The Moving Scam
(Originally inflicted with full presence of mind on my blog [available at CaptainOftheInternet.com])
My wife and I have a gay hairdresser named Joe (I say "have" because we keep him locked in a steamer trunk). When we were last in his salon, getting $30 haircuts and listening to his latest exploits, he asked us off-handedly if we were renting a U-Haul for our upcoming move to Seattle from Los Angeles.
My wife said, "No. We're hiring movers."
Embarassed about not being willing to load a truck myself, I added, "We have a 300 pound pinball machine and live upstairs." Toward the end of that sentance, my voice was getting shrill and woman-like. I finished in a hysterical squeak, "The new apartment is on the second floor too!"
Joe stopped cutting my hair. He said, "Whatever you do, check the movers out. I have a client, and the movers showed up at the new house and refused, refused--", he made vicious stabbing motions with his scissors, "-- to deliver their furniture unless they paid them two thousand dollars more, right there on the spot."
Eyeing the scissors, I said carefully, "My God, that's horrible."
"They kept their belongings hostage!" Joe said, then an eerie calm went over him and he resumed cutting my hair, "You know what though? My client was really smart. She went into the back of the house, to talk it over with her husband, you know? And they called the cops on their cell phone, then kept them busy until the cops showed up.
"Whatever you do, check your movers out," and he changed the subject.
For the rest of the story to make sense, you need to realize that I had forgotten this conversation.
Nearly a month later, my wife took it upon herself to get some bids for our move from different websites on the web. Luckily, I didn't have any part in this, because (1.) I'm a sucker and believe what people say, (2.) she seemed willing to take charge, and (3.) I was pretending I was busy with work.
We started getting calls with quotes.
Now I just have to say that somehow I was under the impression that physical labor was cheap and now I'm a little more enlightened. If you're ever in a situation where you need to hire movers, you should first seriously consider if it would be cheaper to throw your furniture away and buy new stuff later when you really need it.
Back to my story, suddenly life was getting really bizarre. These moving companies, that gave us quotes, called us back daily, hounding us, wanting us to make a decision over the phone. ("They're real go-getters!" I told my wife, cheerfully).
One company, Millenium Move and Storage, called us no less than twenty times over the next few weeks; sometimes they called multiple times per day. Another company, Victory something something Moving, with a blocked numer (the cads!) called us at least a dozen times themselves. A third company, United Express Moving Systems, wouldn't leave my wife's cell phone alone once they found out that she was in Seattle looking at apartments with her mother; I think they were excited that she didn't have a logical man around to make decisions for her.
My wife returned to town and gradually, passive-aggressively, we just stopped answering the phone. Everything went to voicemail. We couldn't trust the Caller ID and it's four visible numbers.
Yesterday though, waking in a panic, I realized that if I bought milk now, it would expire after we moved (that's how I tell time.) And so we started actually looking into which company we were going to choose. United Express Moving Systems gave us the cheapest quote for moving at about $2,500, and sent us all sorts of fancy literature with pictures of their trucks, so they were our first choice. We were just about to call them, when it occurred to me that a quick search of their name in Google might turn up some reviews. It did. We found a consumer scam report and their Better Business Bureau (BBB) listing where the "Big B" (that's what I call them in my head) gave them a "C" rating and listed that they had received over 24 unresolved complaints in the last 3 years.
Appalled, we looked up the other companies and they were all the same. One even had a "D" rating from the BBB (for slicing their clients up and burying them in the desert, one can only presume). There's an entire industry of scam movers out there and they've somehow tapped into these professional looking websites that let you fill out your information and get quotes from multiple companies at the same time.
To understand how these people can possibly continue to operate without getting thrown in jail you have to realize that the moving industry gives an estimated price over the phone, by taking their "per cubic foot" rate and multiplying it by the average number of cubic feet they think an apartment like yours would take. The final, real price of the move is measured by how much room in the truck you really use -- which of course they don't know for sure until it's already loaded. Since they're in charge of packing the truck, you can pretty much assume that they'll be fitting the furniture together in there however they want to take up the most room. One could say, slide a sofa in diagonally and crossways, then cover it with a mattress to inflate the move by $500. If you took them to court, they could always say that it's not their fault that you're a consumer whore.
