Beware moving company in Colorado Springs (fit in, rent, insurance)

[Cassaundra1000]

If you choose to use Arrow Moving and Storage in Colorado Springs, beware. The experience was horrendous.
The company had to pack our household items, store them, and then deliver them. It was always in their possession and this is what happened:
1. Part of My husband's chemical gear was packed with the kitchen items
2. They lost three pieces of military gear
3. I had a 5 gallon see through tote full of shoes; the tote arrived, no shoes
4. Lost almost all pieces of a 16 piece set of dishes
5. Had items delivered broken and dented
6. Missing TV trays, kitchen items etc...

we have been in the military for years and has items missing here and there while understanding how a box could get misplaced etc...I would rather rent a train of pack mules than ever use this moving company again. Patrick, the person who comes out to do the estimates is a wonderful person but our experience with the company was not good.

[Mike from back east]

Such horror stories were/are common with military PCS moves as congress requires the DOD to use both competitive bidding processes and use the lower bidders to save money. I was in that business back in the late 1970s with the Army agency (MTMC, now SDDC) that oversaw the entire worldwide business of PCS moves. Even then we were spending over $1B a year for moving and storage.

Some of the horror stories we heard were:
- people's new couches arriving filthy after a year in storage; it was used in the break room of the moving company
- people's 88-inch sofa was too long to fit in a type-2 overseas container; it arrived sawed in half
- people's goods being sold off the back of moving vans along the roadsides after the low bidder firms didn't pay the drivers

Our agency tried to implement a methodology for scoring carrier performance so we could kick bad actors out of the program. The very next morning our 2-star CG had FIFTY congressional complaints on his desk. The moving industry sued us in court to stop implementation. Our Army lawyers fought back the the industry's case was thrown out of court by Judge Greene, the same judge who broke up the AT&T monopoly. We were in court with the industry many times, and we won every case. Still, bad actors get into the business and make a mess of it.

IIRC, service members, at their own expense, can take out insurance for the full value of their goods to be moved. That goes a long way to assuring you either get your goods or you get full restitution. Otherwise, IIRC, you get about $1.25 per pound for busted / missing stuff, e.g., for 20 pounds of missing shoes you'd get $25 for your thousand dollars worth of shoes.

If the DOD still allows a Do It Yourself (DITY) move for PCS within CONUS, that's what I'd do if at all possible.