Safe Ship Moving Services

Worst Experience ever. First, I was unaware safe ship farmed out to movers. Second, They use the bottom of the barrel individuals who are trying to scam you from the beginning before and after pick up. Safe ship started my quote at for this 570 mile trip and with furniture I moved into storage with a 26 ft truck at $12000 plus. When I told him I wasn't interested in spending that much he kept saying he was speaking to his MGR for discounts and got the price to $7900. This was about 2k more than I thought it should be, however I was 1000 miles away and reluctantly agreed because I was told there would be no additional charges. 2 days later a Mgr called and asked if I had told them everything in storage because it would be more if I didn't give all the correct info. I told him I had and if they found I had to pay 1 more dime I would cancel. He assured me no other charges would be brought.

The movers I found out later would pick up on Friday at 2PM. I had someone there to meet them which cost that person $500 to move a job. Guess what, they were a no show. Then they say they will be there at 8 am sat and contact me at 10 saying they are running late and will show up after 11. Also costing my friend an additional $500 loosing another job. I told Habib, the person I was speaking with that I was not paying for anything else and if he thought for a moment it would be more to cancel. Now the amazing thing is he was picking up on Sat and not delivering until Tues, Habib thought he could deliver any time he wanted. Once he picked up he told my friend I was 300 cubic ft over what I paid for. He was told at that time to call me and he choose not to. He then sent me a text the following day saying I had to pay an addtional $2500 if I wanted my stuff. I told him to eat shit. I had to have police there to intervene, Safe ship refused to get involved.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7900

Given a time-frame of 15-to 21 working days. It is now past my delivery date with no answers on when my things will arrive. Safe ship used a moving company Global Movers who have investigations going on with BBB and multiple complaints. I called to add a refrigerator the day before pickup, charged 200 additional and when the driver showed he said it would be an additional 800. They don't care about the so called contract. Take these complaints to the BBB.. get enough while the current investigation is going and their damn license revoked.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $3000

I just completed my 4th interstate move and this by far was the worst experience ever! Please note, Safe Ship IS NOT a moving company but simply a broker who you pay to "shop" your move to moving companies. I was totally aware of this, however the problem is that the moving companies they deal with are bottom of the barrel, borderline criminal in the way that they carry out their business. The pickup crew (Top Rated Moving Van Lines) didn't even have a legitimate truck. They basically rented a truck and put a removable placard with their company info on the side of it. The drop-off crew was similar and didn't even bother to put the company info on the truck (I still don't even know the name of the company, which is probably by design). Anyways, once they have your belongings they will extort you for more money, show up late (if at all), handle your belongings with the least care possible, and ignore just about every covenant in the contract you signed with Safe Ship. I was originally quoted $3,200 for my move from NYC to LA, yet it ended up costing over $5,500, and this was AFTER "credits applied due to the multiple complaints throughout the process. Had I not read my contract and spoken up when the movers were trying to scam me, I would have been out of pocket over $7,000. Safe Ship is complicit in all of this and only steps in when you basically force them to. I find it funny that it was easy to reach them prior to the move, but I would often get routed to voice mail when trying to contact them regarding the extreme poor service from the movers.

Before moving, I did a cost analysis of how much it would be to move my stuff vs just selling all of it and buying new items and it was cheaper to move my current belongings. Had I known the cost would have ballooned to $5,500 I would have taken the other route. I will admit that I had a few more items than what was initially provided to Safe Ship, but they were all boxes, nothing bulky. When I disclosed the additional boxes during the final inventory review, the rep specifically told me "this isn't enough to materially change the size or cost of your move so I will leave everything as is". I was fine with paying a few more hundred for the additional boxes and was prepared to do so.

