Dear Consumers and CitySearch Staff.
As always in our industry, there tends to be two sides to every story. You heard the client’s side, here is ours, we let you be the judges. First of all, any time we schedule the move, we specifically tell the clients that they are being charged for actual hours worked, and actual packing materials used. This same information is provided throughout our contract. The move is scheduled, only when we have customer’s signed contract and signed deposit payment authorization on file. It is the client’s responsibility to READ the contract thoroughly and ask any questions that they may have. When we receive a signed contract back from the client, it is our assumption that the client READ the contract, understood it, and agreed to all of its terms. Based on the information provided by this customer they were given a quote for 3 workers, 3 hours work 1 hour travel MINIMUM, customer spoke with Marc and asked about packing 1 TV, so Marc added $50 for estimated packing to cover the TV. No other packing was discussed and as always, Marc told the customer that they are paying for actual hours worked and actual packing materials used. The total move took 4 hours of work and 1 hour of travel (customer got charged for 3 hours of work and 1 hour of travel because we were trying to work with her budget). Also there was $147.00 worth of packing materials used. The original ESTIMATE was for $370. The total price for the move (including 1 hour discount given to the customer) was $467.00 (the total price without discount would have been $547.00).
Now to answer the complaints:
The customer was scheduled for arrival between 4pm and 6pm; the crew arrived around 5:30pm, ON TIME within the scheduled window. We were actually having an issue with the truck earlier in the day and had to call the customer to see if the move could be moved to the next day, thankfully we were able to get another crew to the customer on time. The customer was NOT charged for late hours, since technically we were NOT late. The clock started when our crew arrived at pick-up location.
The customer says that we charge to wrap furniture. Of course we do, and the contract that the customer signed specifically says that. The customer had a lot of nice furniture and glass pieces, when we were told by the customer that she/he did not want to pay for packing materials, we gave them an option to sign the waiver, in which case we would wrap their pieces with blankets and not use proper packing. This would not apply to glass pieces as blankets do not provide sufficient protection to prevent damage, not to mention if the glass would break, someone could get injured. We must err on the side of caution.
Also, we offered the client to just move their large pieces in order to avoid additional time that the move would take, and additional charges for packing materials in order to save the customer money; customer declined this option.
Customer says that we couldn’t put their furniture back together. The problem is the time it takes to do it; the customer did not want to pay for that time.
Regarding the damage that the customer claims occurred, we have not received any claims from the customer. If we received a claim, we would address it according to our insurance.
Something to consider: When asked if the customer has read the contract the customer specified that they did not. How can you sign a contract without reading it first? When Jerry spoke with the customer and abided by the terms of the contract all of the sudden he became unprofessional etc. Are we wrong for following the terms of the contract signed by the customer? In the future we recommend that the customer in question reads everything prior to signing, this way they will avoid many problems in their future.
more