CROFUTT & SMITH MOVING & STORAGE

On April 14, 2011, after a thorough review from one of their moving experts, I received an estimate from Crofutt & Smith of $2350.68 which included one month in storage. Theirs was the lowest bid received. They arrived promptly on April 29th to move me out of my current residence. At that point everyone was courteous and things seemed to be going well. When I called the end of June to let them know I needed an additional 30 days storage, I was rather surprised that everyone I had originally dealt with had left the company. Later I scheduled my move out of storage and into my new residence for July 5, 2011. Much to my surprise, I was told in order to complete my move I needed to pay a total of $3400. I expected to pay an additional $364.50 for the extra month in storage, but this was considerably higher - and the original person who quoted me the rate had left the company. They virtually held my property hostage until we could negotiate a payment. I had to pay an additional $386.00 over the quote (but better than the $684 they were asking for). The second set of movers where not as conscientious as the first and I had to ask them to lay down hardwood floor protection. As they brought every box and piece of furniture in, I marked off the number on the inventory sheet. Before they left for the day, we all knew I had 4 boxes missing as well as some furniture and wall damage. I felt that the 4 boxes could not just disappear and either I would find during unpacking or they would find in their storage facility. I unpacked every box very quickly and was never able to find the 4 boxes. Simultaneously, I had a computer hard drive crash and all my software back-up was in one of the missing boxes along with many other business supplies and information. I also knew an irreplaceable picture of my god-daughter was in the box. As time went on, I kept discovering things missing. In addition to the missing boxes, I had quite a bit of damage to furniture. One of the legs to an antique table came off and rather than tell me about it - they propped the table top on the broken leg. Needless to say, the first time I set something on the table it collapsed causing further damage. I had nicks and gouges in several pieces of very good mahogany furniture. The company did however send a furniture repair company to fix the damaged furniture including the table. I needed to file a claim for the missing boxes, damaged furniture and damaged wall (again the movers never told me they had nicked the wall). I called the company and once again the person I had been dealing with just a couple of weeks earlier was no longer with the company....and no one was returning my calls. It took over a week before I found someone who could send me the proper claim forms. I filled them out immediately, but was told I was too late on reporting the damaged wall and that would not be covered. To make a long, disastrous story shorter, the 4 boxes were never located. I can maybe understand one box getting misplaced, but I found it unimaginable that they could actually lose 4 large boxes. I believe my property was not as well protected in their care as they led me to believe. Although I paid for storage insurance, the company did not want to make any kind of reasonable settlement (they offered $151.00 per box - and these were large boxes). It was going to cost me $900 alone just to have my crashed hard drive recovered because they could not find the box with recovery discs. I eventually had to hire a lawyer to get any kind of settlement. It was shameful what they offered and the many hassles the put me through. Not once, but twice they came to my home and searched drawers, closets, nightstands, shoeboxes, underwear drawers, etc. supposedly looking for the missing boxes. I did finally agree to a settlement, at a great financial loss to myself, just to put an end to the whole horrible experience.