Vanguard Moving & Storage

I found this company on Yelp. Before signing on with them, Dave Anton came out to my house to prepare the estimate. They were about $1000 less than the other company we considered, and I liked that they could do Sunday, so we went with them. We only had ~10 days before our move, so we elected to have them do "full service packing," of all of our belongings, which cost $825 + materials (boxes, tape). Originally Dave planned for the team to do the packing on Saturday and move Sunday, but he later changed to have everything on Sunday, April 28.
That Sunday, the team of 4 arrived on time and got right to work. We had coffee and donuts waiting for them. They worked steadily throughout the day, stopping only when we bought them lunch (none of them had brought any food or drinks). Mostly I tried to stay out of the way, although I did check in every so often. By the end, they were understandably tired and got increasingly sloppy. I kept finding cupboards and areas that had been forgotten, and they would say "Oh, did you want that?" Yes, actually, I want everything. I watched as these bits were haphazardly thrown together in boxes.
Our things were kept in storage for 5 weeks while we waited to close on our new house. They were delivered on June 7. We were given an arrival time of 11 a.m. When no one had shown up at noon, I called and was told they were 30 minutes away. Sure enough, the crew (different guys from the first time) arrived around 12:30. Immediately we discovered a problem in unloading because none of the boxes had been labeled. Most of the boxes had printed lists of rooms; these were not even checked off. The crew was ripping boxes open by hand (none of them seemed to have a knife) to identify what was inside so they'd know where to take it. Still, with 5 of them and only one of me, this meant we ended up with things like a box of paint in the kitchen, basement storage items in the master bedroom, and dishes in the garage. Three weeks later we are still moving things to their correct location.
Around 2:30 the crew started to slow down and told us they had not eaten. We asked if they wanted us to order pizza, and they said yes if we were paying for it. We bought $50 of pizza, which they sat down and enjoyed for over 45 minutes before getting back to work.
Right away I started to notice damage. My son's crib and changing table were both badly dented and scraped - no doubt because they were transported without padding or protection of any kind. The rugs we unrolled had actual piles of dirt on them. That night I started to unpack the kitchen, with the goal of finding something to make breakfast with the next day. By 11 pm I had found martini glasses, ramekins, and a bundt pan, but no forks or pans since nothing was labeled.
The next day, we realized things were missing. My husband's nightstand (an inherited antique) was gone. We also had not one towel in the house. An entire linen closet of them had gone poof. These items were never located, and I fear there are others we haven't noticed yet. After repeated pleas with Vanguard, I even offered to go up to the storage facility and look myself, but was told the warehouse was not fit for the public. Not the same story Dave told me day one, when he invited me to drop by anytime.
Unpacking has been a nightmare, not only because of everything being a mystery box, but because stuff was randomly thrown together. One box might include board games, an antique clock, and yoga mats, for example. The dirty gas can we used for the lawn mower was in a box with one of my good couch cushions. Worse, I found the base of an antique lead crystal lamp shoved into a drawer without wrapping or padding, resulting in damage (no kidding!). The top of lamp is still nowhere to be found.
I have been in contact with Dave and his partner Mike for weeks. My first goal was to get them to locate our missing items. I never was able to get confirmation anyone even looked for them. I assume they are gone forever. My second goal was to get them to admit they had been careless in packing and handling my items and therefore should be responsible for damage that occurred as a result. They refuse to discuss the $825 I paid for "full service" packing and only repeat that I should have paid the extra $500 for full damage protection. I believe (and told them as much) that I should be refunded a portion of what I paid for packing, since shoving a crystal lamp into a drawer, for one, hardly constitutes packing. I also believe they should be fully responsible for damage that occurred due to their recklessness. It is no surprise that an item not packed or protected in any fashion would become damaged.
Dave has told me to stop trying to "escalate" things "for no reason." I believe this company owes me a partial refund and will tell everyone to avoid at all costs.

The overall move from start to finish exceeded my expectations. David Anton spend about an hour detailing the contents of the house and then spend 30 minutes explaining his company and the process for making the move. We had a quote the next day.The dates were set for packing, loading and delivering in Fl. Carl Perrone was assigned to handle our move and did an excellent job in answering our questions and arranging for the Grandfather Clock to be packed for shipment and arranging for the car to be picked    up . The packing ,loading and shipping was subcontracted to Fast Moving Co. from NJ. The packers (Pablo, Mike and Mahon) were friendly, professional, and hard working. It took them about 10 hours to pack. The next day the driver, Julio (owner of Fast Moving),along with the packers loaded the van. The car was picked up a day later and delivered to a friend in Sarasota the following week.To allow for our closing in Fl. the household was delivered 12 days later. They showed up at 8AM on the scheduled date and had us unloaded in about 4 hours.Mike with Vanguard was a great help during the loading and shipment handling all the paperwork and final billing for the work. The entire move was completed with no breakage or scratches to the goods or to the houses, a real tribute to Fast Moving. As a final note the entire move was within 200lbs of the original quote.

