I have moved using long distance from NC to UT, from UT to AL from FL to AL. Every single time ....every single time they cheated in some way. Each time was something new and inventive. They broke an antique table and hid it in the van and lied about it...my DH had to forcibly go past the guy into the van to get the table that they had wrapped and hidden. They cheat cheat cheat on the weight. For my DD they told us they would be so careful to only bill the weight....right. I called them to confirm the weight and then they billed us TWO times and the credit card company would not revoke the 2nd charge as the movers came up with some excuse as to why I was wrong and they were right.

I am sorry to be SO negative but I swear they are all the most crooked group of folks I have ever ever dealt with. The only time we had NO problem and had wonderful folks to deal with was using a Rodeway truck from NH to AL. The price was great the driver was helpful and on time and even helped unload. If they can get their stuff packed up and use a Rodeway truck you will be very very pleased. Otherwise...be prepared and keep an eagle eye and even then they will find a way to steal from you. c

We have moved twice where my husband's company paid for us to be packed and moved. Those are two different crews. One day they pack, the next day they load and move. The professionals have it down to a fine science in terms of excellent packing boxes, labeled boxes and done quickly.
They have broken a couple of things, but you are allowed to put any price you want on the value of the broken item and they will reimburse you for it. WE couldn't have packed any better as I'm sure WE would have broken items if we did it ourselves. We always found our movers to be competent and professional other than we had a favorite large framed print came up missing. They reimbursed us for the value of it but it had sentimental memories for us. They do load several families on one semi truck. The loading and unloading is calculated when they do that. They do not unload your things into a storage center. We had car troubles moving across the country once and the moving truck arrived several days before we did. Our things just waited in the truck until we could arrive, unlock the door to our home and tell them where to put things. I always packed my own jewelry myself. AND, they will pack things as they find them. For example, when packing up a kitchen, they will pack up a garbage can with the garbage still in it unless you stop them and empty it first. One of the companies that moved us was call "Allied" moving company. I don't remember the name of the other. Hope this helps.

DD1 has moved within the state of CA several times, and used two companies. One screwed with her BIG time. The best (and she has used 4 times was a Bekins company. Loved them. They also will give you a day and the furniture actually gets there that day - instead of two weeks later.

It seems like all major moving companies have two divisions, one for corporate moves and one for individual moves. I've moved cross-country several times when the move was paid for by my employer and other than some breakage, the movers were generally great. However, when I moved as an individual, even using the same company and branch that I had used for a corporate move, it was much rougher and less professional. Maybe someone on these forums who works for a large mover can explain.

My advice is to get three bids from three companies and make sure that they are NOT TO EXCEED bids. That way, the driver can't try to cheat you at the other end. The insurance that you get from the moving company is based on weight and pitiful. Here's a little Internet article about insurance during a move:

How can I insure my possessions during a move?

There are several ways to insure your possessions while you're moving. Perhaps your current homeowners policy includes coverage for your personal property during a move. The policy may cover your possessions at the new location for a limited time, also. The same coverages, exclusions, and deductibles apply while you're moving as they would for a regular homeowners claim.

If your homeowners policy doesn't include this coverage, you can purchase a policy that's specifically designed to insure possessions during a move. It's known as a floater and is effective only during your move. Or, you can add a floater to the coverage already provided by your homeowners policy.

A third alternative is to rely on the insurance offered by the moving company. You'll want to see its policy before you hire a moving company so you'll know what's covered and what isn't. Also, pay attention to insurance limits. If the company's insurance is not up to your standards, purchase a floater.

If you have a loss during a move, the mover's insurance is primary. That is, the mover's insurance company will pay first. Your insurance pays only after the mover's insurance limits have been depleted. For example, the mover's policy has limits of $10,000 and your floater has limits of $25,000. If you have a $15,000 loss and the movers are at fault, the mover's policy will pay $10,000 and your policy will pay $5,000.

As you review the combined mover's insurance and your own, pay attention to what they cover and how much. Know what the exclusions are and what the deductible is. Your insurance agent can help you be sure your possessions are adequately covered.

