Pricing Van Lines

They will give you a quote that is reasonable, then there will be a QA visit where they will raise the price. Then the movers come and leave you with a bill for more money. They are currently holding the goods of a disabled veteran hostage for $8,000 dollars above what was quoted. They even said they would dump my stuff in the driveway if I don’t want to pay it. They fully admit THEY didn’t estimate correctly and that they wouldn’t recommend their company to friends and family. Beware of these scammers

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $15000

Alex pretended to be my best friend during the quote process. I went with this company because they seemed legit and assertive. Welp, that was a complete farce because 2.5 weeks beforehand, they called saying they needed to push the move back and threatened me with a service failure. Thankfully, I had 2 backups and was able to get something else lined up. Now waiting on my deposit to get returned, which I'm sure they will probably try to keep because they're super sketchy.

Avoid this company like the Coronavirus

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3500

This company is sketchy, not trustworthy, and not professional. I would recommend you stay FAR away from this company- they take advantage of you and your moving situation, and will try to change cost last minute, then can certainly cancel on you 2 days before your move. They are EXTREMELY unprofessional. At least they gave me all my money back. My move was set to take place end of July 2021.

May 2021 - I called several moving companies to compare quotes and services. Maria from this company was extremely responsive and gave me a good rate -saying that this was a small move and that any company giving me a higher rate was taking advantage of me. She pressured me several times to put down a deposit as soon as possible. The quote that she gave was a "binding moving estimate" which says that the cost will not go up unless you add items to the move. She said multiple times it is guaranteed not to change unless I added items and that it was binding. She was extremely responsive by phone and text. She said that inventory would be checked with a quality assurance call a week before my move. She said that if I booked early, then this is how I would get a low price and if I waited, the prices would go up since it is a busy season. Therefore, I put down a deposit.

End of June 2021 - Quality Assurance call - we added about 5-10 items -nothing too major and our estimate was increased a significant amount by Ron from 2000 to 3000. This was an absurd increase 50%. Therefore, I attempted to call back the company to get it decreased. For over 24 hours, I was not able to reach anyone. I was sent to the useless answering person who was extremely unprofessional - "girl, if you think you'll get a better rate, you're crazy, come on". Very unprofessional, non-chalant - and this was after they tried to increase my cost 50%.

End of June 2021 - I wanted to decrease the number of items back to the original number to get the original estimate. Finally, I was able to get in touch with Ron who tried to decrease our estimate back to $2000. Then, he said that his boss yelled at him and that he had to at least increase it to $2,500. When I referenced the "binding moving estimate" and how it literally states "this estimate is guaranteed unless you add items", Ron continued to repeat that I was not reading the contract and I continued to say I was literally reading the contract to him and had it open. At one point, he started to attack what me, saying that I was not understanding the industry. I stated that my issue was that if the estimate is not binding, then they should not say that in the contract. He said that if we did not increase the estimate from 2000 then their drivers would not show up. How unprofessional and what a way to threaten people when they put their money and trust into a company for a move. Therefore, we agreed to the $2,5000 increase.

Literally 2 days before our move - I got a call from this person speaking very casually - "hey so we wanted to see what window we have for the move and how many days we can push it back" - to which I answered - I can't move it back at all. The person then responded "okay, we likely won't have movers, but I'll call you in the next 24 hours". At that point, I just cancelled because I did not want to be put in an even worse situation 24 hours or the same day as my move. Also I did not want all my belongings to be with this awful company. At least they gave me back my money quickly and that's the only good thing I can say about them.

Do not fall for their tactics - Maria, Ron, all the answering people are especially unprofessional, awful - they are all deceiving and only care about getting your money. It seemed like Ron was trying to help but then who knows what is going on behind the scenes and if it is all just part of their deceit.

In the end, they did not move my things so I would definitely recommend you stay far away. Drive your own U-haul if you can, otherwise try to go with a different company. They should not give rates that they cannot keep and they should not say in the contract that the rate is guaranteed. They were extremely unprofessional and took advantage of me moving by changing rates 1-2 weeks before when there were no other options, and then telling me that they likely would not have a mover TWO DAYS before my move.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2000

These guys were fantastic. I was moving a bunch of furniture from my mom's house to my new house. They loaded up a 26 foot truck in 2 hours. They literally ran back and forth between the truck and the house each time they took a load, so I definitely felt like I got my money's worth. There was certainly no standing around or wasting time. Everything they packed made it to Vegas safely, even with my husband’s driving and a blizzard. I was so happy to support their organization. I would definitely hire them again.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2560

