Residential 1 Moving Services

Review: After interviewing four local moving companies, we chose Residential 1 Moving Services because of their honest and hardworking claims. The following were all claims they promised that they did not follow up with: 1. They did not own their own trucks as the owner claimed 2. They did not employ their own movers (all subcontracted) 3. They underestimated our pounds of items to be moved and accused us of adding 4000 pounds on moving day 4. We were promised 2 extra large trucks and the move would take less then 10 hours. 1 small and 1 medium truck arrived and the move started at 9AM and ended at 11:30PM. 5. We were also promised that all lamps and hanging pictures (which is a service we paid extra for) would be properly packaged in boxes and crates. Nothing was packed in crates. My lamps were all thrown in a a large crate and pictures were wrapped in packing paper and put carelessly between items on the truck. Our flat screen TV was wrapped in 2 moving blankets and put between mattresses which was the #1 thing we had asked to be crated. We did not receive the services that we paid for. The owner was extremely unprofessional and difficult on moving day. I had to ask him to get off my property or I would call the police after he was yelling and swearing at my husband (we have small children) at 10:30 at night that we added pounds to our items to be moved. He would not open the trucks to unload our items until we paid him in full. We eventually paid him just to get him off of our property. All of the movers, highly disliked him and had terrible things to say about this management and former moves. The owner also yelled at his contracted workers when leaving the property and they claimed they would never work for him again. This was a terrible experience. We had 5 rather expensive items damaged/broken, including a very large slit in our king sized [redacted] mattress. The owner still has not replied in processing our insurance claim, which we paid for up front.Desired Settlement: As you read in the complaint description, we had a terrible experience with this company. At this point we want the five items fixed that we emailed the owner to file with insurance and included pictures that were all taken the night of the move. We paid for their insurance program and [redacted] (the owner) is not returning our emails. Please advise us on our next step.

Business

Response:

