Disappointed
Mac
Submitted this review about
Liberty Moving Group
Review made Live: 7/21/2011 11:39:00 AM
I went with Liberty based on the reviews from this site and their rating with the Better Business Bureau in hopes of avoiding some of the horror stories I had read about. Unfortunately, they dropped the ball in a few key areas with my move.
Cons:
- I was strong armed for a "mandatory" 10% tip on pick up. I could have fought it, but had to rely on that same crew to put my goods in storage without me there later that day so I took the issue up with their office instead. The owner later confirmed that doing so was against company policy (not to mention the law), but did not offer to do anything to make amends or indicate that the issue would be addressed with his employees.
- Showed up with too small of a truck and had to come back a second day (requiring that I take another day off and pay for their travel time) and still were not able to get everything which meant that I had to make several trips to move the rest myself.
- Bid $800 on pick up, charged $1,800. Had a number of surprise bills for things like extra wrap for a curio cabinet and an incremental fee for moving a piano. All fairly reasonable, but it was disappointing not to have these fees called out up front.
- Showed up 5 hours late for delivery. Didn't bother to call to let me know.
- Incredibly poor paperwork on the household inventory which was impossible to track.
Pros:
- No damage to either house and minimal damage to goods. Looks like everything made it.
- Crews were decent and good to deal with outside of the tip incident. Sales rep was great, but it was also obvious that her job was to be nice and that she had no real influence.
At the end of the day, it worked out reasonably well, but the cons were enough to keep me for recommending them or going back. I found the extra charges much less frustrating than their not being able to pick everything up and the personal moving hassles than ensued.
For my part, a few key learnings were:
- Insist on having someone come out in person to bid. The phone based version we did was definitely part of the problem.
- Consider travel time when booking these guys. They are glad to travel to you, but you're picking up the bill for them to do so. Next time around, I'm probably going to go with a local company with some solid personal recommendations.
Good luck
