good to know

about "bids", "estimates", "insurED", "QUOTES", "GUARANTEES",

websites, FAKE reviews & advice

This page covers some good things to know about dealing with moving companies.

ESTIMATES, QUOTES AND INSURANCE

You’d think that if a moving company says they are “fully insured” or that “your property is covered by insurance” this would mean what it sounds like, that if they break or damage something of yours they’d owe you the cost to repair or replace it. NOPE. Far from it. What the law says “insured” means is that, at the standard rates your moving company quoted you (unless you pay extra for additional insurance), they only owe you 60 cents per pound of your damaged or missing item (called “Released Value Protection”), which works out to about $35 for you broken flat screen TV. Before the job begins, they’re supposed to present you with a document explaining this Release Value option along with the option for you to pay additional insurance to raise the compensation amount to $3.50 per pound of the damaged or lost item (or seven pounds per cubic foot), with this option called “Replacement Cost Protection”. Even the “Replacement” option would still only give you maybe $200 for your broken TV . There are other more expensive insurance options but you’d usually be paying a lot more for them.

You’d think that if a moving company gives you an “estmate” that would mean the amount they charge you for the job should have to be somewhere in the ballpark of the price estimate they quoted you. NOPE. Far from it. In Oregon, the law says an estimate is NOT BINDING. Your actual costs can be much higher, and your actual charges are to be based on the weight & distance, or based on the number of workers and hours the job takes. The only binding part of an estimate is that you are only required to pay the estimate + 10% right at the end of the job, and you have an additional 15 days to pay the remainder.

These Oregon Department Of Transportation (ODOT) rules apply to moving companies that provide and drive their own moving truck (FULL SERVICE MOVING COMPANIES), not companies that only box up your items, or only load and unload your rented truck or container, called Pack & Load services, which are unregulated by ODOT. These ODOT rules are explained in much more detail in ODOT’s six page document titled “General Information Bulletin For Moving Household Goods In Oregon“. There’s a link to this document provided below.

Although these ODOT rules make it just a little harder for a moving company to take advantage of you, they are still not good protection for you. However, there is good protection for you, and it’s called a “Happiness Guarantee“, if you have it in writing, and if it’s defined as something similar to the following:
“If you, the customer, in your opinion, see any wasted time, inefficient work, unexpected costs, damages or losses cause by us, you have a blank check to take as much off the bill as you feel is fair to compensate for these problems, up to a maximum of $2,000“.

This guarantee is even more effective if they offer the deal that you don’t pay a penny until after you are happy with the completed job (& no down payment). That way, they have nothing to hold over you (like not unloading you until you pay an unjustly raised bill), YOU retain the power to enforce the Happiness Guarantee, and it’s not you trying to get something back from them later.

That way, you are guaranteed to be compensated fairly for any of these things before you even pay the bill. So there is a HUGE difference between a company offering the standard insurance options compared to a company offering a true Happiness Guarantee. Only a moving company that knows they take great care of your items, are accurate with their estimates and bids, and intend on making things right (if something goes wrong) would offer a written Happiness Guarantee like this, or they’d put themselves out of business quick. Look for that Happiness Guarantee. Or ask AGMC to help you find the companies that offer (and honor) a Happiness Guarantee.

DON'T ACCEPT A BID BY WEIGHT

Cross country moves should be done only with a fixed guaranteed bid price agreed upon, based on your exact item list that both you and they confirm is the basis of the bid (with them giving you wiggle room for some extra boxes), NOT A BID BASED ON WEIGHT. If the bid you get is based on a weight they quote you, you can’t know if that weight is correct, and you can’t know if the weight they later say went over your quoted weight is correct. There are many moving companies out there that use this trick to use the “over bid weight” clause in the contract to end up charging you far more than their “Bid” price. If they’re going to make a bid on your job, they should be able to make the bid based on the items they are seeing in your house, and say THESE ITEMS IN YOUR HOUSE (on a list) are what we are bidding on, not some obscure weight number that you can’t verify. If they (the “experts”) underestimate the weight of your items in their bid, why should it be only YOU that pays more?

