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As the subject says, we recently had a full service mover basically refuse our move, and I was wondering if anyone ever had a similar experience.
Here's the background: We are moving in May or June from SoCal to north Idaho, about 1,400 miles. It's a big move - they have our weight estimated at over 15k pounds. I did research on line for reviews of local movers, and the three that seemed to have the best reviews all turned out to be United Van Lines agents. So, I contact all three to get estimates.
I have estimates from two of them (more on the third later). When they came to our house neither expressed any concern about their company's willingness to handle our move, but a few days afterwards we got a call from one of them explaining that the only way they would do our move is before the end of March or after mid-November, basically when it's winter at our destination. We are not going to move during that time, so they are out for us. It seemed the issue was they thought they wouldn't have any moves coming in the opposite direction. It's hard to believe they wouldn't have something coming out of Seattle or Portland coming back this way, but that's what she said. The company is a fairly large national agent for United Van Lines, which makes it even more difficult to understand why they would refuse our business.
The other mover, also a United Van Lines agent has no problem with our move. One possibility I was wondering about was whether there is some mechanism behind the scenes where multiple agents for the same national company don't compete with each other. The company that's OK with the move happened to be the first one to give us an estimate.
As for the third company, I've called twice, got dumped into voicemail by the receptionist both times, and have not had a call back. I've crossed them off our list since it seems they don't want our business.
After these three the reviews for other agents in our area dropped off pretty steeply, so I'm not really interested in any other companies.
A little bit of a rant, but I would be interested in whether anyone else has ever had a similar experience.
If it were me, I would cut back until I could get everything into a large U-Haul truck, and move myself.
The only time I have used a commercial mover was for military moves.
All the moves I have made as a civilian (several, in fact) were made using my own truck and trailer or a rental truck. I actually saved money in comparison to what a commercial mover would have charged!
One of my sons encountered the same thing when moving fro Central CA to Northern NV. It was MUCH cheaper to rent a large trailer for the first load, then make several trips to finish up the move, than it was to hire a professional moving company to make the move in one trip!
Moving vans are huge, so the typical house probably won't even take up the whole van. So, they like to combine moves and I supposed they'd like some business coming back.
I'm not sure how big 15,000 pounds is, but maybe you could do it yourself? Rent the biggest truck UHaul has and hire people at each end to load/unload.
If it were me, I would cut back until I could get everything into a large U-Haul truck, and move myself.
The only time I have used a commercial mover was for military moves.
All the moves I have made as a civilian (several, in fact) were made using my own truck and trailer or a rental truck. I actually saved money in comparison to what a commercial mover would have charged!
One of my sons encountered the same thing when moving fro Central CA to Northern NV. It was MUCH cheaper to rent a large trailer for the first load, then make several trips to finish up the move, than it was to hire a professional moving company to make the move in one trip!
That's not an option for us. We have some very high quality furniture, and it doesn't make any sense to sell and buy it again. I have a full woodworking shop, and it as much as it will cost to move, it would cost more to buy all those machines again. And at 60 years old I'm not playing the load everything in a UHaul truck game again.
I know it costs more to use a full service mover, but the two estimates we have are both within the amount we have budgeted for the move.
I am still curious whether anyone else has had a full service mover decline their business.
Location: Los Angeles>Little Rock>Houston>Little Rock
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I never have. My longest move was from Los Angeles to Arkansas. After that two moves from Little Rock to Houston and then back to Little Rock. I used North American Van Lines for all three.
Moving vans are huge, so the typical house probably won't even take up the whole van. So, they like to combine moves and I supposed they'd like some business coming back.
I'm not sure how big 15,000 pounds is, but maybe you could do it yourself? Rent the biggest truck UHaul has and hire people at each end to load/unload.
UHaul's largest truck (the 26 footer) holds about 7,100 pounds, and 1,600 cubic feet. We are closer to 20,000 pounds, and they have the volume estimated at almost 3,000 cubic feet. A UHaul truck isn't going to work for us.
My understanding is we'll use most or all of a large moving truck, and they will use a smaller truck to shuttle our stuff to/from the large truck at both ends because they can't get the large truck in to our house at either end of the move.
I do have one mover who is willing to do the move, and they have great reviews on line, and I like the guy so far, so this isn't about finding a different approach, but rather trying to understand why one United agent is OK with the move and another United agent says "no-thanks."
It must be that they'd rather not drive an empty van back home.
That's basically what they indicated. What I don't understand is why they think they can't/won't find a move from the Seattle or Portland area, which aren't too far away from our destination. With the big national movers I would have thought they could easily find other moves to put the truck/drivers on. It's especially curious because the agent that declined to move is part of a nation-wide United Van Lines agent. They have about 25 locations around the country, including one in Seattle.
Have you checked to see if you could use the ABF trailers, hiring some quality movers to do the loading and unloading? Or if you were willing, you could be the loader/unloader (with many helpers). This is the way we have moved cross-country without any problems.
I've looked into ABF, and that would potentially be a cheaper alternative. The problem I have with that approach is that there is no way to insure the contents. Since you load the trailer, or pay day laborers to load the trailer, there is nobody who will accept responsibility for damage to the contents in transit. As I said a few posts back, we have some very high quality furniture, and I'd rather have someone on the hook for making sure it arrives undamaged, and who has the experience and knowledge of how to handle those items so they aren't damaged in transit.
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