End of article

The other advice I would give is to be super organized. Put items in the room where they belong no matter where you might have something stored when you live there. Also, like Joanie said, the packers will pack everything...trash, empty hangers, the glass tray from the microwave, ice cube trays, etc. What I found to work for me was to clear out one bathroom and put everything I didn't want packed into that bathroom and shut the door. Label the door with a DO NOT OPEN sign. Your other option is to have your car completely packed with the things you are taking, but then you have to worry about someone breaking into your car. You should have a small bag with jewelry, checks, valuables and personal papers that you can keep with you at all times. Do not let it out of your sight...ever.

I usually have coffee on hand for both the packers and the movers. I bought two large air pump containers. The first day, you can fill them yourself from your own coffee pot, but the second/third day, I filled the pots at my local mini-mart. I also have paper cups, stir sticks, sugar packets and non-dairy creamer for them. If I'm feeling really nice, I might also have donuts or pizza. I play that one by ear depending on how professional and courteous the movers are.

Your delivery date will be dependent on where you are on the truck and where the other deliveries are. Will your daughter be staying in a hotel until the movers arrive? I usually packed a "go" box when I moved that I would take with me. I would put paper towels, toilet paper, a clean set of sheets, towels, the air pots and coffee fixings into that box. That way, I could at least shower and sleep in the new place without unpacking even one box.

There will be items that the movers will not take like liquor and cleaning supplies. Luckily, you daughter can pack those items into her car and take them herself.

I forgot to say that if an item has sentimental value and is absolutely irreplaceable, don't send it with the movers. Either take it with you or pack and ship it through UPS.

When we moved from California to Michigan, we were so paranoid from all the nightmares we'd heard about, we decided to just rent a Penske truck and move our belongings ourselves. Of course the truck had problems and it was more stressful than it needed to be as a result, but I still think it turned out better both financially and in regards to breakage.

Unfortunately, our trip was doomed from the start as the truck had a broken radiator and conked out within the first hour of the drive. LOL Once it broke down a second time, Penske ended up moving our stuff to another truck for us in the middle of the night. Of course the guys doing the transfer just tossed everything from one trailer to another without any consideration of what it was and some things were damaged as a result. Luckily, they discounted the rental price big time and it all washed out in the end.

My DD and SIL did the same thing when moving from Louisiana to Michigan but had no issues at all. The truck worked perfectly and the trip went very smoothly.

Honestly, eight hours is a walk in the park in comparison to a cross country move, considering the risks, it may be worth their while to consider a truck rental as an option.

As a foot note, I'd recommend they take pictures of their stuff and make a complete inventory of everything.

Here is another way to go about it - it's how I did my most recent move. You pack your things into boxes at your own pace. Rent a truck and drive it to your destination. But here's the clever part: you can arrange for moving men to come and load the truck and another set of moving men to unload the truck.

I only hired the movers for the unloading. They were right on time, worked for the two hours I hired them for and left. It was not expensive.

I learned of this service through the truck rental company.

Here is a link that might be useful: U-Haul Moving Helpers

Moved a few times - MA to CA and then back and also to the UK and back. I HATE moving companies. With the corporate moves (3x) they tried to cheat us every time. Cost way more than it should have. Always added extra weight. We were allowed only so much weight and then we paid for anything more. We weighed everything. "Their weight" was much heavier and we had to pay the difference. Huge fight over it. One co-worker had only 400 lbs and they said it was 900 lbs and they wouldn't deliver until paid in full. He had to take a day off, weigh the truck, deliver the goods and weigh the truck again. Of course he was right. Another co-worker had his car chasis broken - car was only a month old. These were all corporate paid moves. It was so terrible that all the co-workers revolted and wanted the money and we could find our own moving company. That worked much better.

Even worse coming back from the UK. We didn't get our bed for over 4 months! They held the rest of our stuff in customs for weeks because they said the very used car seat(for 2 kids) with mushed up food in the material was "new" and we had to pay customs. Trying to track down our stuff and finding the reason for the delay took a lot of effort. They wanted us to prove we bought the car seat in the US. We waited for our things for weeks (it was suppose to arrive before we did). 3 months later the bed arrived - we used the guest bed until then. I have nothing good to say about moving companies.

I think the best suggestions is driving it yourself - it's only 8 hours. If you go with a company they normally have a few people's things in the truck and it will probably NOT be a direct route. They will wait until the truck is full and then start their route. It can take a few weeks from pick up to delivery. You're at THEIR mercy and schedule.

With a one-bedroom apartment, I think I'd do it myself. They're young and strong, right? lol I do like the idea of hiring people to load & unload the truck, but I'd worry they wouldn't be careful.

