Advanced Movers

I used this company to move my entire household goods in 2011, and they did a beautiful job.  For this move, I told Leo (the owner) the purpose of the move was to carefully pack a china cabinet full of my grandmother's 16-place china setting as well as move the furniture from one bedroom to a storage unit 45 miles away.  Incredibly, after numerous contacts with Leo before the move, the movers showed up 45 minutes late with NO BOXES OR PACKING MATERIAL.  The guy in charge carefully checked the instructions he was given, and nowhere on the form was any indication that they were to bring packing material or that they were even going to be required to pack anything themselves.  
Within the first five minutes, two crystal dessert bowls were broken and one was cracked.  I had no packing material and the nearest U-Haul where I could have gone to get packing materials was over 30 minutes away (each way, and I rather doubt they were open on a Sunday anyway), and since the guys were "on the clock" it made more sense to borrow t-shirts, bedding and towels from someone to protect the china.  I scrounged enough containers to pack the dishes but of course this meant that I would have to unpack everything once the move was complete to be able to return the borrowed t-shirts, bedding and towels, and I still would have to buy more packing materials to re-pack everything.
After the "packing" of the dishes was done and the truck was loaded up, we moved it to the new storage unit.  The guy in charge called Leo to authorize my credit card and to tell him that they had broken the crystal dessert dishes.  I could hear Leo on the phone being very nasty to the guy, pressuring him to pressure me into "settling" on a price for the dishes.  Leo kept saying the "insurance" said they could pay $0.60 per pound for damaged goods (seriously?!?) so he should knock off about $1.50.  I finally told the guy "forget about it" since he was obviously very uncomfortable being put in that position by Leo.  I told him I would call Leo the next day to discuss the issue about the lack of packing materials.  I then spent about 3 hours unpacking and repacking the china myself.
The next day after cooling off a bit, I called Leo and left a detailed message about how disappointed I was that his company failed to do what they were hired to do.  He called back later and had the nerve to tell me that his guys were at fault for not making sure there were packing materials on the truck.  I told him that the man in charge carefully checked the order before calling Leo the first time, and that there were NO INSTRUCTIONS about either packing materials and boxes or that they were even supposed to pack anything themselves.  He then said, "well, you should have gone to U-Haul and bought boxes yourself."  As noted earlier, the nearest U-Haul facility was over 30 minutes away each way and his men were "on the clock."  I could not believe that he would turn it around to make it look like it was MY fault that his guys didn't have the necessary materials.  I told him that the entire purpose of having his company move me was so that my grandmother's china would be properly packed and carefully moved, like it was the first time I used his company.  He still would not accept responsibility for the error and kept saying that I could have packed the things myself or gone to U-Haul to buy the materials.  I told him at that point that I was going to report him to the Better Business Bureau for failing to comply with the initial instructions, which were to PACK and move my belongings.  At that point he decided to ask me what he could do to "make it right."  I told him I wanted him to refund $100.00 from the total bill of $645.00+ since my dishes were not properly packed and I had to unpack them, buy the materials myself and repack them properly so that I could return the borrowed materials.  He was very nasty about this, saying that he wasn't making "any money off this move" and he was going to fire all his guys (presumably since they couldn't read his mind).  I stuck to my offer and he did refund $100.00, but I'm sure he probably ended up firing the poor guys as well.
I am appalled that a company would try to turn around the blame for their mistake on their customer.  I was trapped the minute they showed up (45 minutes late) because there was no way I could go forward - we had driven over 60 miles to the place where the household goods had to be moved from, the guys were "on the clock" and would have charged me for the time they spent waiting for me to come up with boxes and packing materials should I have even found them on a Sunday, and I had a time limit on when these household goods had to be moved to the new location.  Leo's "customer service" was simply trying to bully me into accepting a bad situation and his treatment of his workers was horrendous.  I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone.  I chose them because I had used them three years earlier and they did an outstanding job and I had even recommended them in the past.  It's unfortunate that this company has deteriorated so badly.

unknown

THEY DIDN'T RUIN ANYTHING WHEN THEY WERE LOADING OUR FURNITURE. THEY WERE VERY HARD WORKERS AND THEIR RESPONSIVENESS WAS IMPRESSIVE. THEY WERE VERY PROFESSIONAL AND PUNCTUAL.