Careless movers, unsatisfactory service
Seth Samuels
Submitted this review about
Americas-Moving-Services
Review made Live: 8/22/2010 1:21:00 AM
An important point about AMS: they are not a moving company, they are a moving organizer. Although they are up front about the cost of the move and where various fees could get added on, it's easy to miss this important point. What it means is that they subcontract the move out to other companies. As a result, the quality of your move depends mostly on the quality of whomever they hire to do it--and you won't know who that is until you've already paid a deposit.
In my case, I was moving cross country from New York to California. I was told that my stuff would arrive on Monday, around noon--about 12 days after it had been picked up. At 1:30pm Monday, with no word from the movers, I called to check on my stuff. I was told "oh, I was about to call you, the truck broke down." Maybe he really was about to call me, I don't know. But if my stuff was meant to arrive at noon, and they were still far away from my place, clearly several hours must have passed during which they could have called me. Instead, my move was rescheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, I received a call from the mover saying the truck was on the way, but "did they tell you we only have half of your stuff?" No, they had not. About a week earlier their truck left New York with half of my things, and for a week, no one bothered to tell me. When I asked where the rest of my things were, I was told "I don't know, you have to call the office." I called AMS, but it was after 2pm Pacific Time, which meant that they were closed and no one picked up, so I left a message. I got one of the movers to call his boss, who said that the truck had just left New York, and the rest of my stuff would arrive on Friday. I did not hear back from AMS, and followed up with an e-mail on Thursday. They responded that the movers would "call in the next couple of days." Fortunately, the movers called later that day and said everything would arrive Friday. Still, I was disappointed that no one from AMS had followed up on my voicemail, and that no one there seemed particularly concerned about the service I was receiving. A week later, when I discussed this with Jeremy, he said "I wish you had let me know about all this." I left a voicemail and sent an e-mail (addressed to him), so I'm not sure what else I should have done.
Once the rest of my stuff arrived, I noticed that a TV table had been disassembled at some point between when I last saw it and when it was delivered. Upon further inspection, it became apparent that four pieces of the legs were snapped off, rather than unscrewed. Additionally, four of the five caps that hold the table surface to the legs were lost in transit. Needless to say, the table is now garbage. Although nothing else of mine was broken, several boxes marked "fragile" appear to have been handled quite roughly, and arrived almost completely squished. Fortunately, I used a tremendous amount of bubble wrap.
I will say that Jeremy, my contact at AMS, was very responsive after I sent another e-mail complaining about the service, and that the movers sent me a check for full reimbursement of the table. I do appreciate that. However, to me, that was not enough to make up for the significant inconvenience caused by this move. AMS--or the company they hired at least--broke my table, treated many of my posessions carelessly, and wasted several hours of my time. Moving is enough of a hassle without your movers creating extra problems. I understand that sometimes mistakes happen and that sometimes unforeseen circumstances can complicate things. However, these were all issues of carelessness, and they are exactly the type that should be easy to avoid.
I will not be using AMS the next time I move. Instead, I will be looking for companies that actually perform the move themselves. That way, at least I'll know what I'm getting.
