Moving Experience
Oana
Submitted this review about
ABS Moving and Storage
Review made Live: 12/19/2012 4:30:00 AM
I had never done a move by myself before, and I wanted to hire a moving company because I was moving all the way across the country and wanted to keep some furniture items. After getting quotes from a handful of companies very early on, when it came to making a final decision I called ABS again to check if their quote was still valid. I wanted to go with them because they provided me a quote within my price range (second lowest quote I got) and because they didn't constantly send me follow up calls and emails like the other companies did. Thankfully it was still valid, and I agreed to have them do my move. After sorting out some logistics, I paid the deposit and a time for pick up was set. I was also told I would get a confirmation call the Saturday before the Monday of my move to check if everything was still on.
On the Saturday before the Monday of my move, I didn't receive a call, so I was worried it might have been forgotten about. I called the representative I had talked to, as well as pretty much everyone else in the company since there was no one picking up. I left a voicemail as well as sent an email. I never had my calls returned, but I did receive an email that same day confirming the moving truck was coming Monday. The day of the move went fine, as all of my things were packed up and put on the truck. I had packed all of my boxes and disassembled my bookshelf myself, but not my desk. The movers did not disassemble my desk, and instead wrapped it in a blanket as is. The whole process didn't take very long and my things were on their way to California, from DC.
It seemed like every moving website listed 1-21 business days as the length of a cross country move, but I was told on my first phone call with ABS that it's more like 5-12. 7 business days after what I wrote as my first available day to receive my things, I emailed to check in on the status of my things. The next day (Tuesday) I got a call from the driver that my things would be arriving that week. I was very glad to hear that but got worried when I still hadn't heard anything by Friday. I called him on Friday, and then he told me Sunday or Monday. On Monday I got a call from someone else saying he wasn't too far away and if I was home. I said I was and he said he just needed to get the go ahead from his boss and he could come in a half an hour. About two hours later when I hadn't heard anything, I called him back and asked if he was still coming. He then said the truck was broken and could only come in the morning. In the morning I got a call he was finally coming. Two hours later two men were at my apartment building with my things. Thankfully I work from home but if I was at the office and had to deal with this back and forth and not knowing exactly when my things were coming, it would be extremely frustrating.
When my desk was being pulled off the truck, the leg broke and was dangling. The delivery man told me to file a claim (which I'm in the process of doing), although he also offered to try to fix it. When the two men brought the desk in, they let the sliding drawer meant to be used for a keyboard slide right off and detach from the desk. I also saw the side shelf that was attached to the main part of the desk had also ripped off, like the leg. They started trying to fix it, but because the holes in the desk were now too big to support screws, the leg position would need to be changed. At this point I grew frustrated and just told them to not do anything further and I would let someone else look at it and try to fix it. The delivery man told me they should have disassembled the desk at pickup, which was useless information to me because clearly that hadn't happened and that's why the desk was now broken.
Furthermore, when my boxes were being stacked up in my apartment, I noticed one that did not look familiar. I looked at it closer and the handwriting also didn't look familiar. I let them know this was not my box, especially considering I had 12 boxes and there were now 13 sitting in my living room. I opened it to confirm and it was definitely not my box. The delivery person also repeatedly referred to me as "sweetie" which I don't think is an appropriate way to address a customer, nor would it ever be used to address a man.
