2009 12 Nov

Be Sure You’re Not Cheated When The Moving Company Determines The Weight Of Your Goods.

If you find yourself in a telephone conversation with a moving broker, and he won’t agree to give you a weight based move cost estimate, this is a red flag that he is working for a scam company. To assist the consumer, let me provide a sample of a conversation between an anti-moving scam activist on the sly, and a moving broker. I learned about this conversation from an anti-moving scam forum. What follows is an account of the conversation:

“The guy was unclear about how they would be charging me on an estimate. First he tried giving me an estimate by cubic feet. When I contested the method he said that they could work by weight if I wanted to. So I asked him then what the story was; if they charged by cube or weight? His answer was very wishy washy and unclear. He was trying to dance around the answer, which to me is the first sign something is wrong. He then kept trying to push me to work by cubic feet, which is another red flag of a scam.”

If you could have listened to this conversation, you would have noticed that the moving company employee sounded polite, eager to please, and couching his hesitancy to give weight based estimates in language suggesting the cubic foot estimate would be easier and even better for the customer. He also probably offered to make the estimate binding if the consumer would do the estimate in cubic feet. In truth, he’s been trained to use this tactic and he has a very serious purpose in mind.

Moving brokers, and online movers like to get the moving cost estimate in cubic feet, because it makes it much easier for the company to raise the cost of the move later on. The cubic feet of a move can be increased through “balloon packing,” and “loose loading.”

Balloon packing involves stuffing boxes with light material which adds volume but little weight. On moving day, savvy scam movers, will refuse to insure boxes packed by the homeowner unless the company is allowed to repack the items. The company will repack the items loosely, often adding lots of bubble wrap or other packing material to fill the volume.

The offer to give a binding estimate if the consumer will agree to the cubic foot estimate is also misleading. Consumer regulations require moving companies that are giving non-binding estimates, to make the estimate in weight. While weight estimates can be trammeled with as well, they are harder to inflate than cubic foot estimates. On moving day the company will raise the price and the consumer will remind them of the binding agreement. The company will retort that there were additional items being moved, as attested to by the increased cubic foot, and that annuls the original binding agreement!

To really protect yourself on a move, hire an independent packing company to pack and load your belongings. Packing companies charge by the item packed. They make no extra money if the items are packed loosely. Packing Service Inc. is a trsty packing service that is dedicated to protecting consumers form moving scam

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