Kevin
Haskell,#2Consumer Suggestion
Fri, December 01, 2006
If you find yourself in the situation again of needing to move ask your agent for a firm binding estimate. It locks the price no matter what happens with the weight. I am currently a mover (contractor) for another well known and reputable company that treats me and our customers very well. An option binding estimate allows the price of a move to go down with the weight if it goes under the estimate but will not allow the price to go up if the weight goes over the estimate. I don't know about their practices but all of this is explained in the pre-move package we send out to every potential customer. However, an estimate is just that, an estimate, or a good educated guess at most. Some salesmen are very good at their jobs others aren't but it is still an estimate unless you request it be binding and be firm about what you want. I had one particular job moving from Northern New Jersey to Chicago and they underestimated it by 14,000 pounds. To the customers advantage they had requested a binding estimate and the agent gave it to them, only they didn't put it in my paperwork so I didn't know it was a binding job until I was about half way through loading and warned the customer that his weight was way over the estimate and to expect a much larger bill. This was when we got on the phone with the corporate office and figured out it was booked non binding and then later changed only on the agents paperwork and not in the computer. Therefore the customer paid $2300 dollars to move to Chicago (he took my whole truck and 53' trailer) and the agent paid the difference to the tune of almost 10,000 dollars. So it's not always the driver your dealing with who screws up. But I will say a good driver can make 98% of the difference between a good move and a bad experience.