College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving

First of all, yes I did initial the lines they pointed out at the very time of the move. Now that I look back on it I was "railroaded" into it. My fault I trusted! The men they sent to put my things in storage obviously had no training or experience. When I moved my things out of storage furniture legs were put on my leather furniture which has put permanent dents in it. They put heavy boxes on a solid glass table and completely shattered it! They then told me they only pay by the pound for damage. When I told them that was not satisfactory they somehow found I still owed them $90.00 after all this time. If I refused I am sure they would have reported it to a credit bureau, I felt like it was blackmail!! Something needs to be done to protect we consumers from this happening to us. Where do I go from here? I would like to know who could help me to keep others from this. I have moved three times in four years and was cheated two out of three times! Help!

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $560

HORRIFIC! They scratched the floor of our newly built home, shattered our lamp, and tore our month old mattress. The movers are not trained professionally - they're full of it. We had a new mover who lifted the mattress by the straps when asked by us not to - and ripped it to pieces as well as puncturing a hole in the bottom. I don't understand why this mattress was not in a protective box or why these movers did not listen! When we notified them of the damages they refused to pay the full price to replace or fix these items. DO NOT USE THEM! It's a scam!

Edited in response to Andy Garcia's yelp reply:

Andy is trying to downplay the severity of our damage, when he himself never came to see the damage nor even had the common decency to give us a call. We have emails from him showing his lack of problem solving and frequent attempts to short change the excessive damages his movers caused to our brand new home and brand new mattress, for what was a very simple move. We moved from a two bedroom apartment to a four bedroom house, which was only 20 miles away.

The movers dragged our new mattress without putting any protective covering on it. They then picked it up from the straps, when my husband explicitly told them it would rip if they did so, and they ripped a strap completely off the new mattress. Then the movers took our new mattress out of their filthy truck and dragged it up our stairs, where the bottom was gashed on a railing. Because the movers did not use a mattress box or any protective covering, the material in the mattress is now displaced. A simple google search for how to move a mattress states how important it is to at least cover the mattress in plastic to keep it sanitary and free of bacteria and bugs, as well as to protect it.

The movers shattered a lamp, which was thrown into their truck with no protection whatsoever. They also chipped and dented a crank table that was only covered in plastic wrap and not secured down in their truck.

The movers deeply scratched our new hardwood floors, and when Andy insisted that we get an invoice for a quote, for which he offered us half of what the flooring guy required to fix the gash in the floor.

Andy tried to rectify the situation by constantly saying he can only pay us $.60 per pound of damaged items, but he even low balled us there by paying us less than that. When he saw this review, he emailed my husband saying he will not pay us unless we take the review down and never post a bad review about his franchise branch again, which was stupid and illegal. When my husband threatened to sue, Andy rolled over and said we could post what we wanted and he would cut a check for us for the very little he would agree to pay for our damages.

My husband will be sending the emails between him and Andy to the Better Business Bureau as well as to College Hunks corporate.

Do not trust this guy or his franchised branch of College Hunks. His franchised branch is probably a very poor reflection of the company as a whole, but there are far better options available. He claims to be doing 250-350 moves a month, so he must be doing something right, but the Better Business Bureau and his franchisor will be hearing about this mess that he caused.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1000

I had CHunks out to clear construction debris, but not until I had an estimator out first to see exactly what they were hired to clean up. They arrived with 20% of the truck full even though I had agreed to a full truck, ($769), plus heavy load fee of $150 on top. They emptied the truck and when they returned, they were still completely unprepared and did not bring shovels, brooms or protective gear. They barely filled the truck 75% and when I told them they could fit 20 more shovels, (which I lent them), in they said they had sent a picture to their supervisor who said it was full enough.
They didn't sweep up, even with my broom, and even though they left a huge mess, and 40% of the materials, I was happy to see them go. Good riddance.
What a waste of money. These guys might want to move a sofa or mattress, or maybe some pillows, but they will not give you the effort needed to complete a moderately challenging job.
If the front line service employees have this "Just do enough to get by" attitude, they learned it from their management.
Don't trust College Hunks to keep their word.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $920

