  I was not the one screaming and hanging up multiple times.  I was not the one who decided that I would not accept the balance of the payment when the original payment went through.  I was not the one who refused to listen to reason.  I was not the one wasting time.  Why should I be expected to pay for Larry's temper tantrum?  

And, oh, by the way, Carmack is NOT an amendment.  It's case law.  And it doesn't give a mover a free pass to do anything they want, or, according to you, "yell Carmack" and be absolved of all responsibility in all matters.  Next time when you want to play lawyer, at least read and understand what you're quoting before you prove how ignorant your statement is.

Larry - 

I could go through all the problems with the move that I didn't put in the inital report for the sake of brevity.  I won't, as it will only lead to more defensiveness on your part.

Let me tell you how this happened:

First, you were to busy ( or lazy or whatever) to come to see what I was moving.  With all your "years" in the moving business, that you constantly keep telling me about, you sent the wrong sized truck.  I am not in the business, yet I know enough not to send a 26 foot truck to move two 10 x 20 storage units filled with boxes and furniture.  You were told all of this in our initial conversation, as I did with every mover I spoke with as I wanted to make certain that the quotes were accurate.  You refused to come see what needed to be moved.

Second, on the day of the move, before anything was tocuhed, I took your crew to see the furniture that needed to be moved.  I specifically told them I wanted the furniture placed on first.  The head of your crew told me that he wasn't going to do that, and that the boxes would be loaded first.  He loaded the things that I could have moved by myself, then told me there wasn't enough room for the furniture and to "pick what's most important to you".  All of the furniture was important to be moved. I could have move all the boxes myself, since I had when I placed them in the storage unit.  I needed the furniture moved as I couldn't do that myself.

Third, even if he loaded boxes first, don't you think that it would be common sense to see that when the truck was half loaded, the crew stopped and asked what I wanted done since it wasn't going to all fit in the too small truck you sent for the move.

Fourth, when I tried to politely request a meeting to work this out, you not only refused, but then renegged even on the miniscule piece you offered, which was one hour - $105 value - to load my furniture.  There was no talk of how to now get it to Austin, nor how to get it off the truck.  Your own crew quoted me between on and one and a half hours to load.  Judging by the way you operated on the first move (telling me that $1000 budger would be enough, and then charging $240 more), I really didn't trust you to load my furniture in one hour, leaving me to again pay you for the difference.  No thank you.

Lastly, those "hundreds of dollars" offered include the two and a half hours you screamed at me and nothing got done.  You finally told me that you wouldn't charge me for the two and a half hours wasted (while you called me over 13 times telling me I had to listen to you scream at me, not letting me have a word in to try to resolve the issue, then hanging up only to call back again and again.) after I had to call the Austin police for theft as you tried to abscond with what was left of my things on your truck. 

If you really were the businessman you profess you are, you would have been willing to make this right.  Had you worked with me, this wouldn't have been such a bad experience.  Instead, you chose to dig in twice as deep, playing the great game of I am Right and You are Wrong.  If you hadn't acted in such a contentious manner when you first called me after the issue with the card, none of this would have happened.  Instead of searching for and working toward a solution that leaves everyone feeling good about the experience, you only exacerbated the problem.

If you were a legitimately wanting to resolve this, you also wouldn't have told me in an email that I could contact your attorney from now on and that was the last time you'd talk with me via email.  You'd have worked something out with me. 

Do the right thing right now.  You did half a job. Refund half my money.

I founded this company after over a decade in the moving industry, and made a promise to myself and my future customers that my team and I would do it better, do it with more pride, do it with more integrity and with more focus on service than any moving company I had ever worked for in the past. In the year we've been in business, the hard working men who I'm fortunate enough to call employees have exceeded my expectations on the level of service we've been able to deliver to our customers, and I stand tall as an owner, proud of the focus on service that I've been able to maintain, even with the toughest of customers. Moving is extremely stressful and pretty dang expensive, even under the best of circumstances. I know more than anything that in our line of work, you will never be able to make every single customer happy no matter how hard you try. I encourage anyone reading this to look at our reviews on websites like Yelp, Google, MyMovingReviews and any other to see the HIGH level of service we bring to our customers every single day. I take great pride in the honesty, integrity and courtesty with which we treat every single customer. And I am extremely proud of my own willingness as an owner to "bite the bullet" and even lose money sometimes to ensure a customer walks away happy, regardless of who is at fault. 

