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How to avoid moving scams

Posted on November 17th, 2011 No Comments

The following tips and advice can help you reduce the stress of moving your household to another city or state. First and most importantly, choose a professional moving company that can prove it is legitimate. The movers should come into your home and see how much there will be to move, and they need to visually inspect your household items in order to make an estimate.

Moving companies that do not write up an estimate are not legitimate, since this is a necessary first step in the moving process. Second, the movers should not require any down payment or deposit of any kind. This is the mark of a scammer—asking or pressuring the customer into believing that a down payment is part of the move. It is not. How are you to know that they will deliver your boxes and furniture once they have your money?

There are thousands of people who have fallen victim to this scam—they give the moving company money before the move and either never see that company, or their things, again, or the scammers show up at the new house asking for more money than the original amount that was quoted to the customer. In effect, they hold the customer’s furniture hostage, until their demands are met, which is illegal, but happens all the time. You can prevent this by making sure you know the moving company’s reputation, their physical address, their web site and their telephone numbers.

They must also have the right certificated and licenses. Ask for their DOT and MC license numbers. It is also helpful to research the company to see if there are any published complaints about them by previous customers and if so, what type of problems they encountered. Check with the Better Business Bureau as well. From local movers to car moving companies you must always look into their business before choosing them.

One more red flag that can help you to avoid being scammed by a moving company is if they advertise much lower rates than every other company that you have checked into. They may try to lure customers with attractive pricing, but a legitimate mover will always offer an estimate based on actual market values for their services, since there is a lot of competition among movers. If you find a mover and do not have much information about them, you can always check them out by searching the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration, (FTCSA), at www.fmcsa.dot.gov.

It is smart to visit a site like moversquote.org to get free mover quotes and compare them as the movers are pre-screened and licensed.

The guest post is provided by MoversQuote.Org.

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Hiring a trustworthy moving company

Posted on October 29th, 2011 No Comments

This articles was provided as a guest post by LowCostMovers.Org, moving portal of licensed and insured companies.

How do you find movers who can be trusted with your family’s treasured possessions? Look for cheap moving companies that are well-established and have offices all over the U.S. Check out the statistics regarding the number of satisfied customers they have served, and find out how many shipments they move each year. It pays to thoroughly investigate the moving company and know how many years they have been in business, too. Some other questions to ask are: how many drivers and vans do they have? Are all of their drivers certified, bonded and insured? Are the drivers required to pass stringent background checks as well? Have they been properly trained? Does the moving company ever hire subcontractors? If so, are those subcontractors also held to the highest professional standards? Are the subcontractors bonded? If not, then you might not want to hire that particular moving company.

If you need full service moving companies, make sure that the company provides packing, unpacking, storage, clean up, and any other services you require. Check into the amount and type of insurance that the moving company has, since that can vary greatly from one company to another, and you want to be sure that your movers have the best, most comprehensive insurance in case any of your belongings are lost or damaged during the move. Minimum insurance coverage, which is required by Department of Transportation law, might not be sufficient in all situations. Inspect the moving vans and trucks to be sure that they all have the company logo and are clean and look well-maintained. Keep a record of the mover’s DOT and MC license numbers. There is also a law that many customers may not be familiar with, which requires that the movers provide you with a booklet called, “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move”. Read it before you move so you do not have any unanswered questions or concerns, and so you are not surprised by anything regarding your rights if there is a problem with the move or with filing a claim if necessary.

Keeping detailed lists of every box and item that you are moving, and take photographs of every antique and other object of particular value to you, to have peace of mind and know that you have done all you can to make your move easier.

Posted in Before You Move, Moving scams

Moving company reviews. Legit or not?

Posted on June 20th, 2011 1 Comment

Moving company reviews are just part of what help a customer make a decision to choose your company over another. Just a sprinkle of bad reviews within a few good ones can tip the scale for a moving business that would either have customers ready to call you to negotiate their move or simply go to another company.

The thing about these moving company reviews is that they all should be taken with a grain of salt for many reasons. One such reason is the legitimacy of these reviews that are posted on some of these websites. If a moving company review section is laced with nothing short of glowing comments, it does not always mean that the company may be the right one for you or that the comments are even factual. In this world where moving companies are vying for your attention, they can do just about anything to woo you, even if it means producing information that is less than factual.

Having observed how other non-moving company reviews work, most of them use bribe tactics to get customers (and sometimes non-customers) to say good things about their company. Just recently on a popular social network, there was actually a burgeoning clothing store that was soliciting people to go over and say nice things about the company in order to win one of three designer bags.  Of course the influx of reviews was phenomenal; the winners got their bags and the company reviews remain online to woo unsuspected buyers.

A week later, one of the reviewers had made her first transaction with the company and needless to say the service was so bad that she had to cancelled her order. Ultimately there was no way she could retract her first statement; the owner would not let her on the website to do so.

