U Pack

I can't say enough positive things about our move with our UPack Relocube. You read so many horror stories that people have with their long-distance moves, so it's difficult to choose an option you think you can trust. We're so glad we went with UPack! What initially stood out is the significantly lower cost compared to other similar options and moving companies. The size of the cube was perfect to move the contents of our one-bedroom apartment (no furniture). But what most impressed us with the company is the absolutely incredible customer service we experienced. Andrew, who initially brought us our cube in NJ, was able to expertly navigate the cube into an oddly-shaped space at our apartment building. He helped us to understand how to use the cube and answered all our questions. Bob, who dropped off our cube in IL, was super friendly and made sure to position the cube to our exact specifications. Additionally, everyone we spoke to on the phone throughout the entire process (from booking, to scheduling pickups/dropoffs, to requesting updates) were SO friendly and helpful! Overall, the trip was relatively quick (cube was picked up on a Friday and delivered the following Thursday). We would definitely use this option for a move in the future!

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1800

I can't say enough positive things about the experience with UPack/ABF. We had been faced with a forced relocation from Central Oregon to the Charlotte area. After several insanely high quotes from full service movers, I began to seek the do-it-yourself route. I'm 45. I'm older and fatter and things hurt. I don't want to move my own sh*t. But I priced out U-Haul, Penske, Budget - all far too expensive considering I'd have to ship vehicles too. UPack came under my radar with the cube thing. Nice idea but we had too much stuff. Then I discovered the 28' pup trailer option from ABF. I was intrigued.

After a few other avenues dead ended, I called UPack (about 4 months before the move date). A very helpful guy walked me thru the process... Pretty simple. They drop the trailer with a ramp. You load it. They pick it up, give you a time frame (9-11 business days in my case), and the drop it off with plenty of time in both ends to load and unload. They'll even supply movers to help (third party but something to consider). I figured at 45 I had one more move in me. We pulled the trigger and booked the trailer, saving a little by booking early.

I was worried thereafter about upcharges, delays, and wether or not they'd even drop the trailer on time.

It went as fluid as 40 weight from start to finish. Excellent customer service. I had many questions and they had many answers. I had a very narrow sloped driveway at the new house. We discussed options and they agreed to drop it there. We hadn't even bought a new house at the time of booking and they were still easy to call and change up stuff.

The drivers were all friendly and professional. They even let my kids hook up the gladhands.

Our trailer arrived as promised, on time and parked in our narrow steep driveway with zero issues. They gave us 5 days over a weekend to unload. Since I had grown a bit older and fatter over the 6 day drive, I gave up and hired movers who had no issues unloading that thing in 2 hours.

Thank you, ABF for a seamless, stress free, affordable move. Well under half the price of the cheapest full service quote we got. Including all the packing supplies and movers.

I would.recommend this service to anyone..

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $8700

Thank you UPACK and especially my delivery guy Daniel L. in Las Vegas.We moved fromKirkland,WA to Las Vegas.

Daniel saw a small woman unloading the cube by herself and asked if he could help.

We emptied the cube in 15 minutes and he took the cube back with him.

Im sure that saves the company a lot of money by not having to schedule a pick up. Thanks again Daniel and UPACK. You are the best. I will use UPACK again. Rene/Scott Berlin

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1660

I had a cube reserved for weeks. The cube was being delivered on Tuesday giving me more that enough time to be out of my apartment for the Thursday I had to leave. Not even 24 hours before my delivery on Monday they said the forklift was broken and they could come on Thursday! Just like that, too bad on me. No trying to work a resolution for me. Just you are out of luck, you can cancel your reservation. So how would they know it would be up and running on Thursday. Do not Trust them, go to another company. Horrible. I'm sure they would have charged me if I canceled less than 24 hours. They should have paid me. They do not give a dam. They could not have cared less.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $2185

Moving across country is a challenging experience, especially as a single senior woman. Fortunately the choice of UPack to assist with my move was an exceptional one. From the first call to the last, every employee of UPack was friendly, professional and efficient. There were no surprises with my move plan; the initial quote was accurate, the company was flexible and receptive to all my revised plans and their schedule was very precise. My belongings made it to Denver in great shape and earlier than expected. UPack turned a stressful situation into a super positive one.