Out of respect for our customer, I won't go in to a litany of details in recapping this move. It was clearly a negative experience for all parties involved and there are no winners when that happens. I will say a few things in response to some pretty incendiary claims made by the customer:

1. At no point did I or any member of my staff EVER represent to this customer that all of her belongings would fit in one truck. In fact, in the very first paragraph of both our written quotes AND confirmation e-mail sent to each customer upon booking, in large, bold print it states "PLEASE NOTE: This is an hourly rate quote - not a flat or guaranteed price.  You understand you are paying hourly for the actual time used on your move. We have not quoted you a price or total estimated cost for your move. We also are not able to guarantee that all of your household goods will fit in one truck. Please speak with your Moving Consultant if you have concerns about your shipment size. There is a two (2) hour minimum on all residential jobs." As the customer noted, she "hurredly" e-signed the agreement prior to moving day then claims ignorance when it's convenient. We are EXTREMELY transparent with how we charge for our work as well as how we represent the scope of work to the customer. It is a simple hourly rate based on the amount of work we have. This customer chose to go with one truck knowing after 2-3 conversations that it would not all fit. She acknowedged as much, and my staff and I FIRMLY believe that this was her plan all along. The way this played out was calculated and detailed. 

2. In an effort to de-escalate the situation despite 100% being contractually protected, I offered her HUNDREDS of dollars in concessions. I absolutely did ask for an agreement that she would not leave poor reviews after making those concessions. If I'm going to conceded hundreds of dollars of loss in a sole attempt to make you happy as a customer, I firmly believe you should agree that you are in fact happy and do not have any further issue to speak of with our company. This customer took the concessions and then refused to sign any agreement. As far as our contract goes, we use the Form 170 which is a Texas DMV approved contract, issued by the Southwest Movers Association. We make no alterations whatsoever to this standard issued, state sanctioned ccontract. It is the most consumer protection friendly contract in the state of Texas. 

3. The contract requires separate customer signature indicating they understand that the services are charged on an hourly basis and the number of hours is not needed until the move is complete. This customer signed this PRIOR to any items being loaded. In addition, it specifies the number of trucks and movers. In this case, 1 truck and 3 movers. Again, she signed and received a copy of the contract prior to the move beginning and raised no issues. We have never and certainly did not in this case make any representation that her move would not exceed any certain cost. That is antithetical to charging an hourly rate. That is patently false and an attempt to malign our transparent sales practices, which, if you read our reviews left by other customers, you will see that our sales practices are clearly above board and transparent. 

4. Aside from only paying appoximately $1176 for the entire move after hundreds of dollars of discounts were given to simply bring this to a resolution and get the customer her belongings delivered, she charged back the entire amount of the move with her credit card company. So what this customer fails to mention is that she sought to STEAL over a thousand dollars worth of services from our company and hard working employees. At the end of the day, despite any complaints about the service she received, she was moved from Houston to Austin. An entire 26' truck worth of her household goods were successfully moved into her storage unit, and after that was done, she attempted to steal from us by disputing the charge on her card. When all was said and done, because the paperwork was a little bit unclear as to the discounts given, the bank elected to refund her $300 of the total amount paid. So this customer only ended up paying approximately $876 for her entire move, after  accepting discounts totalling almost $300 and getting a refund from her bank of $300. And if that weren't good enough, continues a crusade in bad faith online seeking to malign our company and my good faith efforts to bring this to a resolution. 

In summation, our reputation precedes us. This is our first negative review from any customer since we've been in business and by anyone's standards, that's an A+ when considering the 100+ customers we serve every month. I did everything within my power to make this customer walk away feeling good about things, but as she even admitted in her own writing, everytime she would agree to accept one of my offers of resolution, she'd write or call again the next day and say that wasn't good enough. Nothing short of moving all of her remaining belongings to Austin free of charge would have been enough for this customer. 

I stand proud knowing that we went above and beyond to try to make this customer happy and if given the opportunity to do anything again, I couldn't think of anything better or more generous than the approach we took. We even reviewed our quotes and confirmation e-mails after this incident to see if we could find an opportunity to be more transparent with our customers, and we found that nothing more conspicuous could be included to address the fact that you are only getting one truck and that we charge by the hour. We have used this as a learning opportunity and will continue to better ourselves and grow from any customer we weren't able to make happy. But at the end of the day, unreasonable, calculating and dishonest people do exist, and this was our first experience as a company with one of those types of people. I appreciate your time in reading the details of this experience and am HAPPY to provide recent, glowing references from customer large and small all over the state of Texas who will tell you what amazing service we deliver day in and day out. 