In the extensive research I've done on scams (i.e. watching the movies CONfidence, Matchstick Men, and Ocean's Eleven), one of the basic rules of a scam is to instill a sense of urgency in the mark. Moving is perfect for that. This is my eigth move, the second with movers, and the first cross-country (well, I think it's cross-country, but it's really just across two states), there's no way I'm not going to be feeling some urgency about the whole thing.
So what happens when you've hired a scam mover, they've locked your stuff in the truck, and then some guy comes back with a revised bill? Your options are this point are (a.) to fire them; tell them to unload your stuff back into the apartment, and wait until Monday to find a real moving company, however you would then forfeit your moving deposit (half of the estimated cost of the move), and probably anger your landlord who planned to spend that weekend pissing your security deposit away on $50 light bulbs and booze, or (b.) you realize that you're screwed and spend an hour trying to find a magical combination of credit cards which collectively have enough available credit to pay half of the revised charges as required in the contract.
As I was writing this last paragraph, the phone rang, voicemail kicked over, and Millenium Moving just left another message. Millenium Moving it turns out is famous. They had a story featuring them in the La Cross Tribune titled: Buyer, beware: Web-based moving has perils.
Yesterday afternoon, at the last minute, we kicked them all to the curb and found a new moving company, Powerhouse Movers, also famous for being mentioned in a newspaper. This time though it was the Wall Street Journal who mentioned them in an article titled: Movers, Not Shakers (sorry, no link -- paper only) where they're quoted as being an aggressive young firm that gets 100% of their bids and are more than willing to go the extra mile, even babysitting your dog in the front of the truck if necessary. Plus, they have a "B" rating at the Better Business Bureau. They're not cheap, but I think we have a winner.
Let this be a cautionary tale in how things might have gone wrong, and the next time that a friend of yours mentions that they're moving, tell them our story, and make stabbing motions with scissors.
(Originally inflicted with full presence of mind on my blog [available at CaptainOftheInternet.com])
My wife and I have a gay hairdresser named Joe (I say "have" because we keep him locked in a steamer trunk). When we were last in his salon, getting $30 haircuts and listening to his latest exploits, he asked us off-handedly if we were renting a U-Haul for our upcoming move to Seattle from Los Angeles.
My wife said, "No. We're hiring movers."
Embarassed about not being willing to load a truck myself, I added, "We have a 300 pound pinball machine and live upstairs." Toward the end of that sentance, my voice was getting shrill and woman-like. I finished in a hysterical squeak, "The new apartment is on the second floor too!"
Joe stopped cutting my hair. He said, "Whatever you do, check the movers out. I have a client, and the movers showed up at the new house and refused, refused--", he made vicious stabbing motions with his scissors, "-- to deliver their furniture unless they paid them two thousand dollars more, right there on the spot."
Eyeing the scissors, I said carefully, "My God, that's horrible."
"They kept their belongings hostage!" Joe said, then an eerie calm went over him and he resumed cutting my hair, "You know what though? My client was really smart. She went into the back of the house, to talk it over with her husband, you know? And they called the cops on their cell phone, then kept them busy until the cops showed up.
"Whatever you do, check your movers out," and he changed the subject.
For the rest of the story to make sense, you need to realize that I had forgotten this conversation.
Nearly a month later, my wife took it upon herself to get some bids for our move from different websites on the web. Luckily, I didn't have any part in this, because (1.) I'm a sucker and believe what people say, (2.) she seemed willing to take charge, and (3.) I was pretending I was busy with work.
We started getting calls with quotes.
Now I just have to say that somehow I was under the impression that physical labor was cheap and now I'm a little more enlightened. If you're ever in a situation where you need to hire movers, you should first seriously consider if it would be cheaper to throw your furniture away and buy new stuff later when you really need it.
Back to my story, suddenly life was getting really bizarre. These moving companies, that gave us quotes, called us back daily, hounding us, wanting us to make a decision over the phone. ("They're real go-getters!" I told my wife, cheerfully).
