If you have moved, you can probably attest to what a ginormous headache it really is. It’s an emotional rollercoaster of feeling good about your upcoming moving. Then, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” you have to pack, sell or donate. Then, feeling good again once everything is packed and ready to go. Then, feeling enraged when you get your final bill. So, should you hire movers or move yourself? How can you avoid moving company scams?
I want to share my story of why I decided to move myself across country in order to avoid moving company scams. I hope this article will help you decided what’s the best option for you.
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Table of Contents
Step 1: Start Packing
A couple of weeks ago I moved from my hometown of the Los Angeles to Colorado to live with my parents for a few months and save money. I lived in my LA apartment for 8 years, so as you can imagine, I accumulated a lot of “stuff” over the years.
My plan was always to hire movers even with the looming moving company scams. Why? Simple. It’s more convenient. Movers will load all your boxes into the truck. Drive them from point A to point B. Unload them into your new home. And all you have to do is patiently await the delivery. Easy peasy!!! Or is it?
My mom flew out to help me pack everything up about two weeks before my expected move date (Thanksgiving weekend). Packing always takes longer than expected and she knew I’d wait until the last minute otherwise. (Mama knows best!) As we began packing clothes and trinkets, the boxes quickly started piling up.
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Step 2: Sell My “Stuff”
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m horrible at getting rid of stuff. I always have those “what if I need it down he road?” thoughts. I told myself I’d try to sell everything I wouldn’t need while living with my parents and donate all the other junk. I listed everything on Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and Craigslist, for big items only.
And when I say “everything”, I really mean it. I listed dish racks, power cords, shower caddies, etc. You name it, I probably listed it, and sold it. Over the course of those two weeks, I made over 70 sales. Luckily, I was also able to sell all my big ticket items, like a couch, fridge, and dressers.
Step 3: Contact Local Moving Companies
As each box was packed, we weighed it and wrote down the dimensions. Once the majority of boxes were ready to go, we were able to roughly estimate the final square footage needed for my move. Having these dimensions would allow us to be more specific with our request to moving companies.
My mom and I both responded to one of those aggregate websites that compiles lots of local moving company results. We got tons of Spam Risk calls all day everyday. We’re still getting some, in fact. Big Mistake! Every company would say the same thing – you know the whole spiel. “We are the most reliable company in Los Angeles. I promise that no one will give you a better price.” We listened to dozens of these tangents and shared our square footage of 200 to see who would truly give us the best rate.
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In all transparency, we received offers between $1,800 to $4,000. Average prices were higher than normal because everyone happened to be moving out of Los Angeles over Thanksgiving. Some companies even said they didn’t have trucks available until mid-December.
My mom connected with a local company (eliminating their name as it’s not relevant to the overarching focus of this article). They were extremely cordial over the phone and confidently answered all of our questions. And, they offered significantly under what every other company offered: $1,100. WOW, could this be real? Did we really just find the steal of the lifetime or is this another one of these moving company scams?
I decided to pay the deposit of $199 and moving forward with scheduling my pick-up.
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Step 4: Do Your Investigative Research
Foolishly, I had not looked into the reviews for this company before paying the deposit. I went online to my BFF website, Yelp, and saw they only had about 20 reviews and 2/5 stars. EEEK! My stomach turned upside down as I read the reviews which stated that this company had lost and broken their furniture, and took a month to deliver their goods. Sounds like an obvious case of a moving company scam!
However, these reviews were all from people with only a couple of reviews to their name, so I was hesitant to truly believe them. Maybe these are individuals from competitor companies making them look bad. This industry does seem a bit dog-eat-dog. Or, this could be the 1 / 100 person who had a horrible experience. I mean, does anyone ever have a “good” experience with moving? I took these reviews with a grain of salt as a lot of people report moving company scams when they’ve just had a bad 1-off experience. So I decided to do my own investigation
Although I had paid the deposit, I had not actually signed the paperwork to finalize the move, which was just a couple of days away at this point. They emailed me the contract so I decided I should read all the fine print. While most of it was straightforward, I still had 15 questions that I emailed back to them. It might sound a little overkill, but I wanted to make sure that if I were to be charged anything over what was originally quoted, I understood why.
Although they answered some of our questions over the phone previously, I wanted everything in writing, so I asked again.
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Questions to Ask Your Movers
- Is there origin/destination fee for and how much is it?
