Move-tastic!

Reviews 3

TE

Terry Dwyer

Movetastic was great through the booking process, but failed utterly at all subsequent points, most significantly through the move itself. Warning, should you choose to ignore the rest of our lousy experience: pay the premium for "valuation coverage," as Id wager that their inexperienced, negligent moving crew WILL break and damage your property. To my mind, this coverage exists to protect all parties if something crazy happens, like the moving truck getting struck by a runaway train while traveling between properties, not to make you whole (less depreciation!) when the movers dont properly handle your things. Four movers were booked, three showed up. Two of the three appeared to have around three days of experience working as movers. The crew were all pleasant enough, until they broke an antique safety glass window. My landlord had the nerve to be upset about a 100+ year-old window in her nicely preserved graystone being broken, and the crews leader saw fit to complain to me that this woman (mid-70s, around five feet tall) had been frustrated. How dare she! His mood soured distinctly from that point. They finally packed up the truck and made it to our place. They werent models of efficiency, but the job gone done. When the truck was unpacked the crew leader called me out to show me that the marble top of our coffee table had been broken, clean in half. How does that even happen, if not lack of care/safe handling/safe packing, on the part of the moving team? He apologized profusely, and assured us that the company would make things right (read: reimburse us for the value of the table) -- a willful deception. At this point, all we have is the crews word on how the company will handle things. The crew tells us well be taken care of -- that the antique window will be fixed, that well be properly reimbursed for our broken table -- so we tipped them. In light of how things transpired later, we wouldve withheld tip, as it would prove to be our only means to limit our losses. Movetastic ultimately pointed out, as theyll surely do when your things are broken, that the default insurance coverage is valuation, and not a weight-based reimbursement standard. For the reason I mentioned above, as well as the fact that my wife and I, two skinny amateurs, managed to move our worldly possessions in a U-Haul from NYC to Chicago just a year ago, with no property damage or loss, we felt it an unnecessary expense and opted for the latter. After booking Movetastic in the first place, this was a second error in judgement on our part. Perhaps worse than the impossibly broken marble slab is this: we have a vintage table lamp -- noted manufacturer, some value to mid-century modern collectors -- featuring three 8-10" frosted glass globes. Well, two now. Hidden in the corner of our basement was the lamp and two remaining globes, which I only found days after the move. Despite being of lesser value than the table, this is almost more upsetting, as not alerting us to the broken/missing globe was a clear deceit on the part of the crew. They knew something was missing (carried the three globes to the truck unwrapped, and surely mustve seen the broken glass in the truck when it was unpacked), didnt tell us, and tried to hide it. I appreciate that accidents can happen, which is why I was forgiving of the broken table. But we were mislead by the crew leader about compensation on that front, and never even notified about the lamp. These things are inexcusable. You can and should do better for your move than Movetastic.

LA

laura emory

My boyfriend and I had a very negative experience with Movetastic recently. It was very unexpected and disappointing, considering their high costs and extremely positive reviews. They did considerable damage to our old apartment (see pictures), including smashing off a light switch, busting a ceiling light, and leaving multiple substantial dents. Whenever they would smash something, there were no apologies or acknowledgements -- they just could not have cared less. They did not move everything that we asked them to move, including my two year old, $1400 couch. They spent over an hour trying to move it out, but ultimately failed, claiming it wasnt possible. This was largely due to them refusing to remove the feet for the first 45 minutes, despite being told to do so from the beginning. I then had to sell the couch on Craigslist the next day at an extreme loss (because it needed to get out ASAP and I was afraid to spend additional money if it wasnt able to be moved). Then, two men from Dolly (compared to 3 men from Movetastic) were able to get the couch out in under half an hour without doing any damage. In addition to the couch, they left random heavy items, such as my ironing board. Since they left the old apartment without notifying us, we were not able to remind them to take these things. Overall, the movers were generally very careless and inefficient. I had some clothes in some of those vacuum sealed bags and for whatever reason, they put moving boxes on top of these bags in the truck, causing a number to bust open. Also, at the new place, they falsely claimed to be locked out (by standing at the wrong door despite having been shown the right door), which resulted in them standing idly for half an hour or so. When the movers were moving stuff, they seemed tired and were huffing and puffing a lot, which didnt exactly result in efficiency. Our bill for the above ended up being $890. This was an exorbitant amount of money to move a 1 bedroom apartment a half mile in distance, especially considering that our one couch didnt get moved. Customer service initially offered a refund equal to 2 hours of labor. Considering the movers spent over an hour on their unsuccessful attempt to move the couch and over a half hour standing idly while falsely claiming to be locked out, this was really money that should have never been charged in the first place. Their final offer left us still paying almost $500 and now I have to buy a new couch. Unacceptable. That is the total cost of what a more competent moving company would have cost. Use at your own risk.

TA

Tab ord

We picked them to move the contents of a 4000-5000 sq ft home plus 3 car garage. They recommended a 7 man crew and 2 trucks. I was hesitant about the 7 man crew because our previous moving experience had 4 and went very well. As most moving companies they charge per man per hour although its slightly less if you have over 4 or more guys on the move. They did no packing, they just wrapped the large items and did the move. The problem is, nobody was directing them and they were only using one entrance so there was a bottleneck of guys waiting at the rear door while one guy was carrying something out. So 1 guy in the truck stacking items, 1 guy carrying something outside, 1-2 inside, and the rest were standing waiting. The front door was never used despite it being wider and the 2nd truck parked near the entrance. My request was shrugged off and they kept going. For this type of work, dont expect a crew of professional movers that have been doing this work for a long time. Its usually 1-2 guys that have experience and the rest are helpers. The move cost came in at the top end of their wide estimate and they didnt even finish because they typically have apartment sized trucks that fit the city streets. They waited for both trucks to be full before leaving for the new house which extended their moving time. The less efficient they are, the more you have to pay them and theres nothing you can do about it during the move. I had to finish the rest of the move myself over the next 2 days. I blame the crew leader and the company. The guys were working hard and were trying to do their best. Nobody was managing them. Bottom line: If you need to move 1000 sq ft or less with normal easy household items (not heavy, no fragile), youll probably be ok with them. If you have a larger space or have things that are difficult to move, you might want to reconsider. Movers have very limited liability if they ruin your stuff, its on a few cents per lb basis so keep that in mind.

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