I had told Larry that my budget was $1000. for the entire move.  Standard rate for a 3 man crew is $139 per hour, plus windshield time of at least 1 hour at 2X rate.  A 7 hour move loading and unloading, plus a 1 hour drive is already over your budget.  Add a 2nd trip, and now we're talking about at least another $600-$800 on top of that.  If you only decided to allocate a budget of $1000, then don't bother calling a moving company.  You should have simply gone to U-Haul, rent a 26ft truck, hire guys to load the truck at origin and guys at destination, and you drive.  Even at 2 trips, you may have been able to do the move within your budget.  If he only billed you $1190 for the one trip, that's about right.  Consider yourself fortunate.  Most movers would not have done it during this time of the year for that amount of money.

By the time they finished with the boxes, the 26' truck could not take all the furniture, which is what I really needed moved by the movers.  Ken asked me to "pick what's most important to you" to move.  Less than half the furniture from the second unit fit!  Irrelevant.  So by your own narrative, regardless of how the packing went, you were still going to need 2 trips to do the move.  I understand you wanted the furniture more than the boxes, but the reasoning was not relevant; it would have caused more damage to your furniture.  The only way you would have been able to do 1 trip was with a semi, which based on the DOT website for them, they don't have; the DOT says they only have one truck.  Either way, you needed 2 trips to perform the entire move.

I also brought a couple of other cards with me in case something went wrong, which it did.  My bank processed a payment a couple of days earlier than it was scheduleed, which left me $113 short on the bill of $1190.  Movers require cash or a cashier's check for the entire move in full - that is in the contract you signed with the mover and with a local move, it has to be done prior to the move.  This is the mover's busy season so complying with their terms is a requirement.  So yeah, I can see why the mover yelled at you profusely.  I think I would have too.  On the other hand, I would not have moved you with a $1000 budget.  I would have recommended moving yourself, but then I already said that.

I had to call the Austin police to prevent the theft of my goods! And once the police arrived, they would have told you this was a civil matter, not a criminal one, and to pay the mover now.  Yes, I have seen that happen too.  The police don't consider the mover taking your items back to storage as commission of a criminal charge of theft.

Ken told me that his tiem was valuable.  What about my time?  Ken's time is FAR more valuable now than at any other time in the year.; certainly more so than your time.  Movers make most of their money in the summer, so yeah his time at this point in the year IS more valuable.  Had this been November or December...his time is less valuable.

I wanted him to make the situation right which to this day he has not.  In the emails, he has the audacity to tell me how much money he is saving me by not charging me for the two and a half hours he wasted having temper tantrums and not storing my things that he was trying to steal!  Talk abut nerve!  Let's see...your inability to provide timely payment when required under the contract caused him to not be able to finish the job 2.5 hours earlier - time he did not bill you for - and then was still willing to give you a $240 discount?  I mean that's what you wrote here.  Perhaps the one being unreasonable was you?

I had a friend of mine who is a former assistant attorney general for a couple of states review the conntract.  Larry's arrogance is due to the fact that his contract is specifically designed to let him do what he pleases.  Additionally, it states that all disputes have to go to arbitration, costing more to take him on.  The whole operation is sleazy and manipulative.  It has nothing to do with arrogance.  Why don't you ask your friend the lawyer about the Carmack Amendment and let him research it.  It's Federal law.  What he's going to tell you is that you cannot pursue the mover for fraud, misrepresentation, or anything else except what's in the contract.  It's a law specifically designed to protect movers in general from vexacious litigants.  His contract is probably just like any other mover's contract.  All the mover has to yell at arbitration is "Carmack", show the arbitrator the Carmack Amendment, and the arbitrator will then tell you that you have no case.

Needless to say, I had to take another day of my time and over $600 more to move the rest of my things.  Which you would have to do anyway.

Here's the real moral of the story:  Moving is not an inexpensve venture.  It is highly labor intensive, no automation, and no 2 moves are alike so there is no standardization.  However expensive YOU think a move is, it will cost you more.  In your case with a tight budget and no money in the bank, I would have moved yourself and leave moving companies to people who will comply with the T&C's.

No, I don't work for this or any other moving company...