To keep a long story short, the movers (Top Rated Moving Van Lines) showed up, put everything on the truck and then proceed to tell me that the size of my belongings were double than what was in the contract. Based on the inventory I provided, Safe Ship estimated my belongings to be about 360 cubic ft, but the movers said it came out to 680 and the total cost of the move would now be just under $6,000. Being that there were no major items added to the list disclosed to Safe Ship, I was immediately skeptical so before I signed off on anything I asked the "head" mover to let me see the measurements for myself. He first tried to tell me that he didn't have a tape measure (mind you, that they had a full tool box in the truck) so I told them I would get one from my doorman. Once I returned with the tape measure, he then tells me that he would measure it himself and I was not allowed into the truck for safety reasons. I ignore him and say I want to see the measurements for myself. Just as I thought, the measurements came in around 500 cubic ft, which was much lower than the 680 cubic ft that he quoted. This was a difference of over $1,000!! Of course, at this point the head mover became irritated because I caught him trying to scam me. He refused to knock off the full amount based on the actual calculation and said he would base it on 550 cubic ft, and nothing lower, which came out to about $800 off the original quote. He proceeded to get nasty and tell me that "this is how it works when you broker your move out to companies like us", "this isn't a charity, we're here to make a profit", and "I'll put all of your stuff on the curb right now and drive off if you don't agree with this amount!". Though younger me probably would have probably acted in a very different manner, I did manage to keep my cool as I was completely aware that they had my belongings and did not want them to get broken or purposely end up missing. I paid their portion based on the new amount and even tipped the other movers and decided to take it up with Safe Ship.

By this point, I just wanted to be done with the process and move on with my life. I rarely write reviews, but really feel people should be informed about how this company operates. If I save just one person from falling victim to this scam, I feel I have done my job. Do your research before picking a mover and STAY AWAY from the brokers as you will have no control over who your movers are and will be at their mercy once they have your belongings. Save yourself the stress and pick a reputable end-to-end mover even if it costs more. After all, you'll most likely end up paying for it anyways.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $5500

Long Distance moving from Vermont to Florida. Absolutely horrible experience through Safeship with Derek Jones doing the cost estimation. First I was finalized for 3400$. But on the day of final moving, LuxeryVan Lines LLC was the one who did the actual moving, that means Safeship is just a Broker. A person named Ibub from LuxeryVan increased the cost to 9000$ which is 3 times more than the original quote. On the day of delivery, we are charged again 600$ to unload all my stuff into the apartment. Half of my household stuff like dining table, queen bed were broken and the boxes are opened. The bolts for both the queen beds are missing and both of my therapedic memory foam mattress are completely destroyed. Dining table is broken very badly. Leather sofa was scratched and legs are half broken. Safeship don’t care to return my calls. All I can mention is that SafeShip movers and LuxeryVan Lines LLC are totally Fraud movers.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $10700

I hired Safe Ship after being told it was Veteran's owned and operated. They did not tell me they contracted out the actual moving. This was my first experience with professional movers, call me naive. The company Safe Ship contracted with was terrible. I have a claim pending but don't expect much. I hold Safe Ship responsible though they won't hold themselves accountable. They made their money up front. My possessions were lost, stolen, or damaged. I paid thousands more than was quoted because of poor packing. My grandson would have done a better job!

Thanks, Safe Ship, because of you, I will never hire another "moving service" unless I see their name on the truck. You are a sham. You give "Veteran owned and operated" the worst possible reputation. HIRE SOMEONE ELSE and do the research. Wish I had!!

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $8000

Let me start by saying I've moved 8 times in the last 12 years. Most have been cross-country moves. We've done full-service corporate relocations using big name long-haul movers. Then we've done smaller moves that were more hybrid using ABF Freight. For this move from VA to MI, we decided to use this broker as we were both working full time and wanted a company that pre-vetted the mover. Worst moving decision we've ever made!

First off - when calling to get a quote, we started off by giving an estimate of amount of household goods. I had a fairly good guess, because we'd moved only 1 year earlier from TX to VA. At that time we had a 28' truck that was crammed full. I knew that it would require something larger as we'd obtained more furniture pieces while in VA. So that information was provided right off the bat. They wanted to do a verbal inventory, so we did. I overestimated the size of things like sectional sofas, patio table, dressers. They ran it through their algorithm and came up with an amount of cubic feet needed. Agent indicated that they will arrive in a semi-truck and we will be charged/refunded based on how much we use.

