Complaint Review: Bargain Moving Inc. - Mesa Arizona

Let me start this review with some context. In the last 5 years I have moved about 6 times, two of them where long distance. I have had good experiences, bad experiences and horrible experiences. I have never had a crew larger than 3 people assist with any one move and it has never taken more the four hours total. That is the context needed for my fury with this company experience that I paid for.

I hired a crew of 4 to move a 2 bed/2 bath apartment less than 10 miles away. The move was scheduled for 10am. The movers showed up at 8:30am without warning. It’s hard to be totally upset about them showing up early but it did alter my schedule a bit. Moving on... because they were early, I was not home when they arrived. My wife reviewed the estimate and handed each of the four movers an envelope with a pre-loading tip and encourage a quick move and loading began. I arrived a little after 10am to find less than half of my stuff packed. My wife informed me that things were moving very slowly. There was a 1 bed and 1 crib to disassemble but all other items were boxed and ready or larger furniture items. It is hot in Arizona so I built in the expectation of some extra time but watching the crew when I arrived made me nervous.

At least one person was always on a break. This disagreed about how to carry and pack several items. Two of the movers were young and clearly inexperienced (17 and 20). One of the movers stated jovially while talking to my wife that “these young guys are moving slow” because he had another job he wanted to get to. Concerned, I called the company to prepare them for an inevitable complaint if the move took longer than 5 hours. They assured me that they would have dispatch “hurry them up”. When they finally closed the door of the truck, it had almost been 5 hours and there were multiple items left in the apartment. Enough items were left that it took us (my wife and I) three additional trips to move everything out of the apartment.

The movers left the apartment about 10 minutes before we did heading to the new place. Nevertheless, we beat them there and still waited. Naturally, I called the company again and formally complained about the experience, the timeframe and the items left behind. The movers arrived as I was wrapping the conversation up. The driver finds me and hands me a phone with his Manager, Mike, on the phone. I was thinking he was calling to do some customer service. I thought he was calling to apologize, explain and even massage the issue. No, he was calling to verify payment because they had the wrong card on file. I was trying to express my concern to him and he clearly only wanted to discuss the payment. I asked what the final payment was and was given and number. When I repeated the number back to him, he said “Sir, it’s going to cost more than $300 to pay for your move.” His dismissive tone then frustrated me and he became rude. He told me they were busy and could send a different crew tomorrow. We told him that we didn’t want another crew now, we want the one we have to be done and for it not to cost a fortune. He told us they could take the stuff back to the apartment. We obviously told him that was ridiculous. We later found that he also told the movers that if we didn’t pay then they weren’t getting paid.

Wanting to get this experience over, I told Mike that I would be filing a complaint and that I want my stuff in my house as soon as possible. He set 2:30pm as the deadline for the completion of the move. It was almost 2:00pm when they finally started to unload things off the truck. I reminded them that they received a tip before they started and questioned if we were going to have a problem getting all of our items inside the house. I watched as they struggled to maneuver some simple items into the house. I also noted the one experienced mover continuing to criticize the younger guys for both their speed and ability. At 2:30pm there were only a few items still on the truck. The driver announced the time and stopped bringing in boxes. The other guys brought the remaining items in but pretty much just left them in the kitchen floor where all other items were marked with what room they belonged in. I thanked them, asked for the contract and again stated that we would be complaining about this experience.

When we were presented with the contract, my wife and I read it to see if there would be any issue complaining about it later if we signed. We noted on the contract that the bed and crib were not reassembled and therefore we could not confirm if there was any damage on the biggest items we had. However, we did not multiple scratches on our leather sectional couch. The driver protested about signing the contract with the notes we added. I told him that we were protecting ourselves just like he was trying to do. We didn’t say anything untrue so he should have NO reason to protest signing the contract. After and unnecessarily long debate about it, he signed and they left. In the ensuing hours we would begin to unpack and reveal additional issues. They damaged the walls in the house, which will likely cost me my security deposit. They misplaced several items. They held the hardware for the beds in their pockets and almost forgot to return it to me. There was damage on the king sized bed with broken parts of the base. They damaged the bottom of both of the box springs for the bed. They broke the handle of one of my suitcases. Even if non of this damage happened, there were still several items left in the apartment that we had to go move ourselves after paying for movers.