Dear [redacted],To the best of my ability, this is our take on what happened. We only honor claims when all monies are received by a customer. The following explains everything about the move and how/where we are today.1) Owning of trucks. That is a false statement. 1 of the trucks was owned by us. I offered to show the home owner the registration of the 17ftr the evening of his unload in front of his house. The other was a rental. We had issues with another truck that morning, so our backup is to go to [redacted] or [redacted] Rentals. All movers have a back up, knowing that the shipment must go from point A to B.2} Our guys work for us. We are not a company that is busy all month, so if they need to work elsewhere, they are free to put food on their tables. All of our guys who work for us are the same guys who work for us today.3)We did not underestimate the weight of the shipment. We had an agreement to move 16,000lbs. The customer claims we under estimated everything by 4,000lbs. The shipment was actually 31,0001 bs. Most of the basement and a very large shed weren't supposed to go. Also, when I got to the homeowners home and looked inside the large truck, I noticed that none of it was packed. The home owner was responsible for packing up the home. We were only responsible for packing up the kitchen. That was only 1-2 hours of packing. If you load 1 26ftr, which is what we brought, you can fit 10,000-ll,000lbs. in it. The 17ftr. can do up to 5,500lbs in it. That was plenty of trucks for the job. We loaded both trucks to the gill 2 times totaling 31,000lbs without charging the customer more than the original amount quoted.4)We brought 1 large 25ftr to the job=ll,000lbs total when loaded, and 117ftr to the job=5,000lbs to the job. Our agreement was to move 16,000lbs, not 31,000lbs. We moved 31,000lbs and that was why were out so late, but we did not charge the customer for any more money, they disagreed to pay.5} When we moved the customer, out of 31,00lbs, only 5 items had damage. In our world, that is a very successful move. The customer is complaining about his opinion of how the move went and we could explain our side as well, but the end result was, there were 5 items damaged out of 31,000lbs and that is a great move! Especially when we did not bill him for the extra 16,000lbs we weren't supposed to move. Movers often place pictures and other flat items between mattresses. It is a great way to pad them and they are turned the correct way. Again, 31,000lbs and 5 items. We heavily padded the lamps and box shielded the tv's. Unless he has a picture showing me otherwise, there is no damage to the tv, nor the pictures.The items they claim were damaged were 1 mattress with tears to 2 spots. Not expensive to fix, Dining room chair has a chip on 1 piece broken, not expensive to fix, shattered mirror. This item was 1 of the last items to be taken off the truck the homeowner decided to take it off himself and dropped it in front of one of the guys. Fabric headboard-stain on it. Not expensive to fix. Cardboard, thin, similar to most backings of bookcases, very cheap, 1 has a hole in it. Probably worth $5.00.These are all that they claimed. They bashed me on [redacted], also saying that we left several holes in the walls. There was only 1 hole in the wall and again, the home owner did that himself while trying to move a piece of furniture. They did not provide pictures or any other proof of damage to the home.Our version of what happened and we preface that we moved 31,000lbs not 20,000lbs. with minimal damage to 5 items, 1 of which the home owner caused himself. We had a deal to move 16,000lbs, but moved 31,000lbs. That is considered a successful move in our industry.We set up a deal with the customer to move 16,000lbs. We were responsible for also packing the kitchen. The deposit was set up with a credit card, but the final payment was set up with the customer via certified check, since we don't accept personal funds and the home owner knew that and got the certified check the morning of the move. I talked with the wife directly. The packing was lagging, but it was only 2 hours of the entire day and we were attending to immediate matters at hand. The homeowner indicated that we needed to move little [redacted]'s room over, as he is a special needs kid. We successfully did that.Approximately 1:00pm I received a cail from 3 of my guys stating that 1 need to talk with the home owner and that he is yelling at everyone. They couldn't calm him down, I took the last call from one of my guys at approximately 1:22pm and hung up at approximately 1:37pm. The phone rang again at approximately 1:38pm and it was the customer.As ! answered the phone, [redacted]-(husband) was already yelling at me and cursing. I tried to calm him down 4 times, as he proceeded to blow up each time I made a suggestion as to how to fix the situation. He was yelling at me because the kitchen wasn’t packed up yet, and did not want to pay for the move. I let him know in a calm manner that if he had no intentions of paying us for the move that we would kindly lock up our trucks and head back to the office. I also let him know, that it was standard practice to not unload the last 2 trucks and collect payment prior to unloading. This is a very common practice in our business and why the residential moving division is nicknamed COD.At that point, the guys finished the job. At around 8:30pm I got a weird feeling that we were not going to get paid and that the shipment wasn't going right, I called one of my guys and asked him what was going on and he said they had to go back and fill up both trucks again, which was not our agreement. There were several items in the basement and they had a huge basement that wasn't supposed to go and a very large 12x10 shed that wasn't supposed to go. The home owner also did not complete their end of the packing, which made the shipment grow in the trucks.I was on my drive home to [redacted], WV and the home owner lived in [redacted], approximately 1 hours and 20 minutes away. Since I talked with my guy and suspected something was wrong I decided to turn around and drive to the customer's house. Upon arriving, I approached my project manager to provide me with our copy of the paperwork. The customer gave my project manager a personal check and had our certified check in the house. His intention was to not pay us for our work and cancel the personal check in the am.Only after I asked the home owner 3 times where our money was, the last time I told him that he could kindly explain to my guys why they weren’t getting paid for their work and he went in and grabbed the certified check and came back out to provide it to me. Please keep in mind that we agreed on moving 16,000lbs. We ended up moving 31,0001bs and did not charge the customer for the extra weight.At any rate, while disputing things with the customer that weren't factors, and the move was successfully being performed, each time I dis agreed with the customer, he blew up, yelled, cursed, and 1 time, he smacked the paperwork against his head in front of me, while yelling. When his wife came out to confront me about the yelling and cursing, I pointed at her husband and said he was the one who was doing all that. Then she said to me, "well, I would be too!"At the end, the only thing I explained to my guys was that we don't unload until we get paid. This is customary in our business.The customer did not sign our final paperwork, job ticket, change order, final bill of lading. They kept our copy of the paperwork and I barely received the payment.I talked with the home owner about paying the extra $3,000.00 for moving twice as much and he also refused.At the end of the day, the husband kept blowing up. All along the move was going successful. He kept blowing up about the kitchen, the guys not working for us, the trucks. That's all he was really complaining about. We moved twice as much weight as agreed to, he would not sign any change order, which with what we moved, it should have been an additional $3,000.00 for this move, did not give me back our copy of the paperwork. Job ticket, change order, final Bill of Lading-The bill of lading is the legal document that follows a shipment. When the customer signs it and we have a copy of it with their signature, it denotes that they have received the shipment. We don't have any of that paperwork from the customer. We also had 4 floor runners to protect floors with. They cost approximately $35.00 each. The customer still has those.So at the end of the day, we moved 31,00lbs. and there were only 5pcs with damage which we would've been willing to fix, but the customer won't give us our copy of the paperwork signed, nor pay us for the extra work we performed, and bashed us when we performed a highly successful move for them, and now wants some things fixed and tried to not pay us. So we refused to do that until they sign a change order, the rest of our paperwork and provide us with the additional monies for the job.Let me know how I can be of further assistance.Respectfully