Fast forward to within days of move - we do a more detailed inventory now that we've got boxes packed. We had done a relatively good initial inventory according to them. Again I OVER estimated size of things.

I don't get name of mover until day before - I look up reviews and they are terrible. Like one star. I couldn't have picked a worse one And they're in New Jersey (I'm in Virginia Beach, VA)?!

Movers arrive 2 hours later than arrival window roll up to my house in a 28' box truck (reminder one of first conversations with Safe Ship - we moved a year earlier, 28' will be too small, so I know we'll need larger). Supposed to send semi-truck and charge based on what we use. Didn't happen.

Thankfully the mover had taken a look at the detailed inventory I'd given Safe Ship, he knew it wouldn't fit in a 28' truck, so he had gotten another truck moving from NJ which was 7 hours away. He walked around our house, looked at the amount of stuff to be moved and indicated that we would use most of that 2nd 28' truck. Which grew our bill to the tune of an additional almost $10,000. Inventory wasn't significantly different than what I'd given Safe Ship, but whatever they use to calculate the cubic feet needed, woefully underestimated the need.

So my decision to make was to either pay the extra $10,000 (in cash) to get my mover underway or try to find a long-haul mover that could start the job the following day (unlikely) because our house was closing and we had to be out. I had no other choice than to pay the extra money and move forward.

You can image the rest - items damaged or missing when they arrive, moving truck shows up 10 days earlier than scheduled and we have to jump through all sorts of hoops to accommodate them. Moving company customer service unpleasant is putting it kindly. A DISASTER! Although I was willing to pay the extra money to have it go smoothly. Never would I ever recommend using this service. Your money gets you nothing. Even if you've never moved before, you can do a better job handling it yourself than paying extra $$ for this broker. The moving company told me that I paid an extra 25% for the broker fee, so in our case that was $6250 for nothing but problems. DO NOT USE THEM

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $25000

Be ready to pay more than what they tell you and read the small font before signing!

Booking was the easiest part, and the representative was very nice. He warned about costs being higher once they would load the truck since inventory was just an estimated amount, but it ended up being TWICE as much. It would have been better to do a more detailed walk of inventory or given us a range, so it wasn't a surprise when they picked it up. There are also extra costs they warn you about when booking such as distance between truck and apartment number.

Another surprise cost happened when they dropped off our items. They used a shared load 18-wheeler to drive our things which couldn't access our building. it was written in the smallest font in the contract that there was an extra charge per cubic feet for a shuttle service from large truck to a moving van.

Last complain it that they do not tell you exactly when they will be picking up or dropping off your stuff until 24 hours before. Our moving elevator was booked for the time they were coming, and we asked if they could come later in the afternoon, but they arrived even earlier and got upset we didn't have the elevator booked.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $4200

I paid Safe Ship Moving $7000 to move my belongings from California to Florida. They transferred the contract to a moving company in California that was unlicensed. That company delivered 37 of my 72 boxes and told me to file a claim.

To file, you need to list each item, its original and replacement cost, weight but you cannot save the file. Safe Ship told me that they were sorry.

None of 10 attorneys have responded to my 1-page summary of the disaster.

Are you moving? Rent a moving truck and move your stuff yourself! I wish I had!

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7000

This company hired a moving company based out of Missouri that lost, damaged, and withheld my belongings for 3mo. This company has unanimous 1 star reviews across every media platform. AND that same moving company is actively being sued by the attorney general of Missouri for their fraudulent moving practices. SafeShip claims to look out for veterans and to throughly vet the movers they contract yet they contracted a 1 star company that is actively being sued. Not until I threatened contacting the state’s attorney general did Safe Ship bother to help me track down my belongings. How do you hire a company under investigation?

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $15000