alt Hacker NewsYears ago, there was a site called movingscams.com where people reviewed moving services. It helped me find a mover for my own move down the West Coast. Turned out to be a really good outfit, honest and great customer service (refunded me a good chunk because they didn't deliver within the timeframe their salesperson had indicated).
There were a couple of big national movers in those days. Allied, Mayflower and I forget one other. The smaller one I used was a subcontractor for Allied (I think).
Sadly, that site seems to be defunct for some years now. Looks like they didn't make it through the Great Recession. :(
I miss those niche forums.
Yeah this forum was super handy. They saved my from a bad experience.
A few years ago, a family member worked for a state DOT where they regulate movers and adjudicate some licensing issues. The stories he had were off the chain — everything from people’s stuff getting lost to straight extortion. Basically, any affordable, full service mover is a scam or incompetent. (In a high regulatory state, they are 100% scam.) Period. There’s no exception.
He explained that the business kinda melted away as companies don’t take responsibility for employee moves anymore - and that was the backbone of the business. Other than executives and the military, best case you get some money for expenses. (And military families have lots of problems with movers.) It’s also a business that’s harder to do under the table for the strong backs. It was much cheaper to give some goombas a few hundred bucks than to carry worker’s compensation insurance for a physical job.
For regular people, the best option short of starting over is to rent a container and have that shipped. You can hire casual labor to help unpack.