My 67 year of aunt hired this company to load and unload a 1-bedroom apartment in a moving truck we provided on a Thursday morning. She was quoted $658 plus taxes for the entire job. It would require a crew from Port Richey/St Pete to load and a crew at the new apartment near the Brandon/Plant City area to unload. On moving day, the loading crew showed up close to an hour late and took twice as long as quoted to load the truck. Due to this the unload crew would not be available as it was getting late in the day. This St Pete crew would now follow us for a one-hour drive, during rush hour, to Brandon to unload. The crew also stopped for a rest and refreshment break during that time. Unbeknownst to us, our Aunt was getting charged for this time. This was not part of the agreement. Fast forward to the new apartment. The crew took twice as long, as quoted, to unload the truck and lost pieces of a bed frame. The crew had to look through my aunt’s boxes/personal belongings for almost 45 minutes to find the bed frame pieces, with no success. I believe they left them in a parking at the first apartment. At the end of the day a crew member called his manager to discuss the dollar amount and total time it took them to do the job, as he saw it was an unfair price. The manager did not answer his phone. The crew member touched basis with the owner after about 10 minutes of trying, Ace was his name (727-422-2205), to discuss compensation or reimbursement for the bed frame. He said he would have a brand new one delivered to her apartment the next day (Friday). No attempt was ever made to have one delivered. In fact, my aunt and I left numerous messages on his phone days later. It is now Tuesday and he has never returned our phone calls. We can only imagine the owner has gone into hiding in an attempt to pay anything out. In frustration he wins for now. We will continue to elevate this until someone listens.
We hired this company based off of good reviews. I will say they are nothing but scam artists. Not only have they lost furniture pieces, they have charged my aunt almost double ($1,275 + tax) due to taking double the amount of time quoted. Due yourself a favor and find another company before hiring them. You will save yourself money and headache.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1275

A young man came to our home to look at what we wanted to move and we received an emailed estimate the following day. I agreed to use them (via email) because they had the best price by far, in fact, I didn't understand how they thought they could move us in just 4 hours but that was their estimate. Here's the scam..they give a low price just to get the job. When they arrive on the day of the move they want you to sign a NON-BINDING ESTIMATE which means they can charge you whatever they want regardless of what they told you in the original estimate. They handed me a bill for more than three times their original estimate and told me their mistake is my problem bc I signed a non-binding estimate. They were rude and hung up on me while I was disputing this with them. The man in charge of the crew quit his job while in my kitchen and said he was sick and tired of watching customers argue with them over this same issue and couldn't stand to watch customers get treated this way any longer.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1200

Utterly the worst. RUN..don't use these folks.

There was no excuse for the owner to send injured, untrained guys, no excuse for her rudeness, condescending attitude and slow half way, follow through. Her continued stance that they had provided fine service and a discount price is laughable.

Owner is rude and unhelpful. National customer service can do nothing but send customer concerns back to the franchise owner. The movers that work for them are the nicest guys ever but were not physically fit, were injured to boot and had not been trained well. I carried 60 boxes myself to the truck and with the help of a friend, carried most of the smaller pieces of furniture because one "Hunk" had stitches in his hand and the "Hunk" was clearly in poor physical condition, complained of severe ankle pain and could barely carry items. (Please note that this was only 1120 square feet of an apartment and a 12 x 12 garage all of which had been well packed and organized. The location had been inspected and the move estimated by one of their people and they saw the 17 steps to the apartment and knew I had around 60 boxes and a few smalls in a storage garage steps away from the apartment).

It went so poorly on the front end of the move at the apartment that after they finally got the items to my new house, I had them leave most of them in the living and dining room and I hired another mover to distribute the items to the right floors the next weekend. The college "Hunks" were so tired that they damaged several pieces of furniture and I was afraid would injure themselves more or someone else nearby (they almost dropped a heavy antique empire server on me that they tipped off the back of the truck).