I don’t know from where to start please stay away from this molestors. They just want money from you. I booked my long distance moving and they initially quoted wrong. They never called before showing after doing many follow ups they hired another cons which was coast 2 coast. The guys named Dave came to pick our stuffs and after seeing he said it’s going to cost us $1000 extra because of some extra boxes we agreed since we have to move from the house then the real story started he started throwing boxes and damaging the walls after that we requested him not to that and he started making personal comments and told us now he will make us pay more than $1000 which he did he charged us $2500 for 20 extra boxes upon calling Geovani who was the supervisor he suggested to let him take our stuffs since we don’t have much time left and he will help us to get this sorted that was another mistake by trusting him. After many many followups he sent us revised quote and said that we need to pay $1704 upon delivery and we’ve this confirmation on the email. I informed them on Nov 11th that we’re ready with the address and till today 12/7 our stuffs not arrived. We kept the patience on that but today when the carrier called they mentioned that the actual balance we need to pay is $2395 not $1704. We called Carmen, Lilli, Tarik and Geovani 100 times but no one is answering finally someone answered and said if you want your stuffs you need to pay $2395 or they won’t deliver. After sending several emails on the amount confirmation no one responded back. This is the biggest mistake of my life moving and getting harassed by them. I would beg people not to move with them even if they’re willing to do at free cost. Note my stuffs not arrived yet and now I have no hope that they will delivery the stuffs in good shape. I am going to take a struck action again this team and the company. Very unprofessional and rude people.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7200

PVL is up-front in stating they are a broker, and that your contract is with other companies they identify and line up. The experience can be highly variable, though, because you are ultimately at the mercy of whoever those other companies are. Our experience was just terrible. It was expensive, and we feel like we were ripped off. I guess people who don't move often get pulled into this kind of thing because of lack of experience. If I move again, I'll never do it this way!

They don't tell you until you get deep into the process that it could take up to 31 BUSINESS days to get your stuff delivered for a long-distance move. We were lucky, I guess. We only waited 15 business days (3 full weeks).

The pick-up and delivery crews are hired locally by the foremen. Our pick-up team was so-so. Although they disassembled the furniture, they left key pieces of hardware behind that I luckily identified and brought with me to completely reassemble the bed and the projection screen. They did a poor job of packing the screen, by the way. I specifically wanted them to do it because I thought they'd do a better job. Not so: It was hardly wrapped with cardboard and was damaged in transit and will have to be replaced. (Note that unless you buy moving insurance well in advance of the move, you'll have only two options for coverage from the movers. The standard only pays 60 cents per pound of whatever gets damaged. Not much help.)

The delivery team, though, was a mess. The foreman is supposed to call 1 to 2 days in advance to advise of arrival. He called us at lunch on Saturday for a next day (Sunday) delivery in the early afternoon. He called late the next day and said he was running late and wanted to push to the next day, but we had already taken down our air mattresses and needed the furniture.

By the way, you pay 1/3 when you book, 1/3 at pick-up and 1/3 at delivery. The last payment (on-site at time of delivery) has to be in cash or cashier's check. The foreman called just before the banks closed on Saturday, so we had to do cash.

The balance due was over $4,000 - a lot of cash, which we already had mostly on-hand but had to withdraw an additional $1500 from an ATM. The foreman complained we were paying in cash and not cashier's check, then I reminded him he gave us little option to do otherwise.

I found out by talking with the foreman that he rented the truck he used and made a haul from San Francisco across the country, picking up and delivering these loads. I guess he was independent, and perhaps the moving company sub-contracted him. He was very clear that he was not going to do anything that would cost him extra money, and it showed in how cheap he was in managing the job. He wouldn't haul away the packing material they had used to pack our stuff. (We knew we'd have to haul away our own cardboard later, but not all the stuff they used.) To his credit (and he made sure I knew it) the foreman didn't upcharge me for stairs or having to take things down a hill.

The crew he hired were young local men, some of whom knew each other, that appeared to do this kind of work as pick-up jobs to make side money. They arrived in a few of their personal vehicles, reeking of weed.

Halfway through the job, they started complaining about the rain and the size of the job and threatened to walk off the job unless the foreman paid them more. He finally did, they had another weed break, and eventually everything was off the truck. I also ended up tipping the workers halfway through the job to engender goodwill and help keep them at it.

PVL charges by the square foot. We had a three-bedroom home to move, with tools and such. It was a big haul over 1500 miles, and it cost us over $14,000 total. I feel for that kind of money, the experience should have been better. it was stressful and the delivery was filled with anxiety and tension, wondering if our stuff would make it inside the house at all. (At one point, the workers were threating to just leave it all on the porch as "the best we can do.")

There are some positives: The people at PVL are nice, and they DO answer the phone. I'm not faulting them as much as I am the model. It's outdated and there are better ones, like moving pods, which I wish I had done instead. I have not yet come back to the actual moving company with my damaged items list. When I do, I'll be giving them a full accounting of their failure to meet what I think are reasonable expectations for this kind of service.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $14000