Taking all the aforementioned into perspective, it tells you a lot about how careful we ought to be when we start reading moving company reviews. Moving experts would tell you pay particular attention to the bad reviews and seek out consistencies. For instance, if a few customers are claiming that a particular moving company always shows up late or that the movers were unprofessional, then this would mean that you should look elsewhere.

Similarly, if there is nothing but sugar flowing from one moving company’s reviews, be mindful of the “too good to be true” axiom. In preparation for this article, we actually had one of our readers contact us to say that they signed up for an Internet company without reading the online reviews. It was after placing their order by phone they did their research only to find out that the problems with the Internet company from subscribers were so bad that a website was actually created for negative feedback. The reader said he tried to cancel his subscription after reading the reviews but was told that the device was already on its way and he could mail it back. He said that he decided to hook up the device when he received it and he has not have any problems with it since receiving it some six months ago.

Case in point: make a wise decision about the moving company that you choose after reading reviews. It’s one that moving experts refer to as taking an “educated risk.” Also remember that while great comments may appear on the company’s main website, do a little more digging and researching for the company; you may find customers complaining about them at other websites.

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Reputable moving companies

Posted on May 11th, 2011 3 Comments

Good moving companies are indeed hard to find; the same goes for packing companies as well. It seems like they all advertise how great their companies are, some even brag about their effective service. Unless you know someone who has personally been one of their customers, you just can’t settle for idle boast. The good thing is that there are indeed reputable moving companies out there and we have the skinny on what it would take for you to find them.

What sets a reputable company apart from the newcomers and scammers is the way that they do business and how they treat customers. For instance you would know that you are dealing with a company that is above board when they give you a copy of the booklet called “Your Rights and Responsibilities when you Move”.  This booklet has just about everything that you need to know about moving in terms of rules and regulations and it is the type of publication that some moving companies would not want you to see.

A good moving company would also work closely with you and is patient enough to explain everything to you before you sign on the dotted line. Most movers do this in the form of a checklist to determine how much items you have in your home; they may even be able to give you an estimate quote at no cost to you. And speaking of quotes, moving companies that are being run by considerate people would provide you with the different types of quotes so that you can easily make the right one that is suitable for you.

You should choose and stay with a moving company that tells you upfront about the cost of moving plus additional services that you may need. Too often shady and unprofessional movers neglect to tell customers about all the fees upfront so that by the time they are ready to get moved in to their new home, the rats suddenly increase. This evidently forces the customer to pay extra money for the release of their household goods.

A good moving company representative is one who would answer all your questions about all the aspects of your move. Don’t leave the mover’s office until they can show you a copy of the company’s insurance and proof of license as well. Any company that would shy away from giving you these two pertinent information, then you should move on to the next moving company on your list.

 

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How to select a moving company

Posted on July 6th, 2010 No Comments

You owe it to yourself to perform extensive research on every aspect of your move this summer from choosing the right mover to getting detailed information on the neighborhood that you are moving into.

Summertime is no doubt the peak time for moving. It is also the time when new moving companies pop out the woodwork to capitalize on this busy and lucrative moving time. This is usually the season when a lot of people make bad moving choices by going with the first moving company that they hear about without even conducting research on the company; a reasonable fee usually gets the movers the job. Don’t be fooled; not every moving company has your best interest at heart. Most of them are just in the business to make quick and easy money. With that said, be very careful about how you select your moving companies.

One of the first red flags when shopping around for a mover is the response that you would get when you phone the moving company. Moving experts would warn against employing the services of any moving company representative that answers the phone without acknowledging the name of their company. If you call and you hear “movers” on the other line then declare it’s a wrong number and immediately hang up. Not only is it unprofessional it also is clear indication that you may have just dialed into an unregistered moving company.

Even when you start calling what you perceive to be  “legitimate” moving companies and you plan on moving out of state, you should request that they provide you with  an interstate transport license or with their their US Department of Transportation registration number so that you can research the vehicle’s information with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Whether moving in or out of state, The Better Business Bureau (BBB) would be the first place that you should check to get information on your moving company of choice. The BBB  is filled with information about the moving companies and the complaints that were submitted against them from previous customers. What is even more important is that you would also get to see how the moving company chose to resolve the complaint issues.

In addition, insist that your moving company does an inspection of your home to determine an estimated price of what your household items would cost to move. After the house inspection ensure that you get a written estimate for if a company refuses to provide you with such a document, then you should consider another moving company. Finally when moving into a new neighborhood you should call the police department in that area to make sure that the area is a safe and secure one. Also, if a home appear too good to be true, it usually is. We recently learned about someone who got caught up in an apartment rental offer where the first month was free in addition to not having to pay security deposit as well.

With no background or credit check completed, the person was able to secure the apartment which contained  the luxurious amenities that one can possibly think about including spa, tennis courts, pool, club-house and play scape for the children. The only problem: three people were murdered in one of the apartments mere months ago and there were countless burglaries reported as well. The vacant apartments were as a result of people moving out in a hurry after the crimes were committed. This is definitely not the kind of environment you would want to come home to. Checking in at the police department would save you unwanted stress and trouble to get out of a lease later on.

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