This move not only cost me $1450.00 plus substantial tip (I felt bad because the guys had been made to work injured), I also had to pay another mover $350.00 to finish the move, I have several hundred dollars of damage to repair to furniture and damage to a laquer item that can never be fixed. My friend saw them literally drag it on its edge down of the truck. There is damage in both locations from them dropping items or knocking into walls. It also cost my peace of mind because I decided to hire a full service mover rather than do a self move and I ended up doing a self move anyway but worse. It is a busy time for me in my own work and instead of making my life easier College Hunks of Mt. Airy, MD made my life harder. Both the franchise owner and her crew manager acted put upon when asked to make things right. My dealings with both the Franchisee and her manager were frustrating. They clearly knew that I had been wronged but didn't want to admit it and really didn't want to make good. This move was worth less than zero dollars and I am going to spread the word.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1450

This was a horrible moving experience. The worst I've ever had. It's easier to just list things out

1. They had little or no tools to complete the move
2. They are VERY damaging and careless with your belongings and home. I have broken items & floor & wall damage.
3. They will not unscrew light bulbs, remove drapery, disconnect / re-connect your washer & dryer. Set up your bed or place your large screen tv on your tv stand / console. They left my 50 & 55 inch tvs sitting in the middle of the floor for me to pick up. And I had to climb behind my washer & dryer and connect them myself. They were irritated when I asked them to pull them out - so I can simply fit behind them. My washer machine spilled out onto my brand new hard wood floors because they did not think to drain it first - their words.
3. Their operations team is extremely professional - and that's why you are fooled into believing the service you will receive is professional and you are tempted in paying the extra money - because you believe you are paying for professional and exemplary service. These men are not professional movers or logistic experts. You are better off hiring men off the streets. Don't be fooled these people will tear up your house.

The was the Biggest mistake I've made in a long time.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1100

It's very hard to believe anyone could do such a terrible job as they did with packing boxes containing a variety of objects sent out to a dozen people using FedEx to ship! Scarcely any cushioning material was used to wrap the breakables, the box I received was far too big for the contents, which arrived all jumbled together--books, music, photos, artwork, glassware, pottery--much of it damaged and some precious things destroyed! One large piece of art was permanently bent and gouged in order to cram it into the box! Who DOES things like that?! There was no marking on the outside of the box to show which end was up, no Fragile stickers, and way too little taping (are they trying to save money?!), so it was coming apart and delivered upside-down through no fault of FedEx. These items were a bequest from a deceased relative, and irreplaceable, so it was especially heartbreaking, but what made it worse is that none of this had to happen! The whole company seems to be totally incompetent, uncaring, and irresponsible. When told about the damage to my shipment and to that of several other recipients from this job order, the owner (Anastasia) was cold, defensive, uncooperative, and tried to shift blame onto FedEx! But no one in the world could have shipped that sort of scandalously bad packaging without tremendous damage occurring to the contents. They don't deserve to stay in business.

Move size: Partial Move Service cost: $0

Our move (1 mile in Brookline) was the absolute worst moving experience I could imagine. The movers were young, inexperienced, and very slow-moving. We were charged 60% over the quote, as the kids doing the moving were so inefficient and more interested in socializing with each other than moving our belongings. When speaking to management I was told these were "kids - not professional movers." No blankets were used to move our things and we were asked several times by the movers to provide them with our scissors/knives. They couldn't put together a basic bedframe and screws to reassemble furniture were misplaced. If I had gotten movers off of craigslist it would have been cheaper and likely a better quality of mover. I wouldn't recommend these movers to anyone who wishes to have a hassle-free, moderately-priced moved; you should simply hire actual trained professionals and not College Hunks. These "movers" will run up your bill by moving things as slowly as possible and they won't apologize for it. Look elsewhere!

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2000