hello everyone! here’s a storytime about my most recent moving experience, which was also the WORST that I’ve experienced so far 😟 just to share some context, my family and I have been moving quite a bit for the past 2 years and for each time, we actually engaged a different mover. The most recent one was by 12MOVE, and here was how it went…
❌ Unclear Quotations
Throughout the entire move, my dad was liaising with the movers through a middleman/point of contact, who was also the salesperson. For privacy reasons, let’s call her as E.
Before the move, we had to send E a list of items/furniture to be transported to the new house. This list was sent and acknowledged by E via WhatsApp. However, on the day of the moving, the movers told us that the list they received was different from what we sent to E and this led to some unhappiness amongst them because the quotation was wrong.
In addition, we also had to prepare a list of bulky items to be disposed because they charged disposal by load/truck space. But because we were unfamiliar with the proper furniture terms, we actually offered for them to come down to check through the disposal items so they could charge us an accurate disposal fee. However, E and her movers team refused to come down, which was totally fine because they weren’t obliged to at all. But this led to a huge confusion on the actual day, when the movers informed us that the furniture disposal list we shared with them was inaccurate e.g. apparently we had to specify our bed frames as STORAGE frames which had a higher disposal fee 🤷🏻♀️ but of course in our amateur POV, we didn’t know we had to & how to specify the furniture terms. And because E didn’t view the furniture to be disposed, she charged us an estimated space of 0.5 truck load, but in actual fact all our disposed furniture didn’t even take up 0.5 truck load > which means we were being charged extra for the disposal fee.
Not only that, there was also a huge internal miscommunication between E and the movers in their distance-push quotation (fee for transporting the furniture simply just from the carpark to my new house 🙂). E told us that distance-push was $70/truck, but the movers told us that it was $75/person – who should we believe? And it was just such a short distance from carpark to the lift…we were so confused and felt so cheated because we ended up having to pay way more than what was initially quoted because their words were so different. This is the same as daylight robbery no?
❌ UNPROFESSIONAL & ROUGH HANDLING
This was the worst nightmare ever. I completely understand that these movers have a very tight schedule to follow, but that doesn’t mean that they can just throw things around. One incident was our classical piano. I’m sure everyone knows how fragile piano is and should be handled with extra care – we even engaged them because they claimed that they were “professional in handling piano”. But not only were they careless in their wrapping, they even DROPPED the piano after taking it out from the trolley and there was such a loud thud to the ground that startled my family and I – we witnessed EVERYTHING and even after dropping, the movers just shrugged it off without any apology, and left. And what’s the worst part? We even paid extra for them to transport and handle the piano.
Next came my fridge. As the kitchen entryway is quite narrow, it was honestly difficult for my fridge to pass through the entrance. But instead of adjusting the fridge or taking it off the trolley or call for more help, the mover tried to forcefully push it through the entrance. Seeing this, my dad rushed forward to help and hold the fridge (because there was seriously a lack of manpower), and that was when the fridge toppled and knocked into the storeroom door. We were absolutely SHOOK and STUNNED like a vegetable because this was the first time such a thing happened, and the worst part was the mover ACCUSED my dad for pushing the fridge and knocking it into the door, when my dad was clearly trying to help him. He was absolutely UNAPOLOGETIC, and refused to compensate us for the damage. We ended up having to call E to explain the situation (with the mover still pushing the blame to my dad) and after all the back and forth, they only agreed to compensate us a miserable $30!!!!! 🙂🫠 To be honest, if the mover actually acknowledged or apologised for the mistake, we would have just let it go but his unprofessionalism and attitude totally just made us felt so angry.
Throughout the whole move, they just left all the furniture in the hallway unwrapped, and when we asked if they could help to shift it into the rooms so that more furniture could come in, the movers simply told us that we should unwrap and shift it ourselves because IT’S NOT THEIR JOB. Can you believe it?! This is so ridiculous, because the past few movers that we engaged didn’t even hesitate to help us carry or unwrap the items.
❌ RUDE & BAD ATTITUDE
TBF, if they weren’t so rude and unfriendly the whole time, we would have definitely closed an eye on all the incidents so long as they got the job done. But the main head mover (swipe all the way to the left for his back view >>>) was just plain rude to my dad and as a professional mover service, it was really unacceptable to be showing attitude to a paying customer, even accusing and blaming him for the damage. And my dad even drove down to a nearby market to buy food and drinks for them (not saying that they should feel bad for it because this was just something extra) but yet we receive such unfriendly treatment and even had to pay so much more than what was initially quoted to us.
In the end, my dad didn’t want to make things ugly for E and the movers and decided to just drop the case and paid the amount they quoted us (total added up to ~$1596), but never ever engage them ever again 😤
Despite all these, I do still want to give some benefit of doubt to the movers that they could be really in a rush and such incidents/damages do happen even while they are being careful. But as a service itself, I think they could have definitely been more professional in the way they handled the matter.
So long story short, here’s what I learnt through this moving experience:
✅ DO A PROPER RESEARCH – it’s good to read reviews like these when it comes to deciding on a moving service (we checked their Google reviews afterwards and saw many poor and similar experiences too 🫠). After all, moving is already so stressful and tiring and you definitely want to make this moving process as smooth and fuss-free as possible. Ask around your friends for any reliable contacts – word of mouth is always more trustable!
✅ EVERYTHING SHOULD BE IN BLACK AND WHITE – all quotations should be kept transparent and acknowledged by both parties, and don’t be afraid to bring out any screenshots/WhatsApp conversations with the salesperson if there is any miscommunication between you and the movers! Also, the most transparent way would be to invite the salesperson to come down your house to do a quick check of the furniture before the day of the move.
And that’s all from me! If you’ve read till this far, thank you for your time and hope that whenever you’re in this phase of moving, may it be a smooth and fuss-free experience for you!
#HomeReno #homeliving #homeandliving #movingout
