My worst moving experience was with Uncle Bee Movers. When I spoke with a man named “Byron” on the phone before I made my appointment, he sounded professional and honest, so I hired them. But when they showed up 2 hours late on my moving day, I knew it was not going to be a pleasant experience.
I was moving from a condo apartment into another condo apartment, so I had to book the moving elevators at both condos for very specific time durations. They showed up 2 hours late, so I knew we were going to have to rush. When they arrived, the first thing they did was ask me for a $400 deposit. I was shocked, because I had never heard of a situation where you have to pay for a service BEFORE it’s completed. Byron certainly failed to mention this policy when I spoke with him on the phone. Anyway I refused to pay any money upfront, and they reluctantly agreed to proceed with the move.
They started loading my carefully packed boxes onto their truck, however they were not careful at all as they handled my boxes, bags and furniture very roughly. At one point they were carrying my boxes UPSIDE DOWN. As I was watching what they were doing to my belongings I felt very stressed as I had no choice but to continue with the move since I had to be out of the apartment and had moving elevators booked, so I couldn’t really tell them to stop. About an hour into the move, one of the movers broke one of my standing audio speakers, which was part of a surround sound system. He was simply careless and dropped it. I saw him do this with my very eyes, and when I confronted him about it he was unapologetic and simply said that the speakers were flimsy and it wasn’t his fault. I COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS MAN’S ATTITUDE AFTER HE HAD JUST BROKEN MY SPEAKER.
As I had mentioned, I didn’t really have any option but to continue with the move as I had to be out of the apartment so we continued, and I just prayed that nothing else would get broken. I should also mention that these guys have NO INSURANCE so if anything breaks you’re basically out of luck as they will refuse to take responsibility for it. We finally had everything loaded on the truck and we left my old apartment and arrived at my new one. Unfortunately we arrived about 2 hours late (since they had started the job 2 hours late), so we had missed my appointment for the moving elevator.
I tried to beg and plead with the concierge at the front desk to re-start the moving elevator but he wasn’t being helpful. In the middle of our discussion, the same man who had broken my speaker interrupts our conversation and says “well if they aren’t going to give us the moving elevator we’re not going to unload the truck”. I couldn’t believe the nerve of this man who had already broken an item to try and intervene in a private conversation that I was having with the concierge. It seemed that he had taken it upon himself to make this moving experience as unpleasant and unprofessional as possible. At one point he suggested leaving my items in storage in the back of their moving truck overnight until I could re-book the moving elevator, which was clearly a ploy to try and get me to pay more money for the move.
I finally managed to convince the concierge to call his supervisor who came and within minutes re-started the moving elevator. The movers started to unload the truck, however, after they had unloaded a few items, the same unpleasant man came to me and demanded that I pay them before the job was finished. He said that they would not finish unloading the truck until I paid them for 5 hours, when they had only been working for 3 hours up until that point. Basically they were holding my belongings hostage and refusing to complete the job.
I called “Byron” who was the man I had originally made the appointment with and who apparently was the boss of this organization (even though he had not shown up to work on the move). I explained to him that I did not think it was fair that I have to pay for work that had not been completed, specially in light of the fact that they wanted to be paid for time which they had not even worked. Of course his tone was completely different now, since they were holding my belongings hostage. This man who had seemed so professional when I had made the appointment now told me that I had to pay the movers upfront. I was shocked.
By this point I was too tired and too stressed to continue arguing, and I just wanted my stuff, so I ended up negotiating with them and told them I would pay them for 4 hours and if it took longer I would pay them for any additional time. When they received their money they proceeded to unload the truck and eventually finished unloading everything and I thought the nightmare was finally over. They asked me to inspect their truck and to verify that all my belongings had been unloaded. I was so tired and exhausted that I took a quick look and said that everything seemed to have been unloaded, even though it was impossible to tell with all the boxes and items which were all over my new apartment. In all honestly at that point I just wanted to go to sleep.
I woke up the next morning feeling somewhat happy that things had not been worse than they were. I started to go through my belongings when I realized that the second standing audio speaker (it was a set of two and the mover had broken one) was missing. I searched everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. The only conclusion I could make was that the speaker had either been taken or discarded since it had come as a set and the mover broke one of them, so perhaps he wanted to discard any evidence of wrongdoing. In any case, I couldn’t believe it so I called Bryon to inform him of the situation, and he simply dismissed me without doing any type of investigation or speaking with his employees. Of course I can’t say that I was really surprised.
I am writing this because I feel that people like this should not be in business. They lack integrity and all they really care about is money, and they will do whatever it takes to get as much money out of you as possible. So if you are thinking of using these movers, all I can say is that perhaps you should think twice. BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE, I FELT THAT THEY WERE CARELESS, DISHONEST AND EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL, AND YOU WILL BE LUCKY IF ALL YOUR BELONGINGS ARE IN ONE PIECE AT THE END OF THE MOVE.
