Fix Price Move

We had a move that begun in November of 2008. I had a bit of a complex move as 30% of my goods were being shipped to Sydney, Australia with me and 70% were going into storage. We had set aside one room of goods that had all the "ship" items and the rest was for storage. I supervised the move, but was not able to keep track of all the movers and only one of the three spoke English (foreman).The big issues came at the end of the packing where the bill was almost $5000 when the original estimate was $1000. The company charged me the price of boxes (some upwards of $40 each), labor ($94/hour), and also the price for "packing boxes". For a dish box I paid $25 for the box, $94/hour in labor, and then an additional $35 fee for packing. The "packing boxes" fee was never in the quote and not agreed upon. This was disputed with Ben.

The second issue came with the state the movers had left our house. They left 30+ rolls of empty tape spread across the house; they had hidden some almost full ones in the cupboards and were quite appalling. The movers had removed my front door to get some items out and not put them back on. I had to call a neighbor to help as my tools had been packed already. They had also caused damage to the wood floors when they moved stuff out that I had to fix when I moved out of our leased house. This is what I call part 1.Part 2 involves everything after the day of the move. When we had signed the agreement Fix Price Move (Donna who is the sales person) confirmed two things: 1. that they could do an international move and had relationship with shippers to get my goods from the US to Australia.

2. They had storage units that were climate controlled and could match the prices I was getting from ones in Walnut Creek. Their units were in San Jose (1 hour away) but since I was going to be out of the country this were acceptable. After waiting for 3 weeks for my goods to arrive in Sydney I inquired as to where my boxes were and if there was any tracking numbers. I was told they had not sent the boxes and did not have any quotes for the shipping. After this, Ben got 3 internet quotes (from companies they did not have relationships with - we were told at this point they didn't do international moves before) of which the quotes were ~$25,000-30,000. I had to then contact my company to see who they traditionally used to move and see if they could assist. In the end, Allied moving (my employer's primary moving company) had to do the shipping for $10,000. Allied had to go to the storage unit and repack all the boxes for shipping and send them.

At this stage we determined we were going to move the goods to a storage unit that was actually climate controlled and was managed by a legit company. The goods were moved to a unit in Walnut Creek a couple months later.

Once our boxes arrived in Sydney it was determined that Fix Price Move had not separated the boxes appropriately during the move and half the boxes that were designated for shipping (10-15) and the others didn't. In addition, roughly 6-7 boxes of things that should not have been shipped were sent and were now in Sydney and taking up space. This resulted much back and forth and Ben finally shipping 2 boxes of goods that looked like they should have gone, but turned out to not belong. This mistake coasted an estimated $4000 for miss shipping goods, plus $1000 for us donating most of the goods due to lack of space in our Sydney apartment.

Part 3. We just moved back to the U.S. and are unpacking our storage unit. The quality of packing is horrible, with broken boxes, torn boxes, broken tables/head boards, soiled boxes, torn couch, broken box spring, missing boxes and furniture. The boxes were packed improperly; many boxes were 1/2-2/3 full of stuff with wasted space on top causing us to pay for too many boxes, and additionally causing boxes to implode on each other when stacked. There wasn't enough packing material used on dishes, picture frames, glass objects and some were thrown in with hard objects (pots/pans/garage goods) causing them to shatter when the move happened. Additionally during the move additional types of damage occurred. When wrapping the couch, packing tape had been used to secure certain things.

However, the packing tape had been administered directly to the couch in 5 or so places and after two years has seeped into the cushions and stained them permanently. The mattresses had also obviously been drug at some point because the entire plastic wrap had been scratched off and rubbed the side of the mattresses and box-springs tearing the fabric. We have estimated the damage and missing items at over $2,000 but have only unpacked roughly half the boxes at this stage. The damage to the wine at this stage is unknown, but could be upwards of $3,000 if they have been damaged as well. That is where we are at this stage two years later and many headaches later.

We contacted Fix Price regarding a move from CA to NC. After confirming with Fix Price that the reason they charged the insurance after weighing the entire truck with all the packing material was that the insurance was not for the weight of individual items, but for a percentage of the full delivery, I then agreed to have them move us and they upped their quote twice. At this point it was too late to find another company so we went with it. We had told them on numerous occasions, including when they picked up our belongings, that we would not be available on the weekend. We were told both by the office and the lead packer that it would not be an issue.

After they did not show up on the day they had told us they were going, we called them and were informed that the truck was still in Texas and wasn't going to arrive until the middle of the next day (being the weekend, of course). When it again did not arrive, we called and was told that it wasn't going to arrive until the middle of the following day. In neither of these instances were we contacted, they just didn't show up.

When they finally did deliver our belongings, they were significantly damaged, and quite a few items were missing. We were then informed that since they had repacked some boxes but hadn't put them onto the inventory, they weren't liable for anything that was missing out of them. When it was pointed out that the packers had not given us access to the inventory until after the truck was sealed, we were told that wasn't their problem.

We went through the process of filing our insurance claim and were then informed that the claim was based on the weight of the individual item despite that being exactly the question I had asked before I'd ever agreed to have them move us. I was informed that if that had been said it was an error, and there was nothing they could do about that.

They asked me to send in an estimate including my guess as to the weight of the items. I did so. They then returned exactly the weights I put in, just multiplied by .60, and any item that the packers hadn't listed specifically marked as N/A. When I asked about the weights, I was informed that there is a list used that has the most common weights for every item yet none of the weights I submitted had been altered.

It has now been over a year (claim filed 12/2008) and we haven't received even the tiny amount of our insurance payout. I have been contacting the adjuster and Fix Price every month or so and am always told some version of "it's on its way." The last time I contacted the adjuster's company, I was informed that he was no longer working for them but was now a full time employee of Fix Price. I contacted him at his new office and was told once again that "it's on its way."

Fixed Price Move gave me a quote for moving household goods from CA to NC.

When the movers arrived, they insisted upon packing almost everything in cardboard boxes and plastic wrap. They cited "company policy" and "protection of your goods" as rationale. These extra packing materials added $450 to a $2,100 estimate.

In addition to the fraudulent estimate, one must consider how many trees die each year in order for Fixed Price Move to pad their margins.

My older washer and dryer were not only placed into cardboard boxes, they were then wrapped with plastic; a large plastic garbage can was placed into a cardboard box etc etc.

My attempts to get any financial resolution of this matter have been futile. There is nothing to be done at this point about the massive waste of tree fiber and plastic wrap. I shall recycle what I can.

This is the 5th long-distance move I have made; I have never experienced anything even close to this with other moving companies.

Fixed Price Move gave me a quote for moving household goods from CA to NC.

When the movers arrived, they insisted upon packing almost everything in cardboard boxes and plastic wrap. They cited "company policy" and "protection of your goods" as rationale. These extra packing materials added $450 to a $2,100 estimate.

In addition to the fraudulent estimate, one must consider how many trees die each year in order for Fixed Price Move to pad their margins.

My older washer and dryer were not only placed into cardboard boxes, they were then wrapped with plastic; a large plastic garbage can was placed into a cardboard box etc etc.

My attempts to get any financial resolution of this matter have been futile. There is nothing to be done at this point about the massive waste of tree fiber and plastic wrap. I shall recycle what I can.

This is the 5th long-distance move I have made; I have never experienced anything even close to this with other moving companies.