I went with America's Moving Service based on all the great reviews on this page. They subcontracted the move to Preferred Relocation. The movers arrived on time, were helpful...I was feeling pretty optimistic! Then, my things showed up in Oregon; the guy who delivered was very rude and grumpy. When I asked to see the weight sheet (that determines the cost of my move) he became very angry and rude, pretended that he didn't have it and then "found" it and rudely told me to "do the math" to confirm that their quoted price was correct. I found this behavior totally unnecessary and unprofessional. Quite a few things were broken or damaged: gouges in my furniture; boxes that were clearly marked fragile were dented/crushed and items inside broken; cracked table. I was also told before the move that any furniture that was taken apart in NY would be put back together at the delivery site. When I requested Mr. Grumpy to do this, he got a huge attitude and begrudgingly did it...except for my futon, which it appears the mover in NY lost some hardware when taking it apart. Grumps told me that someone would come out with the missing part and put the futon together for me; needless to say I stopped waiting for that magical day and got a friend to do it.
The worst part of this move was that they lost my bike. Somehow it did not get transferred to the correct truck, ended up back in New Jersey with a vague date of when it would be on my doorstep across the country. After phone calls to both America's Moving Service and Preferred Relocation the bike was put on a truck bound for a city 3 1/2 hours away from me. P.R. requested that I go pick up the bike...I almost fell over! They expected ME to drive 7 hours out of my way to pick up an item that THEY messed up on? They refused to UPS it because it would be "too expensive". After many weeks, many more phone calls and a memorable conversation with the "Vice-President" of AMS who started literally yelling at me for requesting answers about this situation, I bit the bullet and drove the 7 hours to pick up the bike, just to have the drama over and done with. I was reimbursed $50 for my efforts.
I would never use either company again. Yes, initially I was impressed, they seemed professional but when push got to shove, they both fell short of what it means to run a good, solid business.