Our only experience with movers was when dd made a corporate move. The movers were Allied, and they were terrific. They logged every item, wrapped every piece of furniture in a cover, put plastic down on the carpet before walking on it, and even swept the porch of her new apartment so they wouldn't track in anything. Nothing broken. But like someone above said, there probably is a difference between a corporate move and an individual. I think there was about a week from the time they picked up her stuff from our garage to the time they delivered it. And they had several households of furniture on the truck. In this day of bedbugs, that might concern me now.

They say 3 moves equals one fire.....and they are about right.
I have moved my mother and all her stuff 3 times.
My advice is to choose a mover based on the local reputation of the people who hold the franchise not the franchise. For example...Allied may be good or they may be horrible.....depending on the local people with whom you write the contract.

I'm afraid I have to agree with most of the negatives. Watch them like hawks every inch of the way. When they pack, when they load, when they unload, and if you have them unpack (which I would never do.) We have moved (corporate and individually) long distance eight times since 1980, the last was three years ago California to Texas. As trailrunner said, each time was a new invention of us being wronged or cheated. I think sometimes it is just plain ignorance or not caring, but mostly cheating. Last move they were not careful packers at all and some beautiful leather books were just put in any which way so they got damaged, other things broken. I thought I had found such a good mover because he advertised himself as a "Christian" moving company, but Christian is as Christian does and he wasn't. Another company took all my obsessively-organized garage bins and mini-drawers full of everything from various sized nails, to all sorts of garage things, and to save space dumped them all into one big box, then stacked the boxes etc. on top of them. It took me a full time week to put them back in order.

Be aware that you must insure for 100% replacement value or you will get very little for anything they break or lose.

Be aware also that the loading end will likely be much different than the destination end. We have had a few moves where I loved the crew that packed and loaded. However, if it is more than a few hours away, they are going to hire a crew locally at the destination. That can be a disaster, as with our last move. I cannot even begin to tell you. They must have picked them up off the street, they were so inept, and frankly I began to be concerned that they were going to sue us because they started complaining about how heavy things were.

I have also had individual members of the crew on both ends be rude and disrespectful and downright threatening to me (who am usually handling them alone while DH is at work).

I think the best you can do is interview a lot of people and really grill them. Pick the one you feel the most comfortable with (and get reviews from other customers), then grill them again about WHO will be on the other end? Then call the other end and see if you feel comfortable with them. I'm convinced that a quick call to the company on the Texas end of our most recent move would have told me to stay away from the company I was about to use.

Having said all that, we've survived all the bad experiences with ourselves intact, and the bad taste fades -- until someone asks your opinion about moving companies, LOL! :-)

After reading the other responses I can only agree again "buyer beware". As a matter of fact if I had to do it over I would sell everything I couldn't move myself rather than ever go through it again.

That should tell you how badly I feel about movers. c

I moved from CA to NC and had my stuff hijacked by a moving company. DH and I got bad vibes while they were loading our stuff and we asked them to stop, that we would unload it ourselves. The driver subsequently locked the truck up and then drove off while we were on the phone calling the police. Police said they couldn't do anything because we had "signed" a contract (really just an estimate).

It's a long story, but turned out that our moving company was one of many being investigated by the FBI. After contacting the main FBI agent, who told us good luck getting our stuff back, we joined a class action lawsuit but never got anything out of it. These companies pop up and operate under different names, and go out of business and disappear.

What they do is ask you to estimate your cubic footage. Realistically, how can you do that accurately? Then they load up their truck (loosely) that has markers painted inside the interior to measure. Any excess footage beyond those markers they can charge whatever price they want according to law.

If you don't pay their price or you are in contention with them, they will drop your stuff off in storage someplace (and you don't know where). Typically in their contracts they have something about storing your items for 30 days at a certain price, and then from there they can charge any price they want. Seems like a moot point when you expect them to deliver a few days after pick up, but if they dump your stuff off in storage while you are in dispute, they will keep it there for however long they wish and you're at their mercy.

There was a family featured on Dateline (who covered the crookedness of moving companies and featured my FBI agent) whose initial estimate was under $10,000. Their stuff was moved to an undisclosed location in storage while they fought with the moving company, and their tab had been at $30,000 and still running. They had priceless sentimental items in there--wedding photos, memorabilia, stuff from their kids, etc.

