Rockey's Moving & Storage

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This local move was my first move as a military retiree instead of as an active duty servicemember.  The difference between my experiences during military moves and this move was as great as the difference between night and day.
We were informed that the packers would be there between 8 am and 10 am.  They arrived at 9:55 am, so it was technically true (thus the A in punctuality).  They started packing shortly thereafter, and apparently there is a shortage of packing tape, because they were very sparing in its use (a fact which will become relevant later).  I was being charged $80/hour for the packing and $120/hr for the loading, transportation, and unloading.  I suppose I should have been more insistent that they slow down and do it the right way, so perhaps I am partially complicit, but given that this is also the same company that the active military uses, they shouldn't have to be instructed to do an inventory.  
But they did not do an inventory, nor did they mark many of the boxes indicating their contents.  I made sure that our electronics were packed and labeled, but I couldn't be in both of the rooms that were being packed at the same time, and my wife had been awake for about 18 hours when the movers showed up, so her attention span wasn't the greatest that it potentially could have been.  Despite the fact that we were moving from a small apartment, (coupled with the fact that they did not inventory the goods as they were being packed) it still took the packers at least six hours to pack everything (and I've had moves where the packing took less time, including inventory, for several times as much stuff).
Because it took them so long to pack, and finally load the truck, it was already dark by the time we got to the new address.  As they were unloading the boxes, the bottom opened up and the contents spilled out (because there wasn't sufficient tape to hold it shut).  Luckily, the fragile items in the box happened to land in the grass, and did not break.  One more issue that occurred during unloading was that a box would come off the truck, the movers would be directed to place it into a specific room, and the box would be put in a different room than that specified.  This occurred more than a dozen times (but wasn't noticed until the movers had already departed, because we opted to unpack the boxes ourselves rather than incur further costs.
The next day, we noticed that they had left one of their boxes of packing material (which, oddly enough, had plenty of packing tape), and noticed that at least one of our boxes was missing.  We brought the packing materials box back to the company and asked them to please look for our missing box, but we haven't heard from them since that date, so it appears that our only options are to replace the items (by buying new ones), or to wait until our items show up on eBay.  (Since that time, my wife has identified that a second box containing some of her footwear didn't make it here, either.)
I will admit that this move has been rather educational for me, because it taught me several things:
- Never schedule packing and loading to occur on the same day.  That way, if the packing and loading teams are the same people, they will have less incentive to rush the packing procedures and will be more likely to do it properly.
- Never allow anything larger than a suitcase to be packed (by anybody) without an inventory of its contents.  (This will also save time when you are trying to locate stuff that you have packed away.)
- Make sure that moves are scheduled on days where participating family members will have sufficient rest to be able to ensure the movers are doing things properly.
- Never hire Rockey's Moving and Storage to do a personal move if you are not active military.  If they are required to submit paperwork in order to receive payment, they are more likely to do things the right way, but that is not the case when you are paying for it yourself.
All in all, if I have to choose between making another move with Rockey's Moving and Storage and just doing it myself (despite the fact that I have a fused spine), then I'll just have to double-up on the painkillers, because I won't use Rockey's ever again.

This was the company contracted by the military to do our PSC this summer. It was by far the smoothest military move we have had in the last ten years. The communication was excellent before packout and pickup, as well as during transition and delivery. The ladies who came to pack our household goods were friendly and efficient. The guys who came later to load the truck were equally pleasant, energetic, and fast. They loaded our 10,000+ pounds of boxes and furniture in less than five hours. And NOTHING was broken except for one small "ding" on a wall. Even though a mistake was made (on our end) regarding delivery date, Rockey's did their best to get our shipment to us as fast as possible.  The driver was professional, friendly, and efficient.  The two local workers he brought with him in Virginia were great, too.  We were so pleased with our move this time.  Thank you, Rockey's!

This was a local move within the area from my 3-bedroom apartment to a storage facility. Despite giving the moving information to the company a week prior, this information was not passed onto the packers. They arrived at the storage facility instead of the apartment. When they finally arrived the packers did a good job at packing up my household goods within a reasonable time frame. The next day, the movers were to arrive at 10am. They got lost and had no idea where the apartment was located- they arrived an hour later. They took 6-plus hours to pack the boxes and load the truck with my furniture. They did not have any mattress boxes nor TV boxes for my HD-TVs- of course, none was offered to me. They actually moved my mattresses from my beds and loaded them onto the truck without any wrapping or protection. Even more the furniture was packed into the moving van haphazardly. The movers were unprofessional and spent my time talking and laughing despite the fact that they knew this was a per-hour job. I would not recommend this company at all to anyone.