It’s a real problem. Movers can talk all they want about customer service, but for the most part, few people are repeat customers for any given company, so they don’t have much motivation to build up customer loyalty. And once they have all your stuff, what can you do?
About 20 years ago, I moved from one condo to another in the same development, total distance about 100 yards. When they pulled up the truck to the new place, they demanded full payment in cash before they’d unload. They hadn’t said anything about that before and I was stunned. They said if I didn’t have the cash, they’d drive off with all my stuff. I went to an ATM, but the amount they needed was more than my daily withdrawal limit. When I insisted that no one in their office had said I had to pay cash, they agreed to accept the balance on a credit card, but it was late in the day, after the office had closed, and it took a while to arrange. The whole ordeal only lasted a couple of hours, but it was my first experience with the leverage a moving company can have over you.
BTW, in 2018 Colonial offered me a small fraction of the money their mess-up actually cost me, but only if I agreed not to post anything about it on any Web site. I didn’t accept the gag order, but I bet a lot of other people do, so the bad news stories you hear are certainly not the whole picture.
That nightmare move was why I was dreading this move, and why I now feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable about having selected U-Pack instead of a conventional mover. I’ll have to hire local laborers at each end, but we have three days to pack and three to unpack the four cubes I’ve ordered. (I only expect to use three, and won’t have to pay for the fourth if I don’t use it.) I know exactly what I’ll pay for the cubes and moving ($4,400 for three), and have a pretty good idea on the labor (probably less than $1,000 total) and storage costs.
Conventional movers wanted about $10,000, so I should end up paying only about 50-60% of that.