In addition, you should also try to find a company that will add a “Happiness Guarantee”, and not require a down payment.

THE FAKE REVIEW BUSINESS

There are even companies that sell the services of “stock” great fake reviewers. I had one of these companies call me up and show me samples of these great fake reviews & actor/fake-customer pictures they would regularly leave on Google from tons of their full time “employees”. That’s their business model, flooding Google with fake reviews. I declined their service. So even google reviews can’t all be trusted these days.

What’s the answer? Word of mouth from people you know is good. But also Look for the bad reviews. Not all of those are necessarily real either, but see if there’s a trend. Also, when looking at reviews, look for clues as to idiosyncrasies, and personalities, personal details that sound real, less than picture-perfect reviews that would be less likely to be left by a business being paid to leave stock fake reviews.

WEBSITES & ADVERTISEMENTS

The above picture is of the crew of a long distance moving company called “Navy Seals Moving“. If you’ve ever seen a real Navy Seal you may notice that the look, age, physique, & stance of these movers makes it look highly unlikely that these are all real Navy Seals as some people might guess from the company name. Not that these might not be good movers, I have no idea, but I‘m guessing these are not Navy Seals, or even ex-Navy Seals as the advertising seems to imply. This is just a demonstration of the point that it does seem to be a general trend in the moving industry that the sales department and website claims of many companies do not necessarily represent accurately what service details are actually delivered onsite.

PRE-PACKAGED WEBSITE CLAIMS
When I hired a website company to help with my SEO factors to make my site rank higher on Google, they added pre-packaged stock material about moving companies that sounded like many of the other moving companies out there, that I had to have them correct to get back to quoting my exact original material. What you are seeing on a lot of websites out there is a lot of pre-packaged stock material.

Yes, it’s a jungle out there. That’s partly why I’m doing this listing and booking-help site, to do the investigating for you, and to put my money where my mouth is with my $1,000 Happiness Guarantee on the companies I’ve rated with my Gold Star.

This page covers some good things to know about dealing with moving companies.

ESTIMATES, QUOTES AND INSURANCE

You’d think that if a moving company says they are “fully insured” or that “your property is covered by insurance” this would mean what it sounds like, that if they break or damage something of yours they’d owe you the cost to repair or replace it. NOPE. Far from it. What the law says “insured” means is that, at the standard rates your moving company quoted you, they only owe you 60 cents per pound of your damaged or missing item (called “Released Value Protection”), which works out to about $35 for you broken flat screen TV. Before the job begins, they’re supposed to present you with a document explaining this Release Value option along with the option for you to pay additional insurance to raise the compensation amount to $3.50 per pound of the damaged or lost item (or seven pounds per cubic foot), with this option called “Replacement Cost Protection”. Even the “Replacement” option would still only give you maybe $200 for your broken TV . There are other more expensive insurance options but you’d usually be paying a lot more for them.

You’d think that if a moving company gives you an “estmate” that would mean the amount they charge you for the job should have to be somewhere in the ballpark of the price they quoted you. NOPE. Far from it. In Oregon, the law says an estimate is NOT BINDING. Your actual costs can be much higher, and your actual charges are to be based on the weight & distance, or based on the number of workers and hours the job takes. The only binding part of an estimate is that you are only required to pay the estimate + 10% right at the end of the job, and you have an additional 15 days to pay the remainder.

These Oregon Department Of Transportation (ODOT) rules apply to moving companies that provide and drive their own moving truck (FULL SERVICE MOVING COMPANIES), not companies that only box up your items, or only load and unload your truck or container, called Pack & Load services, which are unregulated by ODOT. These ODOT rules are explained in much more detail in ODOT’s six page document titled “General Information Bulletin For Moving Household Goods In Oregon”. There’s a link to this document provided below.