- What is the estimated rate per cu. ft.? Is there a possibility this could change?
- Is there an elevator or stair fee? If so, it is per floor and is it one fee for all trips back and forth?
- Your estimate shows the price for x number of miles. My new home is farther than that. Will I be charged more for the extended distance? If so, what is the cost per mile?
- Is there a fee for large/heavy items? If so, what is considered a large or heavy item?
- Your estimate shows the price for (x pounds). If the weight goes over this amount, will I be charged more?
- What is the cost for liability insurance and how much of my belongings will that cove?
- Will there be additional charges for loading and unloading of boxes on/off the truck as well as in/out of my homes?
- Is there a fee for long carry over 75 feet? If so, how much?
- Can you please confirm that my deposit goes towards the total price of the move?
- Do you charge any overnight fees if the shipment exceeds a certain amount of days?
- What’s the cost of padding/wrapping/taping items?
- Are there any other possible fees I should consider?
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Step 5: Be Persistent
As you might have guessed, they never responded to my email. So I called them, left a message and got no response back. So I called again and got the individual I emailed on the phone and politely asked him to respond to my email. He did, but only answered 2 of my questions and ended the email saying “please sign the contract so we can finalize your move.” I kindly responded saying I think you missed a few of my questions. No response.
Then I got a call the next day from a lady at the company saying they wanted to move my move up to tomorrow. Hmm, seems peculiar when I haven’t officially signed the paperwork.
Step 6: Moving Company Scams Alert – Cancel The Move
At this point, I knew something fishy was going on so I decided it was in my best interest to cancel the move and get my deposit back. As can probably be assumed, they never responded to my request for a refund so I had to dispute the charge on my credit card. I actually even cancelled my credit card just in case they tried to charge me again.
We were still getting calls from other moving companies so we decided to hear them out on their estimates. The estimates started at several $100’s more than the company we almost went with. Many of them had good reviews, but I was still very apprehensive. It’s called an estimate for a reason, as it’s truly an estimate and could end up being significantly more expensive if you exceed the stated square footage.
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Step 7: Book a U-Haul
My best option at this point seems to be to book a U-Haul. It was slightly more than I wanted to pay when you account for gas. However, the peace of mind that all of my belongings would get from point A to point B on my schedule was well worth the extra money.
Because my move was only a few days away and everyone was moving out of California at the same time, I couldn’t reserve a truck. I was put on a waitlist which would offer me a truck anywhere within a 100 mile radius of my house. They can’t guarantee you a truck, but say it is highly likely that you will receive one. The worst part is, though, that they can’t tell you until 48 hours prior to your move date.
I was on pins and needles everyday awaiting their call. I called a bunch of neighborhood U-Haul stores asking if I could rent a one-way move truck from them. I learned that only the main U-Haul locations rent for long-distance one-way moves.
My backup option was to get a storage unit and keep all my belongings there until a truck was available. Thankfully, I was paired with a truck on my requested move date from a U-Haul center only a few miles away.
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Step 8: The Move
I reserved the smallest 10ft U-Haul truck which allows for 402 cu. ft. When I measured all my boxes, it came out to 275 cu ft., so I figured this would be far more space than necessary. Well, I’m no expert mover, but I think I did pretty good at Tetris-ing the boxes into the truck and I almost couldn’t fit everything in there.
I also towed my car so we went back to the U-Haul center as we were heading out of town to have them help us load it. Turns out they won’t do it for you as they don’t want to be liable. They will walk you through the process step-by-step, or you can watch this video and do it yourself. We ran into a little hiccup as my car started slipped off the tow dolly about 5-miles into our trip. I guess the U-Haul associate wasn’t as well-versed in tows as he said he was. Thankfully, we were able to pull off the road and get it re-hooked, but it definitely was nerve-wracking in the moment.
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Please Take Away This Lesson!
What you truly don’t realize until you move yourself is how much more space your boxes and furniture will take up than you expect. This is because boxes don’t fit perfectly with one another so there will be space above, between, and on the sides of the truck. And unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for this “air” space because it’s still taking up space in the moving truck.
Overages on cu. ft. is the most common reason people get overcharged when hiring movers. You may have measured all your boxes and furniture like I did, but expect to pay for 100-200 cu. ft. more than calculated. That might not sound like a lot, but that could quickly add up to $2,000 more than your original quote. So, are moving company scams a real thing or do we just not understand how the overage charges work?
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