Fishier than Fish Sticks
KB
Submitted this review about
Matrix Movers
Review made Live: 8/20/2014 3:18:00 PM
OK. Seriously. First I have to say that reading these reviews is hilarious to me. Clearly someone from the company is writing them because how many people really give their first name, middle initial, last name on a review site?? Wow. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Also, all given 5 star reviews?? Not likely.
Anyway, I submitted a form on a site for movers to contact me with moving prices. I was debating doing a U-Haul or Penske truck or to go with an actual moving company as we were moving across the country. We received a call from Matrix Movers probably a day or two after I submitted the request. We were confused at first because their quote was a solid $700 more than other companies. I asked about that and the reason I was given is because the other companies are all brokers and hire out anyone who will do it for the price they give...so you can get any Tom, Dick, or Harry at your front door. I was told that Matrix Movers is not like that. They do their own in-house hiring with full background checks of all the employees to the point of even checking police calls to their homes. Wow, right? So we booked with them and gave them the deposit.
They asked for an inventory estimate, but it was over a month before our move so I had barely started filling boxes. I gave a really rough estimate but expressed concern right away that I wasn't sure that was right and it was really just an estimate. I made my fears known right away that we would not have enough space for our stuff and I was reassured that we had MORE THAN ENOUGH space for our belongings as we were not really bringing much large furniture.
About 2 weeks before the move I emailed the sales rep and asked him more specifically about how much space we had. I said that we had 286 cf, but I wanted to know what that meant in height x length x depth so I could better figure out if we needed to get rid of things or buy more space. He gave me the dimensions of 8.5 x 8.5 x 5.2 and said not to worry that everything would be fine. I then told him that I taped it out on my garage floor so I could be sure everything would fit and it appeared that it would.
Well, the day before our move had arrived and we hadn't heard anything (24-48 hr advance notice for arrival is their rule of thumb) so I called to check on things. Unfortunately it was a Sunday, so they were closed and I left a message. Monday morning came (the day we were supposed to move) and it would have been 9:30 EST and I called the movers again (6:30 am my time). A woman answered and I proceded to ask her if I could find out if there was an estimated time of arrival for the moving truck to get to my house. She asked for my job number, which I didn't have as I assumed giving my name or phone number/address would be sufficient. I asked her to wait just a second as I was looking for it. I heard her mumble under her breath, "you've got to be kidding me." Really?? That just really rubbed me the wrong way. I thought it was very rude. Clearly she shouldn't be in the customer service department if she can't handle someone looking for a job number. Regardless, she wasn't able to help me or answer my question. Instead she gave me a different number to call, which didn't work, by the way. So I called again and spoke with a guy who gave me the same number that still didn't work. So he said he would try...and it didn't work for him either. So he said he'd look into it and call back. I never got a call back. So I left my husband at our house and took my three children to start our drive across the country.
By mid-day (evening EST) we still had no moving truck and had heard nothing. So my husband called and the lady there said, "Well, if you haven't heard yet then they're not coming today. They'll be there tomorrow." We were really irritated as we did not realize that it was a two day time slot. So, my husband waited and waited on Tuesday...heard nothing all day and had tried making several calls. By the end of the day we finally received a call from operations who told us that there was a glitch in the system and our move was never submitted in the computer system so it was never put on anyone's itinerary. She said that they'd have to come Wednesday. I was pretty upset because my husband had already taken two days off of work. While the woman who called me started our conversation as a friendly and apologetic person, she quickly became rude when I expressed my frustration (very calmly, in my defense) and I would really hope to have some kind of reimbursement for the delay and lack of organization on the mover's end.
So, we just said, "Whatever...as long as our stuff gets picked up, I don't care at this point." So the movers came on Wednesday evening and informed us that it would cost a whole lot extra ($1,000 to be more precise) because we had more boxes than we had estimated. We were really upset by this because our items fit in our box that we had created on the garage floor. We were then informed that it doesn't work that way. They go by our exact estimated inventory. I was confused by this because, as I mentioned earlier, I spoke with our sales rep about THIS EXACT WORRY! Based on our conversation it would have been clear that I was misunderstanding the details of the agreement. I was clearly under the impression that when the contract lists 286cf as my allotment on the truck that I am going to get 286 cf. Our hands were tied at this point, though. With no remaining time to sort through our belongings and toss/sell what we didn't need, we put it on the truck.
We proceded to make many many many calls over the next couple of days to try to sort this whole thing out. It was left with our original sales rep and he said that the whole thing was frustrating and that he'd march into his boss's office and try to get this sorted out and that we would receive a call by the end of the day. Two weeks later, now, we have been making calls back and forth with a rep in the billing department and getting nowhere because, in her mind, them coming a day late doesn't warrant any kind of reimbursement at all (hello?? Breach of contract??).
So today I called again and spoke to one of the reps, who appears to be sympathetic (although we heard talk before so it could be all talk, but I pray that it isn't and that he truly is a genuinely nice and honest person...) to our situation. I told him flat out that I'm not out to screw him over by any means. I just don't understand how:
1) The "glitch" in the system wasn't caught before Tuesday evening when I had been trying to call them since Sunday and spoke with them on Monday. Why didn't someone do their job and double check that it was in the system, right??
2) The sales guy didn't correct me when I was CLEARLY misunderstanding how this whole moving truck thing works. I'm not a mover. I don't do this job every day. You're coming in with all the background knowledge, and I'm coming in with my whole own set of ideas about how this is supposed to work. I think based on physical space and hoping trying to fit what I can in that amount of space. It was obvious that I had this confused and he only perpetuated my confusion.
At this point, I'm just frustrated. I am hoping that we can come to some kind of mutually agreeable solution, but the driver is dropping our stuff off tomorrow. They take cash/cashiers check only so once they have my money they have my money and there's no guaranteeing that they will care beyond that. I do, however, hope that something good will come out of this.
