Norfolk Movers. Military Veterans Moving Company

We used Norfolk Movers, Military Vets Norfolk Moving Company, owned by *** As a veteran, and as an individual who has worked with and supported many Veteran owned small businesses as a government contractor, I was quickly drawn to their website and his story of having been a homeless vet who turned his life around by starting his own company. It is obvious that his heart is in the right place; social media thrives of his efforts to give back to the community. I admire him for this and wish more people possessed his sense of helping others. However, our experience with his moving company was an absolute nightmare. I was seeking a small company that could provide a personalized, well-planned and well-executed move. Going with a company comprised of military Veterans seemed like a sure choice. I was wrong...very wrong.

Their website says they are always on time, but they were significantly late both days of the move. It says they are well trained; however, they lacked the knowledge to securely load our belongings in a way that protected them. In one instance, Mr. attempted to load a patio table with the weighted umbrella fully attached, dragging the whole works over the concrete patio. Furniture was piled on top of other furniture and rubbing in direct contact. We suffered over *** in damaged items. Fast; not really, during a significant portion of the first day, workers took long smoke breaks and littered our yard with candy wrappers; not very military like, at least not back in my day. It was only late in the day when my wife became highly irritated and they realized they were very behind and began to kick it into high gear, moving quickly without the care necessary for handling household furnishings. From then on they actually worked hard. Part of the problem was that Mr. was one of the three vets we were paying for, and he was on his phone a significant amount of the time dealing with issues with other clients. Since he was doing nearly all of the packing of items in the truck, items were stacking up in the yard and were rained upon. For a significant amount of time he was holding the phone with one hand while dragging furniture with the other. To make matters much worse, he greatly underestimated the cargo space needed and instead of being loaded up on the first day as scheduled, we had to wait for them to arrive, late again, on Day Two with an additional truck. For those of you on a tight schedule for closing on a home, just imagine what this could do to your closing process. Even though he told me earlier that he had a secure place to keep his trucks overnight, he he wanted to keep the first truck parked on the street in front of our house. We said that would be okay if it was locked up, but then found out that he didn't have a lock...he asked if we thought it was necessary and went to buy one when we said we didn't feel comfortable with all of our household goods parked on the street in an unlocked truck . He wanted to charge me for the second truck and when I argued that as a moving professional he should have better estimated the cargo space needed, he said that wasn't his responsibility...it was mine. He then threatened to unload everything and leave. In the end, he agreed and did cover the cost of the second truck, but this resulted in us having to continue loading on Day Two. We arrived at our new home very late in the day and in the end, they had to unload a lot of our household furnishings into the garage for us to move on our own. Some items were stored in the cab of the truck and in the end, after we finished unpacking, we realized that we had lost some very precious belongings, such as artwork our daughter had done many years ago. How items got lost, I don't know, but contrary to military precision, they did not do a shipment manifest ...just loaded and went. There was no way to verify that everything loaded had reached our new home...and not everything did. Mr. Sledge denied that they had lost anything and said that if we had items that were precious, we should have transported it ourselves.

The move was pure chaos. There was absolutely none of the military style precision and attention to detail I had expected and that his website leads you to believe you'll receive. Norfolk Movers, Military Vets Norfolk Moving Company does not have its own trucks. They rent their trucks from companies like *** Nor do they have the necessary blankets and padding to protect furniture...they basically piled it all together and strapped everything together in direct contact. Consequently, we had a very large portion of beautiful furniture scratched, dented, gouged and scraped. For example, we had expensive dressers from *** Furniture. They placed items in the drawers, completely destroying the velour lining in one of them. The fine cherry wood of both dressers was gouged and scratched. Both dressers were in pristine condition, straight from the store prior to this move. Furniture was sitting unprotected on other furniture or rubbing up against other pieces scratching some pieces badly. I have a total of 144 photos that I provided Mr. He required payment for the move immediately upon unloading, promising to pay for any damages that we might discover afterwards. When we sent him the initial estimate, he responded that he required an itemized list of damages. We conducted research to see what it would actually cost to restore the many pieces of wooden furniture that had been damaged. And we found more instances of damage; by the time we finished, the list of damages had tripled in value. His response was he'd visit in two weeks so that he and the movers could verify that it was new damage and that he'd have his handyman fix what had been damaged. Anyone whose ever dealt with an insurance company on damages knows that an individual cannot be forced to use a repair service not of their choosing. We wanted the money to deal with it. We did finally settle with Mr. on a price, but he needed 30 days to come up with the money. Sounds like the company is on shaky ground. Even though I paid him immediately for his work, he requires us to wait 30 days to be reimbursed for our damages. Even though I could really use the money, as I purchased this home to go into retirement, my wife and I have decided instead to post our story and just move on with life. Selling a home, buying a new one and moving are stressful enough without the pain of seeing your belongings get beat up and wrecked, and some irreplaceable items lost. This company's lack of infrastructure, lack of care and dis-organization has created enormous stress and suffering, resulting in my wife being unable to sleep and developing health issues. We hope that this review of our nightmare move will help others to make an informed decision about selecting a mover. Our advice is to use a mover who provides a written estimate based upon what's being moved and how far, not one who charges by the hour. Get in writing what services are being provided and what the mover is responsible for and have the damage claim procedure in writing.