One company, Millenium Move and Storage, called us no less than twenty times over the next few weeks; sometimes they called multiple times per day. Another company, Victory something something Moving, with a blocked numer (the cads!) called us at least a dozen times themselves. A third company, United Express Moving Systems, wouldn't leave my wife's cell phone alone once they found out that she was in Seattle looking at apartments with her mother; I think they were excited that she didn't have a logical man around to make decisions for her.
My wife returned to town and gradually, passive-aggressively, we just stopped answering the phone. Everything went to voicemail. We couldn't trust the Caller ID and it's four visible numbers.
Yesterday though, waking in a panic, I realized that if I bought milk now, it would expire after we moved (that's how I tell time.) And so we started actually looking into which company we were going to choose. United Express Moving Systems gave us the cheapest quote for moving at about $2,500, and sent us all sorts of fancy literature with pictures of their trucks, so they were our first choice. We were just about to call them, when it occurred to me that a quick search of their name in Google might turn up some reviews. It did. We found a consumer scam report and their Better Business Bureau (BBB) listing where the "Big B" (that's what I call them in my head) gave them a "C" rating and listed that they had received over 24 unresolved complaints in the last 3 years.
Appalled, we looked up the other companies and they were all the same. One even had a "D" rating from the BBB (for slicing their clients up and burying them in the desert, one can only presume). There's an entire industry of scam movers out there and they've somehow tapped into these professional looking websites that let you fill out your information and get quotes from multiple companies at the same time.
To understand how these people can possibly continue to operate without getting thrown in jail you have to realize that the moving industry gives an estimated price over the phone, by taking their "per cubic foot" rate and multiplying it by the average number of cubic feet they think an apartment like yours would take. The final, real price of the move is measured by how much room in the truck you really use -- which of course they don't know for sure until it's already loaded. Since they're in charge of packing the truck, you can pretty much assume that they'll be fitting the furniture together in there however they want to take up the most room. One could say, slide a sofa in diagonally and crossways, then cover it with a mattress to inflate the move by $500. If you took them to court, they could always say that it's not their fault that you're a consumer whore.
In the extensive research I've done on scams (i.e. watching the movies CONfidence, Matchstick Men, and Ocean's Eleven), one of the basic rules of a scam is to instill a sense of urgency in the mark. Moving is perfect for that. This is my eigth move, the second with movers, and the first cross-country (well, I think it's cross-country, but it's really just across two states), there's no way I'm not going to be feeling some urgency about the whole thing.
So what happens when you've hired a scam mover, they've locked your stuff in the truck, and then some guy comes back with a revised bill? Your options are this point are (a.) to fire them; tell them to unload your stuff back into the apartment, and wait until Monday to find a real moving company, however you would then forfeit your moving deposit (half of the estimated cost of the move), and probably anger your landlord who planned to spend that weekend pissing your security deposit away on $50 light bulbs and booze, or (b.) you realize that you're screwed and spend an hour trying to find a magical combination of credit cards which collectively have enough available credit to pay half of the revised charges as required in the contract.
As I was writing this last paragraph, the phone rang, voicemail kicked over, and Millenium Moving just left another message. Millenium Moving it turns out is famous. They had a story featuring them in the La Cross Tribune titled: Buyer, beware: Web-based moving has perils.
Yesterday afternoon, at the last minute, we kicked them all to the curb and found a new moving company, Powerhouse Movers, also famous for being mentioned in a newspaper. This time though it was the Wall Street Journal who mentioned them in an article titled: Movers, Not Shakers (sorry, no link -- paper only) where they're quoted as being an aggressive young firm that gets 100% of their bids and are more than willing to go the extra mile, even babysitting your dog in the front of the truck if necessary. Plus, they have a "B" rating at the Better Business Bureau. They're not cheap, but I think we have a winner.
Let this be a cautionary tale in how things might have gone wrong, and the next time that a friend of yours mentions that they're moving, tell them our story, and make stabbing motions with scissors.