Move size: 1 Bedroom Home Service cost: $1939

Delivery of the trailer was on time and went off without a hitch. The trouble started with the loading of the trailer the next day. Loading and unloading was done by Moving Staffers who were contracted by UPack. Loaders did an very poor job of loading the truck. They loaded heavy boxes on top of very light boxes causing the lower ones to crush damaging items that were contained within them. Even though I packed the boxes using bubble wrap, shrink wrap and newspaper sheets they still managed to cause a lot of damage. When the trailer is ready for pick up the pick-up driver is supposed to secure the bulkhead that separates your things from the rest of the trailer. He should place a security tag on the bulkhead while you witness this being done for you to confirm the tag placement and sign that this was done. None of this was done in our case. The driver showed up, hooked up the trailer and took off. I didn't sign any paperwork, witness the placement of the bulkhead or any of the correct procedure. When truck was opened on the receiving end the bulkhead was leaning against all of our things causing damage during transport. The delivery driver confirmed that everything had not been done correctly. He did have me witness the cutting of the security tag which was the first time I was seeing it. The unloading experience was totally the opposite from the loading. The driver was great and polite. The unloading crew did the best they could with the unloading since all the damage was done during the loading. Now, comes the best part. I called customer service to inquiry about a claim. I was told by Alana that NOTHING IS COVERED DURING TRANSIT. Damage must be claimed while they are loading the truck. I asked how could I tell what was damaged before unpacking the boxes and she responded that only damage actually loading and unloading is covered and that is at $1.00 per pound.    Bottom line, I would not recommend this company to anyone and I would be glad to discuss more details with anyone.

Service cost: $1402

This is what I wrote in the comments section to the survey U-Pack asked me to complete after my move.  I would additionally add that some of these issues may have been because it was not with U-Pack's actual carrier, ABF, since the zip code I was moving to did not allow them to operate there.  Technically Old Dominion is a different company and so they may do things differently, but I feel that some of this was information of which I should have been made aware prior to the move.
While overall the move with U-Pack went very smoothly there are a few issues that arose.  They would not discourage me from using U-Pack again, but they are things of which I should have been made aware prior to my moving date.  One, on the phone I was told that Old Dominion would be used as my carrier, but when the contract came through it showed Estes and a different transit time.  I don't think that a customer should be told one thing on the phone and then another thing be put in a contract for them to sign without it being discussed first, especially since it just appeared to be for the ease of the company, not the customer.  Two, there needs to be better communication between the carrier and the customer.  While frustrating, I understand that customers can't be notified about pick-up times too far in advanced.  However, when a customer is called to ask to do a live load there needs to be follow up about what time that live load will be so that adequate preparations can be made (hiring local moving help to load).  I gave the ok for a live load and asked for the gentleman to follow up with me after he spoke with his manager for the reason just mentioned, yet I had to call Old Dominion two days before my move and find out that they planned to pick my belongings up at 7am.  When I told him that I hired help who was not able to come before 9am, the person with whom I was speaking acted like it was a terrible inconvenience.  Again, wanting things to be easy for the company, not the customer who is paying, trying to coordinate many things, and moving her entire life to a new state.  Three, there is inconsistency between what is advetised on the U-Pack website and shown in the videos and what actually happens on the day of the move.  Specifically, the use of a lock and the bulkhead.  I was not able to use my own lock to secure my belongings as advertised, but rather forced to use a plastic tag provided by the company.  The bulkhead did not fit across the entire width of the truck, as shown in the videos, but rather partially covered my items and there were no bars to secure them in place, but tie-downs.  If someone had really wanted to, they could have loosened the tie-downs and shifted one of the pieces of plywood to have access to my belongings all without breaking the plastic security tag.  Unfortunately these things were not apparent until after my belongings were packed in the trailer and I did not feel that there was anything I could do to remedy the situation.  I was asked to take a big leap of faith that all my belongings would arrive.  Fourth, the tracking of the trailer proved to be difficult.  I don't know why the driver could not give me a copy of the form I signed with the tracking number on it.  Rather he said to wait an hour and call the company to get the number.  This adds an extra step for the customer who may need to do other things like finish cleaning an apartment, return keys, or begin driving to her new home.  Additionally, when I did remember to call it was on the weekend and I was informed that they could not track the truck because the relevant department was closed on the weekend.  This is information should be available to general customer service no matter when a customer calls, otherwise it is a useless feature.  Further, this should also be something that can be looked up via the internet so a customer does not have to call and wait on hold until there is someone available with whom to speak.

