Not necessarily the movers you'll get.
K Campbell
Submitted this review about
American Moving Services
Review made Live: 9/21/2010 12:03:00 PM
Be aware that though you may book your move through this company, they will not necessarily be the actual movers. As they told me themselves, they book about 300 moves a month and they just don't have the resources to physically handle them all. I was reassured that the movers they "job out" to are all excellent. In my case, America's Moving Services were the brokers. The movers who were sent to us were called Royal Relocation. America's Moving Services has an excellent rating on the BBB website, and they say on their website to be wary of any moving company that is not BBB accredited. Well guess what - Royal Relocation is NOT BBB accredited. And their rating is an F. Hmm. Here is how it went;
Our things were handled extremely roughly in NY. As we waited for the movers to load everything out of our apartment we heard boxes being dropped, and there was a large pane glass window in the lobby that was broken after they left. We had very clearly marked all our fragile boxes and called their attention to it, not just with the word "Fragile", but also with neon orange tape. Ironically, those were the boxes that looked most like they had been through a war when they arrived in CA. They were crushed, were hemorrhaging, had holes in them. They had clearly been mistreated - these weren't just the results of a cross country trip. The movers here in CA agreed that they were in unusually bad shape. Fortunately only a sculpture, 2 framed pictures and a lamp were broken/damaged. It would have been a lot worse if we hadn't packed everything so well. There was also a wardrobe box that we packed and sealed. It contained my wedding dress, my husband's wedding suit, and all of his sport coats and other suits. When that box arrived here, my husband opened it immediately because it didn't look like our box. The movers in NY had opened the box (which we had sealed with layers of tape), cut the tape that had secured the metal pole in place, and dropped it down. Then they had tossed a heavy metal outdoor umbrella stand on top of all the clothes, and folded down the box to make it half its original size. Those clothes are now dirty, dusty and very wrinkled. They will have to be dry cleaned.
All in all, it was a stressful experience. I hired America's Moving Services because of the excellent reviews they received on this site and others, and because of their BBB accreditation and rating. I am now having to deal with Royal Relocation's claims processing center to receive compensation for the damaged goods. America's Moving Services is no longer involved.