When I moved from NC to TX, we used a Penske truck and drove it ourselves. We packed stuff ourselves and hired people at either end to load and unload it.

Good luck.

I'm astounded. And grateful that chickadee started this thread. We're looking to move 1/2 way across the country in a couple of years and I just *assumed* we'd pack some things ourselves then hire movers to pack the rest, load the truck, transport to the new location and unload. We have no long distance moving experience since we moved 4 blocks from our first house to here.

I think graywings has the right idea and when the time comes, we'll probably go that route.

We moved 3 times with company paid moves and all went well. Last move was on us and later on I missed a pearl necklace, small diamond ring and a gold chain bracelet. I could not remember packing them by this time and after reading all of the above I think probably this was taken while our things were being loaded on the truck. Unless you can have someone in every room I don't see how you can watch every move they make. If we ever sell our present residence I think we will use a husband-wife team from our area, they use rental trucks and feel they can be trusted. On our last move they neglected to unload our vacuum cleaner so we had to buy another one and then had to go back to Alabama to get the one they failed to unload.
Their provided insurance is worthless as I think it is based on weight so unless you have something destroyed that weighs a ton you will get about nothing from them.

If it were me and I was moving out of a small apartment I'd look into one of those pack it yourself boxes. They bring the box to your house you fill it with your stuff and they deliver it to your new residence.You unpack it when yourself.
It cancels out the need for your stuff to be put on a truck with other people's belongings thus saving you the aggravation of having to wait because someone else's move took longer.
MOST major damage and loss done in a move is from stuff going into storage or being moved so someone else's load can be removed from the truck. Avoid this if you can.
I've made at least four long distance moves in about 30 years time. All were paid for by DH's workplace.
We lucked out all our moves were good BUT I think they were good because I did alotbut not all of the packing myself. I didn't trust the movers to pack my things with care. I also had people checking at random the movers work.
Our loads were large. We took up the entire truck and I think that made a difference too. No having to unpack and repack stuff to get to someone else's stuff.

Wow, after all these horror stories they should probably just walk away from their one bedroom worth of stuff and start fresh in the new place. Nah, I suppose that won't work.

Actually, graywings & carol from ny both have good ideas. Since they don't have too much stuff & it's not a corporate move, where it appears they take better care to keep the corporate account, doing most of it themselves sounds like the best plan.

Good luck.

Thanks so much for all your advice. I knew there would be some interesting stories out there. I sent them the link so they could read all the comments. Even though they've been given a moving allowance, they decided to rent a truck and drive it out here while hiring movers at both ends to do the loading and unloading. It's $1500 cheaper to do it that way plus they'll have more control over the move. My son-in-law has to be here for his job several days before they make settlement on their house. So I guess we'll have a moving truck in the driveway for a few days.

I have my own potential moving horror story dealing with a rental truck some years ago. We had rented a mid-size truck from either u-haul or Hearst, I forget which, to bring some of my aunt's furniture up to Phila. from Wilmington, DE. My husband was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat. About 1/2 hour into our drive I looked out my rear view window and noticed that the right rear wheel was wobbling. I told my husband and we ended up having to pull off I-95 into an iffy neighborhood to check it out. One of the lug nuts was missing and all the others were loose. We had no tools, but luckily we spotted a man working on his car who had the tool we needed to fix the darn thing. What a nightmare that would have been if the tire had come off on I-95. The stretch between Wilmington and Phila. is congested with traffic even on a good day. So let that be a warning when you rent a truck to check it out before you load it so you don't run into problems along the way. Maybe keep some tools handy in case you have problems.

I had the Worst Experience with Atlas Vanlines! They dropped my Marge Carson dining table on the side and broke a huge chip off of the side. When I questioned the driver he got so agitated and argumentative, trying to tell me he picked it up that way. I had to call the police. I was home with our twins, and have never felt so threatened. I paid the highest insurance only to find out that they get to repair first. The table was fixed after several hours of negotiating with Atlas. I did get the drivers name. But after much thought did nothing with it. I was fearful that he would come back and do something. I know it was wrong not to turn him in. I would Never use Atlas again!!

That's awful, iluvcarats. I don't blame you for being scared. You never know what some people will do to retaliate, especially someone who is so intimidating to begin with. Most reputable movers will make a note of any item they'll be moving that is already damaged and have you sign the paper before they load it. At least that's been my experience with a local company.