We used Straight Forward Moving after it was highly recommended by friends who had used them shortly before us. When we initially called for a quote, I explained to the woman who set up our move Tanya Singer, that my husband would be in Ohio (our final destination) the weekend of June 29-30, 2013, and we needed things to be delivered by that date since he would be starting work and would not be able to receive our things during the weekdays (I and our children were not arriving in Ohio for some time after this). Since we were moving from the Philadelphia area, she indicated that the movers have a 3-7 day period within which they have to deliver your things. Based on this, she suggested we schedule our pick-up date to be June 22-23 to ensure that we would have our things by the next weekend. The movers arrived late to pick-up our items on the scheduled day, and then seemed to be haphazard with how they packed up some of the furniture; not surprisingly, some of our things arrived broken, but we were unable to file claims because we did not still have receipts for these items, which we had had for years. It was basically their word against ours in terms of if we’d even bought the things, and of course, they took their own. The most disappointing part was that one of the boxes, which was carrying our children’s books, was completely drenched, such that all the books were basically ruined; we even had to throw some of them out because they had begun to grow mold. Speaking of getting our stuff, as I mentioned, Tanya had indicated I should schedule the pick-up date for one week before we needed our things to ensure we would get them in time. When the movers came to pick up our things, AFTER all of our things were already loaded in the truck, they had me sign paperwork indicating when we would be ready to receive our things; this paperwork said the movers are allowed 3-10 days to deliver. I questioned this, since I had been told differently on the phone, and I was assured that because Ohio and Pennsylvania were close to one another, I would be getting our things by the 30th at the latest. By the morning of June 30, we had not received a phone call yet to say when our things would be delivered, and so I called the office, only to be told that our things were still in the warehouse and would likely be delivered by Monday or Tuesday. When I told them that I had been assured I would receive our things that weekend, and that my husband would not be able to be available on weekdays, they were unapologetic as they explained that there was nothing they could do. This process dragged on for over a week, until we finally got our things on July 8th!! At one point, we were told that the 3-7 days means 3-7 days after the first day we are available. How does that make any sense, and if that was really true, one, why was this not explained to us when we first set up the pick-up/drop-off dates, and two, why would they suggest I have my things picked up by the 22nd to ensure we would receive them the week after? All in all, we received our things 18 days after they were picked up, and my husband had to take time off of a new job to be available when the things were finally delivered. What is even worse is that each day after the 30th, they told us our things would “come tomorrow;” we were told this for over a week so that my husband was pretty much held hostage if you will to our house and work for over a week in anticipation of the delivery. Yet another issue was that when we called initially to set up the pick-up, Tanya went through an inventory with me of what we would be bringing, and gave me an estimate based on how much space she thought we would use. This was a gross underestimation as we ended up having to pay $700 more than what we had been quoted. Part of this was due to the lack of communication; we had been told that the movers would take apart ALL the furniture pieces, which is one of the reasons we decided to use the company as we have two young children and knew we wouldn’t be able to do this ourselves. Well, when the movers came, they just wrapped up some big pieces and loaded them as is in the truck rather than taking them apart. This of course added to the cubic space we used and really increased our price. Had we known that they were going to do this, we would have either tried to take some things apart to make them smaller, or used other movers that would have actually taken the items apart as we had been told. Finally, when we set up the move, there was no problem with using a credit card to pay the deposit, and at no point was there any indication that this method of payment was a problem. However, when the movers arrived to pick up the things, we were told there was a surcharge for using a credit card; we really needed to use cash or money order. At the time of pick-up, half of our balance was $1500; who has that much money lying around the house, especially when they did not expect to have to have it, and how was I supposed to have a money order when I did not know what the final cost would be? As a result, we had to pay the surcharge, and then were told the same would apply at the time of delivery. It is really inconvenient to have to have that much cash on hand, especially when moving to a new place, but even more so when you were not told this information from the start.
In general, we found Tanya to be very deceptive in terms of the information she provided us. All the members of the customer service staff who we dealt with were unapologetic and unhelpful each time we talked. For the service, we found the movers to be overly priced, and even more so, now that they’ve ruined some of our things and are unable to reimburse us for them. We would never use this company again, and any person that asks us for recommendations, we will be sure to strongly advise them against using Straight Forward Moving. In truth, it probably would have been easier and much cheaper to hire some people to help us take apart our furniture and load a truck, then drive a truck ourselves, and hire people at the end point to help us unload the truck.
