I hope this will keep you from going through what I did
Jennara
Submitted this review about
Active Moving Inc
Review made Live: 6/8/2015 2:51:00 PM
The reason for the delay in posting reviews of this horrendous experience is the amount of time the BBB allows for responses from the business. Which were as follows: eventually the president/owner of Active Moving answered the BBB complaint and said “the customer insisted on a flat rate”. Which I certainly did not. I replied to that effect to the BBB and there was another wait for the business to respond. This time I eventually got a phone call from a young woman at Active Moving who wanted to know what would make me happy. I said, a refund of what I was overcharged. She said they couldn’t do that, but would send me a check for $100 (one hundred dollars) “as a courtesy”. I said no. She also claimed “no one wants to go to Oregon”, which isn’t what anyone else thinks:
“Oregon was the top destination for people who moved out of state in 2014, according to a study from United Van Lines that tracked 128,000 moves. The moving company found that 66% of all interstate moves in Oregon were from people moving into the state, rather than leaving it. It's the second year in a row that Oregon tops the list.”
Basically, only use this company if you don’t mind being lied to by implication and flat out, bullied on the day of the move, not being able to contact your sales rep or customer service the day of the move, and if you think $1500 is “only $1500”.
Complaint as sent to BBB:
I am retiring and moving from Poughkeepsie NY to Newberg OR. I researched how to select a moving company and got quotes and information from a number of them. I selected Active Moving based on a number of factors (including its BBB rating of A+):
The sales rep told me the company didn’t subcontract.
He also said my possessions would stay on the same truck for the entire trip.
He took a lot of time working with me on the phone about just what I had to move and answering my questions.
He quoted me a binding estimate of $4,468.65, which included full packing. I asked if Active Moving could send someone to do an in-home assessment and he said no, and that the information Active asked for and I gave was sufficient, because they’d done this so many times.
I asked SEVERAL TIMES what would happen if I had more than I was estimating when the movers got to my place. My sales rep said it was a BINDING estimate, and I wouldn’t ever pay more than that, and that if I had less than I had thought, the actual cost would be lower.
He told me I would get phone calls from the movers 48 hours, 24 hours, and 1 hour before they arrived.
Based on what the sales rep told me, what I researched, and the fact that Active Moving has a BBB rating of A+ , I finally decided to hire Active Moving, feeling that the company would make an extremely stressful time as easy as possible.
I paid Active a deposit of $1,292.
My move was set for Tuesday, March 3.
I did not get the phone calls I was supposed to. I had to call my sales rep, who gave me a time window on the morning of 3/3/15 for them to arrive. When the truck arrived, I called my sales rep to tell him they were there, and asked if that was the truck for the whole move. My sales rep said no, it wasn’t; my things would be reloaded onto an 18-wheeler for the cross-country part of the trip. I told him he’d said my things would be on one truck for the entire move, and he said, yes, after they were shifted to the 18-wheeler they stayed on that one. I pointed out most people interpreted “one truck for the whole move” as “not changing trucks at all”. My sales rep basically said, “Oh.” Things degenerated from there.
The three movers (who all spoke Russian as their first language) took one look at my things and the foreman promptly pulled out his phone and made a phone call in Russian. He then told me that his boss said he couldn’t do the move for less than $6,000. I said I had a binding estimate of $4,268.65. The foreman basically said they couldn’t do it for that. I told them they could leave, they basically said they were here, and then I called my sales rep.
My sales rep said he’d see if they could get this resolved, and also told me I should call customer service. He then put me on hold. Almost 10 minutes later, I hung up and tried customer service. I got a woman in customer service and I explained what had happened, told her I wanted them to leave. That I wanted to cancel and get back my deposit. She told me several times, very clearly, that I could not get my deposit back.
I then tried to call my sales rep again. After getting only his voice mail a couple of times, I left a very irate message asking him to please call me so we could get this resolved.
An hour later he hadn’t called back. All my things were in piles awaiting moving, I’d been told I couldn’t get my deposit back, and that I’d have to pay $1,730 over what I’d been told was the top amount I would have to pay. I pointed out again that I had a BINDING ESTIMATE, to absolutely no reaction but shrugs. The foreman said I had a lot more stuff than the estimate of 667 cubic feet.
I’ve read about scenarios like this, but thought I’d chosen my moving company carefully. Now I as standing in the middle of a move with the choice of losing my deposit or paying a lot more money. The foreman got on the phone (in Russian) and finally told me I could pay a flat rate of $5,800 for the entire move.
By this point, I was pretty frantic, and I couldn’t get my rep at Active on the phone and my move was being held hostage, and either way I was going to lose money. Under this stress, I finally agreed to the flat rate $5,800 for the move. I also asked the foreman to tell me at the end when it was all packed and loaded just how much more stuff I had than 667 cubic feet.
When everything was packed and loaded, I asked again, and was told that the total I had was about 737 cubic feet – only 70 cubic feet more than the original estimate.
By the next day (3/4), I was feeling slightly calmer, and in the morning called my sales rep at Active. I left a message saying I’d like to talk to him and resolve the $1,000 I’d been overcharged. Late in the afternoon I left another message. He didn’t call back. The following day (3/5) I left another message, and said if he didn’t call me by noon, I was going further up the line with this.
My sales rep didn’t call (he hasn’t called or emailed me since 3/4/15), so I looked up the president of Active Moving and called him. Immediately I knew I was in trouble, because when I tried to explain what had happened and what I wanted, he promptly started talking and I had to really raise my voice to get a word in. He said (I’m only going to repeat these once, although I heard them all several times):
They’re a company and have to make money.
That I’d signed off on the $5,800.
That he couldn’t refund any money.
That if I’d called on the day of the move, I could have just cancelled. When I said I would have lost my deposit, he said no, I wouldn’t have. I said his customer service rep said I couldn’t get my deposit back. He kept saying I would have. I finally said, “Sir, your own employee told me I would not.”
I said I had a binding estimate from his company. He said yes, but that on the day of the move the movers gave me a NEW BINDING ESTIMATE.
He said it cost more than my binding estimate because it’s such a long move, and that hardly anyone goes to Oregon. (Active knew from the start I was going to Oregon.)
I said I was going to report him to the Better Business Bureau. He said go ahead, he wasn’t afraid of the BBB or anyone.
He also said “Why are you so upset – it’s only another $1500.”
At this point I hung up. The above is based on my notes of the conversation(s), and it’s taken me a week to be able to write this up because I’m so furious. I only hope any of my family possessions will actually get to Oregon.
What I would like is the following: the difference according to the foreman between the estimated cubic footage and the actual is about 70 cubic feet. Active’s rates are $4.90 per cubic foot, which would mean the additional would be $343. Packing is $1.05 per cubic foot, so the additional would be $74. The total additional would come to $417.
Add this to the original “binding estimate” and the total would be $4,685.50.
This means the “flat rate” I was railroaded into taking is $1,115 MORE than I should have paid.
