The Moving Company Were Scammers

These past few days have been hell to put it nicely. The moving company we hired to move our belongings across country were scammers. Ok so here is the story......a few weeks ago we started searching for a moving company. This one particular company had a great rate and really wanted our business and was willing to do what it took to make us happy. Obviously we went with this company because it was the cheapest, I mean really, who wouldn't. We checked and made sure they were insured, bonded and we also checked with the Better Business Bureau. I thought we had done our part in researching this company to make sure our belongings were in good hands. So fast forward to this past Thursday when the movers were suppose to be at our house at 9am to load everything up. Well needless to say at noon they still were not there. Scott calls the owner and was informed that the transfer truck was not going to be able to make it and they were having to bring two 26ft trucks instead. Ok, everything is fine lets get going. The two moving guys finally arrive and as they walk through our house all of a sudden the price to move our belongings jumped from $3400 to $9000. That's right, I said $9000. When we hired this company we sent them an inventory list of everything we had. Now moving companies normally move your things based on weight, they charge you per pound. So what they do is load everything up and then take the truck to a weigh station and that's how they now how much to charge you. Back to the inventory list, Scott asked why the cost was going to triple since we had sent them an inventory list of what was going to be moved. Their reply to Scott was, "you don't have an average persons furniture". What in the heck does that mean, we don't have particle board furniture. Yes, all of our furniture is solid wood and is bulky but they never asked about what kind of wood our furniture was made of. Based on the inventory list we sent them they estimated that we would have around 6800 lbs on the truck but when they got to the house they said we would have at least 18,000 lbs. They charge .50 per pound. Scott calls me and we are both pissed because we felt like they knew they had us in a difficult position because they knew we had to move. Scott calls another company to come out and give us an estimate. The second company came out did a walk through and estimated we would have right under 10,000 pounds. The owner of the original company gave Scott and option of taking a flat rate of $7500 to move our things. They were going to weigh the truck if it was under the weight to equal $7500 we would not get a refund difference but if it went over that he would not charge us the difference as well, or we could gamble with the weight and pay strictly by the pound. I spoke with my moms husband who drove a truck for Shaw for over 25 years about how much he thought our things might way. After talking to him, Scott and I decided to gamble and pay by the pound because we felt like we did not have as much as they were saying. Things just seemed to escalate with the moving guys all that afternoon. They loaded things after Scott specifically told them not too. Ok, fast forward to the next morning. Scott calls me at 11am as says the movers still aren't there to finish the job. He is pretty ticked off at this point. He called the owner and the owner gets smart with Scott about how is had them there moving furniture until 9pm the night before and they were tired. Scott informed him he didn't care how tired they were if they said they were going to be there at 9am then they better be there. Scott had told me if had a funny feeling that they might try to load the truck down with something to make it heavier. So when the movers finally got there he told them he wanted to inspect the truck. You will never guess what the had done. Well, now we know why they were late getting there. They had put 60 50lb bags of potting soil in the back of the truck. Now that equals 3000 pounds, if we are paying .50 per pound that comes to an extra $1500 dollars. To say that Scott was livid is an understatement!! I can't really put on here what all he said to the guys because it wasn't pretty. He called the owner and the owner advised Scott that that's not the way they do business and he was going to fire the guy when he was done moving our things. I told Scott the owner was full of BS because what mover would take the initiative to do something like that without someone telling him and besides I'm sure the guy didn't go buy the potting soil with his own money. I told Scott I was afraid to let them take off with our things they once they got it some where that they might ask for more money or not give us our furniture but Scott said they couldn't do that. They continued to load our things onto the trucks. In the meantime I am sitting here two thousand miles away worried to death about Scott up there with those crooks and what might happen to our belongings. I started googling the internet about moving company frauds. And low and behold guess what I found. The EXACT same moving company who was loading OUR stuff onto THEIR trucks were SCAMMERS. They low ball offers to people to get them to take their bid, then get your furniture loaded onto their trucks and double or triple your price and if you don't pay it they will auction off your furniture. WTH!! I read complaints from consumers where it took them 2 1/2, 4 months to get their belongings back because they had to scrounge up money to pay these crooks. The sad thing was they could not get anyone to help them because it is pretty much a "Civil Case". Some of these consumers called the FBI, the Attorney General and lots of other people I can't even remember and no one would or could do anything. No wonder these idiots keep scamming people, they know they can get by with it. When I found the stuff on the internet I immediately called Scott and told him not matter what not to let them drive off with our stuff. I read him the things I had found. They were getting ready to go weight the first truck. So we came up with plan. Scott took pictures of the potting soil loaded on the truck and he acted like everything was cool. He called the police to have them waiting there when he got back because we were going to make them unload our things back into the house. I sat here anxiously waiting to here from Scott, I was praying that everything would go smoothly since the police was there. When Scott got back to the house the police was there, Scott called the owner and told him what was going on and that we new what type of people they were and told him if he didn't have his movers unload our things he would have his two guys locked up for fraud. The owner agreed to do whatever as long as he did not press charges. The guys unloaded our things back into the house. How crazy is all this. Insane isn't it. It amazes me how people like this are allowed to stay in business. I also lost trust in the BBB after reading that you can't really trust what they say. One of the consumers complaint that I was reading made a good point. If these business are paying a membership to the BBB, then the BBB is not going to dog that business out because they more in likely will lose that business' membership money. I thought the BBB was suppose to be looking out for the consumers not the business'. Anyhow, looks like Scott will be driving the moving truck to Virginia now. Not sure if we could trust anyone after this. Sad Sad Sad. I am very thankful we caught this in time and all we had paid was a $200 deposit of which I will be filing a dispute with my credit card company on. Thank goodness the good Lord gave us gut feelings. If I had never had that feeling and started googling we would be in a very very bad situation right now. God is good!!! I give him praise for watching out for us.