PODS Moving and Storage

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I contacted PODS on or about 3/4/13 and received an estimate of costs the same day.  I booked the delivery of the POD to my home for Friday, March 22.  I was given a two hour window of when it would be delivered, and did receive a phone call that morning when the driver was on his way.  I had asked that the POD be place with the door facing my garage door,  as close to the house as possible, and on the right side of my driveway.  Willie arrived and placed the POD perfectly without damaging anything on my house or in my driveway or on my lawn.  He was an artist with the way he was able to place the POD!  On Saturday, March 23, I had movers come in and fill the POD with all my household items.
My movers returned on March 30 to unload the POD, and I requested pickup of the POD for Tuesday, April 2.  The driver arrived on Tuesday and picked up the POD without any difficulties. He, too, did a wonderful job! 

They have been a good company for us.  We especially like that they take the unit to us if we need.

They were a good company.  They were very efficient.

They provided pods for storage. We are still using them; in fact, they are still on my driveway. It is convenient and easy to use. We would use them again in the future.

They moved furniture carefully and did a good job.  I liked their services and will use the same in future.

Very responsive. Delivery and pickup was exactly as described.  Great service.  Also matched a deal of a smaller company. Same price with well known brand made it a done deal.

Things went well on the phone while scheduling. I scheduled them to come on a Wednesday. I also scheduled movers to come on Wednesday afternoon, since the floor sanders were coming Thursday morning. On Tuesday evening, the POD company called to say they were arriving between 11:45 and 2:45 in the afternoon. I had to cancel a noon appointment to stay home and wait. At 2:30 I called customer service because they had not shown up yet. I was told that they were on their way, and would still be there on time. At 3:00, I called to say that they still had not shown up. The customer service person could tell me nothing. I asked to speak with the truck dispatcher. She told me she couldn't give me that number. I asked to speak with her supervisor, since she was unable to help me at all. She told me that her supervisor was on a "supe call", so I couldn't speak with her. I asked her what she or I could do to get information. She was completely unhelpful. At around 3:30, I received a call from the truck driver saying that he was on his way to Carol Stream to pick up my POD for delivery. I live in Oak Park, almost one hour from Carol Stream with no traffic. I could not believe they were running so far behind, and that nobody in customer service had that information. He also asked me about my street permit, which I did not have. I immediately ran to the Village Hall to get one, which took less than a half hour. The driver reached my house close to 6pm. I had been paying the movers for two hours of time to sit around and wait. There's more. I kept trying to pay my bill on-line on the PODs website. For some reason, I was unable. I tried multiple times each day, but it never said that I had an outstanding balance. My POD was scheduled to be brought back to me on Monday. On Monday morning, an accounts payable person called to tell me that I wouldn't get my POD because my account was overdue. I told her that I had tried to pay, but couldn't. She said that now I should be able to pay, and I had to do it immediately. I asked her about any guarantees the company offers about timely delivery, because my POD had arrived so late. She got defensive and told me she didn't know the details of my delivery. I told her that my window for delivery had ended at 2:45, but the driver didn't arrive until hours later. She got very impatient with me. I asked her if she could even just apologize on her company's behalf, and she pretty much yelled at me. She finally transferred me to Platinum Services, who are supposed to help when there is a problem. The woman there was very helpful and apologetic. She said that the customer service rep should have contacted her the prior week when my delivery was very late. After a few minutes speaking with her, she got a message from the accounts receivable woman that there actually had been an issue with my account causing me to be unable to pay, but it was now fixed. I was then able to pay my balance on their website. All in all, that was way to much mis-management and poor communication for me.

They were very professional. They were very much on time. They were very flexible when we needed to change the details of our drop off and pick up dates. We decided to go with them as it was less expensive than the inter-state movers. We had 2 of their trucks and they took them when they were supposed to and they got here when they were supposed to. We were able to empty one of them out into a local storage facility; we just had to give them a 24 hour notice which worked out to be less expensive. When they brought the pods in we wanted it in our driveway as far as possible so that the car can still move in and out of the garage, they were able to do that without a problem. When they brought the 2nd pod, their flat bed had to move into the yard and they were very careful to keep it from tearing our yard apart and it did not. They put down plywood for the wheel, so they were very careful.

It went great. The PODS showed up and got picked up on time. The equipment that the driver uses has limitations, but the drivers were able to get the POD where it needed to be every time. All the employees were a pleasure to work with.

The people were prompt, courteous, and professional in all my dealings with them. Whenever we need access to it, we just call them up a couple days ahead of time and they get it out and put it in their parking lot for us to access. I have two issues, one of which is my own fault and the other is just physics. I selected the largest pod instead of several smaller ones in order to save money. Unfortunately, this caused all but the first few feet on the door end to be inaccessible without unpacking the whole thing. The other issue is that the contents do get jostled some. While they don't turn it over or slide it up a ramp, handling these pods do jostle its contents some. Not a complaint against PODS, just a cautionary note. Overall, I'm happy with their service, but wish I had used several smaller ones to make the stuff more accessible, despite the increased cost.