David Anton came out to do a visual estimate.  We requested two estimates, one full service, which would include packing the day prior to the move and the second just the move itself - and we would do the packing ourselves.  David spent alot of time answering questions and explaining what to expect on the day of the move.  I felt at ease and comfortable.  He came across competent and credible.  His estimates on man hours and time were spot on.
The day prior to the move, a team of 3 packers arrived and had everything done in about 4 hours.  The did every dish in the kitchen, everything from all the closets and drawers.
The following day the truck pulled up at exactly 8:30am.  Again a team of 3 moved all the boxes, wrapped all the furniture and dismantled the bed and any large items.  They were done by about noon.  At our new place they unloaded everything to the appropriate rooms, asked questions on where things should be placed.  Made sure the rugs and furniture were all placed the way we wanted them.  The entire process was over by 2:30pm. 
I can't say enough good things about the crew.  Ask for one of Leo's crews.  We had Tiago (so strong!), Elias (who was hardworking and very kind) and Kevin.  All really wonderful guys.
David's estimate was extremely close, we were over the estimate only because we had them pack more than we anticipated due to me being 8 months pregnant and not being much help.  I would defintaly use Vanguard again if we had another CT move.  Definately deserving of an "A"!

Met with the owner to request estimate.  By the evening, I had a detailed estimate with which to work with.  It was handled very professionally.  A week later, I dropped in to the storage facility and was greeted by the operations manager who showed me how the furniture was stored and handled.  Everything in the facility was neat, clean and open.  It was also very climate-controlled.I had a couple of questions that were answered very quickly via email.When the moving day came, I was greeted by a professional team who quickly went to work and got things done.  They wrapped my furniture completely and packed the truck up amazingly well.  They made me feel very comfortable that my furniture was going to be well taken care of.I feel very confident that when the time comes to move my thigs out of storage and into my new home, they will handle everything with kit gloves!I would highly recommend Vanguard Moving and Storage!

As stated above Vanguard Moving & Storage did not make the move but subcontracted the move to E&J Moving Co. [First warning sign].
As requested 5 men and two moving trucks showed up on time and professionally, and efficiently,  proceeded to move my property into the two moving trucks. The workers were very polite and expedient, only stopping for a 30 minute lunch. Everything was packed/loaded into the truck in 8 hours. So far so good!
The nightmare started when the trucks arrived, 2 hours late, on the requested day to the delivery address. Only 3 of the requested 5 men arrived (and one of the 3 was an auto mechanic). As I was to discover the workers had personal problems the night before not allowing the additional three professional movers to arrive. To add to the problem the movers were not the same as the movers who picked up the first load making unloading into the home a nightmare. Everything was haphazardly spread around the my new home, a wonder that just a few minor things arrived broken, and towards the end of the move the mechanic was totally spent and could no longer lift heavy objects. To expedite the unloading I help out and held back from having a few very heavy items placed upstairs.  Needless to say the delivery of the items was a total chaos. On the positive side the workers very very polite and apologetic. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND VANGUARD TO ANYONE....

We were completely satisfied with the level of professionalism, quality, care and handling of our fragile items. 