A HAPPINESS GUARANTEE

Although these ODOT rules put limits on how badly a moving company can take advantage of you, they are still not good protection for you. However, there is good protection for you, and it’s called a “Happiness Guarantee”, if it’s defined as follows:

“If you, the customer, in your opinion, see any wasted time, inefficient work, misrepresentations of expected costs, damages or losses cause by us, you have a blank check to take as much off the bill as you feel is fair to compensate for these problems, up to a maximum of $2,000”.

This guarantee is even more effective if they offer the deal that you don’t pay a penny until after you are happy with the completed job (& no down payment). That way, they have nothing to hold over you, YOU retain the power to enforce the Happiness Guarantee, and it’s not you trying to get something back from them later.

That way, you are guaranteed to be compensated fairly for any of these things before you even pay the bill. So there is a HUGE difference between a company offering the standard insurance options compared to a company offering a true Happiness Guarantee. Only a moving company that knows they take great care of your items, are accurate with their estimates and bids, and intend on making things right would offer a written Happiness Guarantee, or they’d put themselves out of business quick. Look for that Happiness Guarantee.

DON'T ACCEPT A BID BY WEIGHT

Cross country moves should be done only with a fixed guaranteed bid price agreed upon, based on your exact item list that both you and they confirm is the basis of the bid (with them giving you wiggle room for some extra boxes), NOT BASED ON WEIGHT. If the bid you get is based on a weight they quote you, you can’t know if that weight is correct, and you can’t know if the weight they later say went over your quoted weight is correct. There are many moving companies out there that use this trick to use the “over bid weight” clause in the contract to end up charging you far more than their “Bid” price. If they’re going to make a bid on your job, they should be able to make the bid based on the items they are seeing in your house, and say THESE ITEMS IN YOUR HOUSE (on a list) are what we are bidding on, not some obscure weight number that you can’t verify. If they (the “experts”) underestimate the weight of your items, why should it be only YOU that pays more?

In addition to getting a bid on a set of items and NOT on weight, you should also try to find a company that will add a “Happiness Guarantee”.

THE FAKE REVIEW BUSINESS

There are even companies that sell the services of “stock” great fake reviewers. I had one of these companies call me up and show me samples of these great fake reviews & actor/fake-customer pictures they would regularly leave on Google from tons of their full time “employees”. That’s their business model, flooding Google with fake reviews. I declined their service. So even google reviews can’t all be trusted these days.

What’s the answer? Word of mouth from people you know is good. But also Look for the bad reviews. Not all of those are necessarily real either, but see if there’s a trend. Also, when looking at reviews, look for clues as to idiosyncrasies, and personalities, personal details that sound real, less than picture-perfect reviews that would be less likely to be left by a business being paid to leave stock fake reviews.

WEBSITES & ADVERTISEMENTS

The above picture is of the crew of a long distance moving company called “Navy Seals Moving”. If you’ve ever seen a real Navy Seal you may notice that the look, age, physique, & stance of these movers makes it look highly unlikely that these are all real Navy Seals as some people might guess from the company name. Not that these might not be good movers, I have no idea, but I’m guessing these are not Navy Seals, or even ex-Navy Seals as the advertising seems to imply. This is just a demonstration of the point that it does seem to be a general trend in the moving industry that the sales department and website claims of many companies do not necessarily represent accurately what service details are actually delivered onsite.

PRE-PACKAGED WEBSITE CLAIMS

When I hired a website company to help with my SEO factors to make my site rank higher on Google, they added pre-packaged stock material about moving companies that sounded like many of the other moving companies out there, that I had to have them correct to get back to quoting my exact original material. What you are seeing on a lot of websites out there is a lot of pre-packaged stock material.

Yes, it’s a jungle out there. That’s partly why I’m doing this listing and booking-help site, to do the investigating for you, and to put my money where my mouth is with my $1,000 Happiness Guarantee on the companies I’ve rated with my Gold Star.