Personal Experience with Movers (Baltimore: sales, neighborhood, price)

[KennyP]

Of course I plan on reading the regular citysearch/yelp/yahoo, etc reviews, but I'm hoping for more detailed anecdotes.

Please share any advice you have with >local< movers. We may only be moving a few blocks, or a neighborhood.

Goal: Someone who won't pocket stuff, break stuff, or spend all day smoking outside instead of carrying heavy things.

[atariwhizkid]

There's apparently a legendary company called Bill's Moving (or something close to that). No idea what the phone number is, but apparently the guy is great.

[Bong477]

I used a "company" called ultralabor I found off craigslist. They were supposed to show up with 3 movers, but instead showed up with 1. Eventually a second guy showed up, he had left his cell phone in the bar he was boozing at the night before and forgot the address. Never saw the third guy. I'm pretty sure one of the two guys threw up in the middle of moving.

I ended up doing a lot of the lifting myself. Wouldn't use them again obviously.

[helenejen]

A to Z movers: http://www.atozmoversinc.com/. FABULOUS!!! I wish I had known about them for my last move. With my last move, I used Baltimore Storage Co., which is associated with Mayflower. The quote was for $525; I ended up paying $2100. *RICKS!

[emsgoof]

Regardless of who you go with, be aware of how the pricing is done. Normally a sales person will come out for an estimate, which they will lowball (sometimes quite a bit!) Then, if you've selected the option, a crew will come out a few days before and pack your stuff (the bigger companies do this). The day of the move, the crew will load your stuff, then go out to a scale to weigh the load. You pay by the weight normally, so the actual weight is what counts, NOT what the sales person estimated (just to get the sale).
My father has been VP of Operations for a large moving company for a long time, and I worked for him as a mover for a summer. I saw the difference in quote vs. actual rate many, many times. Be sure if you're getting a quoted rate, you get some sort of guarantee that you won't be paying a lot more (normally a percentage difference).
My recommendation would be to go with a bigger company (Allied, Mayflower, United, Interstate), rather than a small "mom and pop" type of company, as they'll have more people available for crews, and you won't have the type of situation described above with people not showing up.

[KennyP]

I've just finished a cross country move, and done the research on big box movers. The bigger companies just contract right back to the local mom&pop. You're not getting any more service from them, other than a series of phone numbers that might get answered.

This is an in-town move. It's unlikely they are going to drive to a scale, weigh, and then head to the destination.

[cmcgill]

I recently used Hamden Moving and Storage, and had a great experience with my long-distance move from Baltimore. They are one of the top Mayflower agents in the country.

A very useful website is Moving: How to avoid Moving Company Scams
There, you'll find a list of moving companies in MD, with customer reviews and other info. On that website, I found great reviews for Hamden and several other local companies.

About pricing -- any reputable moving company will give you a binding estimate in writing -- i.e. you are guaranteed not to pay more than the quoted price. If the weight of your things is LESS than the estimated weight, the price is lowered. If the weight of your things is MORE than the estimated weight, that's the moving company's problem. In my move with Hamden, my things actually weighed about 400lbs less than their estimate, so I paid less than the quoted price.

Good Luck!