Really unhappy customer
Laura Curran
Submitted this review about
Apartment Movers
Review made Live: 11/15/2009 12:38:00 AM
When I got the quote from The Apt. Movers I was pleased. In fact, after having heard from other companies, I wrote to ask Kyle Sainz some questions and he reduced the price further. I figured if he was that interested in my business, I should give it to him. My mistake! I wish I had thought to read reviews of this company. I was quoted a price of $256.57 and that is the beginning and end of what made me happy about this move.
I am out of the country and had to arrange to have some one at my house for the move. My brother agreed to be there. Kyle gave me a time frame of 7am - 12 noon. So my brother was on the road by 6:30 am to be at the house in case they got there at the earlier time. The phone confirmation the day before also gave the 7-12 time frame. At noon, the movers still hadn't arrived so he called the office. They informed him the time was 10-3 and that he was wrong. The man in the office was incredibly rude and it wasn't until Douglas quoted the name and email that he finally agreed that Douglas was right in believing that the movers should have been there between 7 & 12. He then went on to say however, that that wasn't a problem Douglas could have with him because he had 10-3 on his list. Douglas questioned him at that point as to whether or not both he and Kyle worked for The Apt. Movers.
The movers finally showed up at 2:30 pm. Neither man spoke enough English to be understood well. While I don't believe they should be kept from working because of that, I do believe that the company has an obligation to have at least one person working the job that can effectively communicate with it's customers. It then took them over 3 hours to load my furniture onto the truck and drive it to the storage unit. All the furniture was on a 1st floor and the walk to the truck would have been 50 feet or less. The drive to the storage unit is only about 2 miles. They didn't take any of my boxes to the unit on the first trip. My brother reported that they had a huge truck and he wasn't sure why they didn't take the boxes then. When they arrived at the unit (20x30) my brother asked whether they thought it would all fit. They said yes. Had they said no at that point Douglas could have made arrangements to rent a 2nd unit. The storage unit is a ground level, outdoor unit so the truck was backed up right to the door and there would have been no more than a 30 foot walk to unload. My brother was there the entire time and the movers never indicated there was a problem. When finished unloading, they all returned to the house to get the boxes. They were all stacked in the garage and the truck could back up right to the door. So again, there was very little transport distance. However, it took almost another 2 hours to load the boxes and get them over to the storage unit. Although these were not tiny boxes, they were all boxes that I packed myself and was able to lift myself (as a 46 year old female who is not a weight lifter and works as a teacher and doesn't do manual labor), some even to the top storage shelves in the garage. I had estimated 75 boxes in the garage (I'm out of the country so I couldn't be sure). It turns out there were more like 100 and so I knew I would have to pay more for the extra boxes. However, the guys doing the move made it clear that if they were just tipped well it wouldn't be a problem.
When everyone got back to the unit, the guys were only able to get about 20 of the boxes into the unit. Douglas was furious because now it is about 7:30 pm or so and the office of the storage place is closed and there is nothing that can be done about the boxes except to return them to my house. He spoke with the man in the office at The Apt. Movers and the man told him that the movers said that there had been some items in the back of the unit that were fragile and badly packed and so they just packed around them. Why didn't they tell Douglas that at the beginning? He was sitting in his car at the unit the entire time. He could have authorized them to move the stuff and paid them accordingly! The man also said to Douglas that he couldn't possibly rely on movers to let him know if the items he had would fit in the storage unit as they were only movers. Is that not part of what movers are supposed to be experts at?! Determining how much you have and whether it will fit where you want it to go? The man in the office also blamed Douglas for not having a unit that was large enough. So, at 8 pm the movers returned to my house and unloaded the approximately 80 boxes they couldn't fit into the storage unit back into my garage. I would understand a small miscalculation but this was ridiculous!
Understandably, my brother was furious. He had been at this for 13 hours and The Apt. Movers had not only done a bad job, but had been rude to him in addition. The 2 men doing the move were aware of his anger and at some point, while unloading my boxes back into the garage, decided they might not get paid. So, they sat down on the job and demanded payment immediately or they would not give back all my belongings. My brother, while furious, did pay them so that they would not drive off with my belongings. In the end, he even gave them a tip because they had been there so long. However, I do not believe they deserved one at all because they were there so long because they didn't know how to do their job properly.
I wrote and called Kyle Sainz after the move was finished. I finally got hold of him 4 days after the move. When I inquired as to what he would do to remedy the problems caused by the movers and the fact that more than 3/4 of my boxes were still in my garage and my renters had moved in, his response was that I could hire them again and pay them $75/hour to see if they could fix it. When I balked at that he said that was the only thing because he had given me such a good price. Had I known that getting a good price meant they didn't have to do a good job and that they would charge me for fixing their bad job, I would have passed on using them. I then called Two Men and a Truck. They came out unpacked the whole unit and repacked it and got every single item into the original unit - including the 80 some boxes The Apt. Movers said couldn't fit. At this point I don't know if there is any damage to my belongings as they won't be unpacked for at least a year. After having read a number of reviews online about this company I guess I can expect there to be damage also.
