Complaint Review: Suddath Relocation Systems

Would you hire convicts to enter your home and handle your move?

Suddath Relocation Systems contracts out to movers who do not require background checks. Good moving company's have standards, while the worst ones do not.  Suddath can opt to contract out the cheapest, most disreputable movers and send out crews of convicts to homes. My moving day experience was a shocking nightmare.

Suddath Relocation Systems 9611 NE Sunderland Rd, Portland, OR 97211 formerly Swartz  handled our move from Arizona to New Jersey. Our Suddath rep sent a very sketchy hostile moving crew with obvious ex-cons to our home. Movers some with prison face tattoos walked in, and one started by menacing my wife. Tear drop eye tattoo guy was angry about the job his company's packers had done the day before, and was yelling at my wife that we should have made his company's packing crew do a better job. (Tear drop tats usually represent how many people you claim to have killed; it's like keeping your body count on your face.) My wife locked herself in out bedroom to call our Suddath rep.  I missed the incident because I was dealing with his crew boss, who turned on me demanding I pay his crew more money before they even started.  The crew boss was angry. He claimed he and his crew underpaid by his company. He kept saying "his crew has got to get paid!", "his crew has got to get paid!" l usually tip workers after the work is done.  I was planning on running to the bank to get bills before the end of the day. The crew boss got mad, and stormed out of the garage when I asked him what he needed to be paid extra for.

So... within minutes of the movers arrival (less than a half hour) my wife called our Suddath Rep to say we were scared of their movers in our home.  While we were on the phone the movers broke the legs of my late grandmother's antique dining table.   Presumably for not paying them off.  For the rest of the day occasionally things like tables, lamps, and other items were severely damaged just on the way out of the house, and their packing job of course was even worse causing more breakage.

Really shocking to see movers who can not get a table out of a house without breaking it. Felt like a prison gang was bullying our family. The breakage was clearly unprofessional. Also had a personal item stolen right away just after they arrived.  

Our Suddath Rep abandoned us, and simply refused to answer the phone her phone for the rest of the day. She never called back after we had left messages.  Afterwards she never offered an apology for going AWOL when our move went bad.

Turns out our Suddath Rep lied in her report. She stated that we thought the movers did a "great job".  Obliviously NO! The movers were so bad they snapped the legs off two tables before they even got them onto the truck. Needless other breakage too. Another ridiculous lie was "We were afraid of the movers because they have tattoos." FYI we have tattoos, and tend not to be afraid of others with tats.  We did not the prison face tattoos, extortion, and threats in your own home. Guessing Looks our Suddath rep hired the cheapest movers she could find, and when they turned out to be terrible, she stopped talking to us, and tired to cover up any problems by falsifying her reports about the move. We requested that Suddath tell us what moving company they contracted and sent to our home, but they have ignored our info request. I would like to follow up directly with those movers because no one should have to go through what we did.  We would of sent them away, but we were on a schedule, and had to tough it out with whoever Suddath sent over.

The packing crew caused needless breakage there too. The packers damaged some items when they were forcing them into boxes.  Drawers were just dumped into boxes on top of breakables.  Our cameras and TV and video items were thrown in a box with no packing (the box was a pile of laptops, video players, cameras - all of which should have be wrapped). When the packers broke an item, they did not report it, and instead just box it up, and sent it out.

Beyond that move we also had items in storage. We were told the moving cost would likely be $700.  Mover arrived yesterday to our new home yesterday, and this time things were not damaged, BUT the bill was for over $1600. No explanation as to why the move cost over twice as much.

Right now I am still in the process of unpacking and cataloging breakage.  I have not yet dealt with trying to collect for damages. Looks like some big items never made it here. We have thefts to report as well.

Suddath handles government employee moves, and often has a good reputation.  We do not know what went wrong here, but it was awful.  We are very concerned that our Suddath Rep tried to cover up problems with the move.  No one from Suddath has offered any sort of apology.