Carefree Moving

My name is Tom, and I hired Carefree Moving to do our move on May 30 (a week ago). Based on my experiences with three other moving companies for previous moves, I had a lot of experience upon which to draw and compare service levels.

The movers arrived on time, but that was the end of the positive news. From the time Artyom (I think his name was — he was the apparent foreman) looked around at our move-from address, he commented on why we needed so much stuff and made comments to his colleagues in Russian (I think—a language I wasn’t familiar with). They frequently talked to each other and laughed in their language in front of us, leaving us to wonder what they were saying and if it was about us or our belongings.

Several of our walls and floors have scratches and gouges from their carelessness. Boxes that I clearly marked THIS SIDE UP were put upside down. They took their time, took several smoke breaks out by the cab of their truck, and left cigarette butts all over the driveways of both houses. I know it’s hard work, but they took a lot of breaks and when the final bill was presented they included their lunch break time in the tally of hours worked.

What’s more, Artyom had the nerve to suggest that we buy him and his colleagues lunch. When I said that they should have planned for their lunch, he said, What am I supposed to do, take my truck to get lunch? How is his lunch MY problem? Pack a lunch! Anyway, I played nice and bought lunch. Artyom made no offer to pay me back for the expense.

When arriving at our move-to house, there were more comments about why we needed so much stuff. And when we asked that they move our old bedroom set to the end of the driveway for garbage, Artyom said we should keep that set and have them put our new set from the truck by the road. Artyom continually felt entitled to make comments about us and our belongings and left a very bad impression. What's more, three times we asked him to move an old, heavy TV to the end of the driveway for garbage pickup and when we went back to the house to do cleanup, noticed that they did not take out the TV. We had to move it ourselves.

They also put the drawers back in our main dresser for the trip to our new house, and then carried it recklessly up the stairs, banging into walls and gouging the walls and floors.

Careless Moving should know that the people they hire are unprofessional. When they leave my property, they can make all the comments they want. They were careless with our belongings, careless around the walls and floors of our houses, and disrespectful to their customers. They told us several times that all the stuff in the truck would never fit in the house. It all fit in the house — why they would say that and make us worry is not only puzzling, it’s completely unacceptable.

At the end, when everything was unpacked, after they left a mess, cigarette butts on our driveway, and scratched walls and floors, Artyom said, “Here’s your bill plus the tip.” I laughed and said, “Lunch was your tip. Plus, it’s not your place to ASK for a tip; it’s MY place to determine whether you deserve one.”

I was going to give them $100 each as a tip because I recognize it is hard, heavy work. I should have given them nothing, but I gave them lunch plus $100 to split among them. Achmed was at least a little respectful, but Artyom was a public relations disaster for their company. To top off the bad impression, when I gave Artyom the payment (Visa for services plus $100 cash), he said something to me in Russian when I shook his hand. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I’m pretty sure from the giggles from the other two it was an insult.

After my experience with this company, not only would I never use Carefree Moving again, I would never recommend the company and would suggest you change your name to Careless Moving.

I’m very regretful that I hired Carefree (Careless) Moving.