Service cost: $1200

I'll start with the quick and straight forward:
1. I recommend use of this company AS LONG AS YOU UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS
2. When using the trailer, no lock with a 2 inch shank is thin enough to fit through the hole to lock the bulkhead doors. NONE. I searched numerous stores, wasting my time and money at a very stressful moving time and found none that worked. When I called the service center about this, I was told that this is known and everyone that encounters this just leaves the bulkhead doors unlocked. Given that I had already loaded everything and was about to leave the state, I had no choice but to do the same. All of my things were fine and nothing was damaged or stolen.
3. The employees are very nice, both those with UPack and those with ABF. I moved from Boston to NC. The drivers were great and friendly. The service center folks I talked to on the phone were also very nice and friendly.

Now, allow me to provide more info for those interested.

What do I mean by understand the process? ABF is a freight company. The situation seems to be that they do this moving personal stuff with UPack on the side. That is, once you have loaded your stuff, they use the rest of the space for freight until they deliver the trailer to you. I liked that I had the flexibility to load up the trailer and use however much space I needed and was not limited like I would have been if I mistakenly underestimated the number of pods/cubes I needed. I used the amount of space I estimated, but I really like that I could have used more if I found that I needed to.

Next, there have been a few complaints on here about the drivers being late. They were for me when delivering the empty trailer, I admit. The drop off time was 11AM-4PM and the truck arrived at ~6PM. I was in Boston, though. Good luck trying to get a semi through Boston. That is not something that I think can be held against the driver/company. As for why they cannot pin-point a time? Well, they have freight and need to pick up and unload and so forth on the way to dropping the trailer off at your place. While we all want precise times, that is just not how the trucking business works. I knew this going into it so I did not and do not hold that against the company.

Allow me to take a moment to comment about this service in Boston. UPack has many spots on their site that point out big city limitations with their service. Boston is one such city. That region does not allow trailers to be left on the street. It's illegal to. So, I was out of luck with that. My father used to drive long haul semi and so I asked him about whether or not he thought the driver could back the trailer into my driveway. As the Boston region is, the streets are tiny, the corners sharp, and the paths narrow. I was VERY concerned and stressed out about this. My father kept telling me, "if the driver is worth his salt, he will not have a problem." I am happy and relieved to say that the driver didn't even bat an eye. He backed that trailer in like the pro he is. My wife was floored. He did it in no time and he didn't hit anything. I uploaded two pictures I took when he parked it in the driveway. I spent weeks looking obsessively at semi trailers around Boston and I can say that 99% of them are way longer than the 28 ft trailers for ABF. You do not need a very long driveway to have them park it. Their website has all the specs on the length and width of the trailers. You can measure you driveway to make sure. Mine was 10 ft wide and like 60 ft long. The length of my driveway was not the issue. It was the width and coming in from the narrow street that concerned me. The driver didn't have a problem, though. 10ft wide and a narrow street was fine for him. As my father said, this is what they do! They know how to drive these things!

Last, ABF delivered the trailer to me at my destination at the start of the time range and got it at the end of the day. I could not have had better service then. And, like I said earlier, the driver and the service center employees were very friendly and nice to talk to. I did find that some water leaked in at the front corners of the trailer. Thankfully, I had bagged my mattresses and couch. SO, the water was on those and nothing else. If you pack in the front corners, I suggest that you bag whatever is there just to be safe.

Service cost: $1300