make mistakes, but responsible
David Schneider
Submitted this review about
Ace Movers & Storage
Review made Live: 5/8/2011 10:13:00 PM
After much research and getting three quotes, I went with ACE for a move from MD to CA during December of 2010. They moved around 7500 lbs of household goods, with a full service pack, and stored our goods in CA (San Jose) for about a month. I really liked the people, and there was no funny business with the price, everything seemed fair. I'd like to give a better review, but there were problems - they could have done a better job with the moving and delivery. My review is favorable as they addressed the problems professionally, and I received prompt reimbursement for my claims. Here's the details:
The person who came out and estimated the weight was very knowledgeable and had a lot of good tips. I had her work up different estimates in case the estimated weight varied, and she followed through with accurate pricing.
It was easy to schedule an extra delivery - I wanted a few things dropped off before the bulk of our household goods were put into storage.
I found the second contact with ACE, the relocation coordinator, to be very helpful.
They were able to set up direct billing with the small company paying for my move.
We had originally scheduled the move out over two days, one for packing and one for pickup. This was to accommodate the condo rules which required moves to finish by 4:30.
The truck driver wanted to do the whole thing in one day, and he brought extra guys. It was a long day, but they finished by 5:30 or so. In retrospect, is would have been easier for us to have packing/move out spread over two days, but on the other hand, the weather turned bad after they left, and moving out could have been difficult.
First mistake - they forgot to take out this large bookshelf that was in a back room. One of the things the estimator told us was to do a thorough walk through of the apartment when it's all done. Now the truck driver, at the end of this long day with all these guys waiting to go home, did not encourage us to be thorough, but I did a walk through anyways, which was not thorough, and I missed that bookshelf as well (it was tucked away in a room).
So that's a mistake, but to their credit, when I noticed the bookshelf the next day, they worked pretty hard to get someone to pick it up (my mover was already on the road but they were going to get another trucker to pick it up). I first called my truck driver, he did not have a solution, but when I called ACE, they found another truck driver working in the area. As it was, our schedules did not work out, and as I bought this bookshelf used several years ago, I just got rid of it - it was not a big loss, and actually worked out well in that the new bookshelves are nicer and fit the new home better.
I was disappointed that the truck driver could not meet the schedule that the estimator had promised for the extra delivery, I was misinformed about the schedule he could keep, but it worked out, he was around a week later than expected and did the extra delivery in a different spot to accommodate the traveling we were doing. In fact, in retrospect, it was probably easier on us to have the extra delivery arrive when it did. The 20 days I listed above from pickup to delivery cover this span - as I remember it.
When the goods came out of storage from San Jose, there were some broken items - ceramic pieces, a picture frame, chair, and a lost item. I claimed $175 for the damage/loss (I had gotten a no deductible insurance with the move that cost $450). They also damaged the hardwood floors in one spot when bringing in the metal bedframes, I claimed $100 for the small piece of wood that seemed to have chipped off from the hardwood. They paid the claims in a reasonable amount of time. A lot of the packing was very good though.
Another mistake was that they brought an extra mattress out during the delivery - it did not really affect us, but was very confusing as it looked just like one of our mattresses.
In summary, I liked them, there were a number of mistakes with the move, more than I'd expect, but they handled them well.
