frankly, i'm shocked that there are so many 5 star reviews. i will try to make as translucent as possible the incredibly shady business practices of this company since they obviously chose not to be translucent with me. i hope no one ever experiences what i had to go through with this company, so let this serve as a warning against using dimension. this will be an abridged version; please read my yelp review for a more detailed version.
after receiving quotes from many companies for my move from norcal to socal, dimension was by far the lowest with a 1-3 business day delivery. i emphasize on 3 separate occasions that i reserved the freight elevator in my building from 9-12 since the hoa does not allow moves otherwise. they arrive at 11:15 & finish at 1.
i pay half up front - they charged an additional $368 for packaging materials (i packed everything myself in boxes except the big items). i receive the final bill a few days later XXXi will be paying DOUBLE of the original estimate. i had to call them on 3 different days to get an ETA on my stuff, & was finally told that my stuff will arrive a full 6 days after the initial pickup.
upset by this delivery delay & extra charges, i demand to speak with a supervisor, who wasn't there but after listening to my story, melissa (a really sweet customer service rep) puts in a request for me to speak with the supervisor, mike magen, telling me that if he doesn't contact me before my movers arrive, to inform the movers they are not to start unloading until i speak with mike.
since mike never called, i tell my movers when they arrive at 8:30am, 6 days after the pickup (quoted 1-3 days, remember?) my instructions & they give me his cell number. i call 3 times before he picks up XXXhe sounded like he was sleeping & tells me curtly he'd call back in 10 min. after 15, i call him back. no answer. repeat every 2 minutes (keep in mind, movers have not yet begun unloading my stuff) until 45 min later, he finally calls. i recount my tale, tell him how disappointed i was & that i really don't feel like i was getting what i paid for. he says (unapologetically) that he cannot give a discount. he said he's only authorized to discount the "stairs fee" ($75), which i didn't even know i had to pay in the first place because i was okay with my movers just unloading all my stuff onto ground level. i ask for his full name & if his company was part of the bbb, he stammered "i don't know..i think we used to be.." then he says he doesn't want to give me the $75 discount anymore because i was threatening to report them to the bbb & write bad reviews on yelp (he was correct on both points).
so after all my stuff was moved (broke a few pieces of furniture & dented boxes, obviously thrown around & turned upside down), i told the foreman i really didn't like his company. to my surprise, he said he didn't either. he said that the company rips off customers, treats employees horribly & is incredibly cheap (they sent 2 guys to move my 2000+ lbs worth of stuff up a steep hill & flight of stairs in socal heat).
then 3 days later, kashmir (original customer service rep who gave me quote) called to apologize & see if they could offer me any compensation. they offered an $81 refund. of the $700+ i spent in addition to the original estimate of $800. i said uhhhh...no thanks. they upped the offer to $120. even though this was a complete ripoff of a refund, by this time, i accepted simply because i just really didn't want to deal with this company anymore.
and then they send me a release to sign & notarize in order to get my "refund." wtf?! this was never ever mentioned. yet another shady business practice. but i signed it anyway because i just didn't care XXXhowever, i completely missed the condition where they say i can only get the refund if i agree to take off my review on yelp or update it to say that i have settled any & all claims with the company. i said i would do the latter, but i didn't want to just leave it at just that for my fellow yelpers, so i gave a little context for why i settled. this didn't fly with the company, so they told me that i was ONLY to write that i settled my claims and NOTHING else.
i told them that i didn't think i'd be honest if i didn't describe the circumstances with prospective movers, & that i thought a refund was supposed to be a reimbursement of money i was unfairly charged, not a very stingy settlement attempt, which it obviously was since they tried to make me take off my yelp review. i told them that if they wanted to buy my silence, they'd have to up the offer significantly. they said no, which i was hoping for cuz it's not worth me getting $120 in exchange for turning away thousands of dollars in potential clients. this is far more gratifying.
i never even got to even talk to mike the supervisor directly XXXhe's been using a poor customer service rep (natalie) as a middleman to convey his shady business decisions.
most moving companies recognize that moving is a very stressful process & emphasize relieving that stress from customers. this company did exactly the opposite: they exacerbated my stress, pissed me off with their rudeness & caused me incredible amounts of inconvenience. i feel incredibly ripped off & i really, really hated dealing with mike magen, who was a complete jerk..which sucks because everyone else i dealt with were pretty nice (esp kashmir, melissa & my movers). a lot of this is my fault & probably could have been avoided if i hadn't been so distracted & hasty with this whole process, so the best i can do is warn any future movers to STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY because they will hook you with a too-good-to-be-true estimate, rip you off, treat you & your stuff like dirt, & then attempt to cover up their tracks by silencing you so that another poor, helpless client gets hooked.