We got a very positive impression to start with. Vanguard has good reviews her on Angie's List and we were impressed with Mr. Anton, the owner, and what he told us about his company when he came out to give us an estimate. After meeting with several other companies, we decided to hire Vanguard. They were about mid-range price-wise and we liked what they had to say about their services, storage facilities, etc. The first bit of trouble we had was with the office staff. As it turns out Vanguard sub-contracts out all their moves. I think this is part of where the problems with them lie because it doesn't seem like they communicate well with their sub-contractors. Prior to our move I had to call several times to get the final contracts, which they kept failing to send to me. Also, there was some confusion about our move dates on both our move-in and move out. It just seemed like they were very unorganized and when I called I would get routed around to several people and didn't feel 100% confident that they were going to be there on the days scheduled. On our move out day, the movers were two hours late. The manager of the crew called several times that morning to advise us they were going to be late and seemed annoyed with Vanguard for scheduling them so early - he indicated they had given us an unrealistic arrival time based on their length of travel, getting the trucks, etc. However, the crew that handled out move was excellent. They worked very hard, were dligient in wrapping up our belongings carefully and were very friendly. I was very happy with them and the work they did that day. They moved our stuff into their storage facility for one month and then moved us into our new house. We requested the same crew and they were able to arrange for them to do our move in. I was happy about that. But again, on move-in day they were late - 4 hours this time. Even I could tell that the arrival time Vanguard gave us was unrealistic - the crew had to move all our belongings out of storage first, then bring them to our new home, but they had estimated a 10am arrival! They ended up arriving around 2pm and the move-in took until about 9pm! But I have to say, to the credit of the move team, when the did finally arrive they once again did a very good job and worked very hard. We did find that some of our furniture was damaged during the move and a couple of large items were missing (a bookcase and a ladder). The crew manager advised me to contact Vanguard about these items, which I did the following business day. This is where the real trouble started. When I called the office they had no idea about the damage or the missing items. They said they would look for them and get back to me. They also said they would send me an insurance claim form. It took a few more calls to get the form and finally they called me back to say they had the bookcase and they would arrange to deliver it right away. Well, it took 6 WEEKS and about a dozen phone calls to get them to deliver that bookcase! A couple of times they promised delivery on a certain day, and then they didn't show and we would have to call yet again and ask what happened When it finally did arrive, they left it in our open garage one day while we were home (they didn't bother to ring the bell or anything) and when we found it there it was completely broken and no longer usable! They seem to just dumped it and run! Unbelievable! I have to wonder if that is why they didn't deliver it earlier, or if it got damaged from sitting around in their facility for so long? The never did find the ladder nor even get back to us to finally say they don't have it. We are now sick of calling them and disgusted with their complete lack of caring and lack of professionalism. What we have gathered from our experience is that it seems the owner of this company only does the sales calls and then passes everything else off. Never in the 6 weeks following our move, when we called the company repeatedly for info on our lost items, did he reach out to us. Even when my husband specifically asked to speak with him, when getting nowhere with the office staff, he was conveniently never "available." This experience left a very bad taste in my mouth and I ended up very disappointed with this company. It really was a shame.

Overall, I was very pleased. None of my belongings were damaged and all arrived in good condition, including antique furniture and a plasma television. I ended up saving money as the estimate was higher than the actual weight of my belongings. The driver was very professional as were the movers on the delivery end of the move. Unfortunately, Vanguard did not provide the driver with experienced movers on the pick up end and he had to scramble to find labor. He wasn't very happy with Mr. Anton, however, to my untrained eye, everything went smoothly. The labor on the delivery end was very professional and had all my stuff unloaded in record time. It all made it, and made it unbroken! I was thrilled with the overall experience.

We had a great experience, from the process for obtaining a quote to the move itself. I highly recommend them for any type of residential move.

Excellent! Movers were a real pleasure to work with - punctual, hard working, great attitudes and a good sense of humor, very friendly, and extremely professional. The day started at 8am (they arrived exactly on time) and ended at 6:15pm. Other than a half-hour for lunch and three short breaks for cigarettes/phone calls, all three men worked hard and no one goofed off. They wrapped all fragile items carefully in moving blankets and everything arrived undamaged. We ran into some difficulty trying to fit a refrigerator through a small passageway, but with a little ingenuity and outside-the-box thinking, we got it through unharmed. There were only two minor issues: 1. The final cost was about 20% higher than the original estimate. I fault the estimator for this, not the movers. I fully expected the move to take longer than estimated, so the additional cost wasn't really a surprise, and we feel we got our money's worth. 2. The truck ran out of room, and some of our outdoor furniture didn't fit. Not a big deal as it's only a 6 mile move and we can get the remaining furniture into our station wagon. Just double-check with the estimator that they will provide a truck large enough to accomodate all of your moveables. Overall I was very happy and would recommend this company to anyone in need of moving services. Actual cost may come in higher than the estimate. But you get what you pay for and these guys are worth a little extra - my experience was very positive and pretty hassle-free.

Went fairly well-a little disorganized and overpriced. The crew was very efficient.

They were prompt, courteous, and reliable. Everything arrived in perfect condition.

My company moved me to this location, so they paid for the movers. I thought that they paid attention to detail and packed my things securely. They did not scratch, dent or break anything. They put the furniture where I asked them to.

Perfectly! We couldn't have asked for better service. They made moving much less stressful than anticipated. Also, they were very reasonably priced.