Account set up as InterFreight as we weren't sure where we would be moving to (over 60 miles is considered IF), and were then pushed into purchasing transportation insurance. When we found out we were only going to move 28 miles away, we immediately called PODS to convert to local and to cancel insurance (homeowners covers POD while in driveway). What they didn't tell me was once you are set up as InterFreight as opposed to local, you can't be converted to local. But if you set up as local, you can convert to InterFreight. Have been fighting with them for 3 weeks to correct/reverse charges for warehouse storage (it's been in my driveway the whole time), and unauthorized charges to my credit card. I was assured that no further charges would be made, and yet they still charged my card for another warehouse storage. After finally reaching a supervisor yesterday, I was told charges would be reversed within 24 hours. This whole experience was a nightmare, and I will NEVER use them again.

From the 1st contact there was nothing but problems. After speaking with several reps. Who you could tell had a distaste for their jobs and receiving conflicting information. I was not surprised to run into issues, the pod was dropped on when promised, but was supposed to be picked up the next day. I had to get special permission from my condo association to have the pod parked out there, the next day came and the pod was not picked up. I called with my confirmation in hand and the rep told me that order was canceled. Due to the Holiday (4th of July) they would not be able to pick up my pod till the following Monday. I escalated the issue and did not receive any call-backs. I had to speak to my condo association several times and they were very upset. I provided them with the situation and thank goodness they were understanding. When they dropped the pod off at my new house, they delivered it facing the wrong way. I had to walk around it every time I took something out. Big pains!!

GREAT STORAGE CONCEPT! THEY DELIVER THE STORAGE UNIT TO BE FILLED AND THEY COME AND PICK IT UP ONCE YOU'RE READY FOR IT TO BE STORED! (DOESN'T WORK IN THE CITY UNLESS YOU HAVE A DRIVEWAY FOR DROP OFF.) THIS GREATLY SIMPLIFIED OUR JOB SO WE WILL ONLY HAVE TO UNLOAD THESE BELONGINGS ONCE! IT WAS PERFECT FOR US AS WE DID NOT KNOW WHERE WE WOULD END UP BUYING A HOUSE NOR WHEN WE WOULD MOVE. PODS AFFORDED US GREAT FLEXIBILITY. OUR BIG BEEF WITH THEM IS THAT THEY DID NOT TELL US UP FRONT THAT THE FURNITURE PADS WE USED WOULD BE A MONTHLY CHARGE INSTEAD OF A ONE-TIME CHARGE. WE'VE TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO RESOLVE THIS DIFFERENCE. EACH TIME WE'VE CALLED TO INQUIRE WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT SOMEONE WOULD CALL US BACK BUT NO ONE EVER HAS.

DELIVERY WAS SCHEDULED FOR FRIDAY MAY 13TH. AFTER WAITING ALL DAY FOR DELIVERY, AT 5:00PM I CALLED TO REQUEST INFORMATION ON ARRIVAL. I WAS TOLD THAT THERE WAS A PROBLEM, AND THE UNIT WOULD NOT BE DELIVERED UNTIL SATURDAY. AFTER TWO HOURS OF PHONE CALLS, A UNIT WAS DELIVERED LATER THAT EVENING. PICK-UP WAS SCHEDULED FOR ONE WEEK AFTER DELIVERY. I CALLED ON MAY 23RD ASKING WHEN THE UNIT WOULD BE PICKED-UP AND WAS TOLD THAT IT WOULD NOT BE PICKED-UP UNTIL JUNE 3RD. I SPENT HOURS ON THE PHONE WITH BOTH THE FLORIDA OFFICE AND THE LOCAL OFFICE IN CAROL STREAM. I EXPLAINED THAT I MADE IT ABSOLUTELY CLEAR AT THE TIME OF ORDER THAT MY HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION REQUIRED REMOVAL WITHIN ONE WEEK. NEITHER OFFICE WOULD BE OF ANY ASSISTANCE. I AM NOW FACING A FINE AND MUCH EMBARRASSMENT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD BECAUSE OF PODS REFUSAL TO MAKE GOOD ON THEIR PICK-UP PROMISE. PODS BUSINESS PLAN IS TO SAVE THE COST OF PICK-UP UNTIL THEY CAN RE-LOCATE THE UNIT FOR RENTAL AT THE NEXT LOCATION.

INSIST ON PRORATING YOUR LAST MONTH'S STORAGE FEE: POD DELIVERED ON JUNE 25, THEY STORED THE POD UNTIL MY HOUSE WAS SOLD, I PAID $254 FOR DELIVERY AND STORAGE FOR THE FIRST MONTH. ON JULY 25, I WAS CHARGED ANOTHER MONTHLY $154 FEE FOR THE SECOND MONTH'S STORAGE, IT WILL BE DELIVERED AT THE NEW HOME AUGUST 24TH AND THEY CAN'T PICK IT UP ON AUGUST 25TH BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT GUARANTEE DELIVERY TIME OR PICK UP, SO CANNOT PROMISE I WILL HAVE TIME TO UNLOAD, SO I MUST ADD ONE MORE DAY AND THEN THEY WILL CHARGE ME ONE MORE MONTH'S STORAGE FEE EVEN THOUGH IT ONLY EXTENDS ONE DAY INTO MY THIRD MONTH! PODS TELLS ME THAT IF I DID NOT MAKE A PRORATING ARRANGEMENT IN THE BEGINNING THEN THEY WILL NOT PRORATE THE LAST MONTH. I CALLED ACCOUNTING AND THEY PROMISED NOT TO CHARGE ME, BUT IT WAS A HASSLE. SO MAKE SURE YOU INSIST ON PRORATING YOUR LAST MONTH!!!