White Star Movers

White Star/Mayflower moved my 88-year-old mother from Novi Michigan to an assisted living facility near my home in Southport North Carolina. The truck was scheduled to arrive Friday June 3. On Friday they did not know where the truck was. On Monday I was told it arrived at the Wilmington NC agent “with significant damage”. The truck arrived at my home on Wednesday the 8th. The furniture for my mother’s new resident was unusable. There were family heirlooms that are 60 to 90 years old with legs broken off, scratched and gouged. Most cartons were crushed. We had to scramble to find other furniture for my mother to use. It is unknown if the pieces can be repaired. They cannot be replaced! She wondered where her pieces are. Thus far we have told her “they had some scratches that we want to get fixed”.

My garage is currently full with broken furniture and crushed boxes, while we wait for the insurance adjuster. I was told to contact Mayflower for a 5-day delay claim. I told Mayflower and White Star, my mother’s furniture is not delayed 5 days. The move is not complete until her furniture is repaired and delivered to her. I raised the issue with White Star. Mark White, the Owner of White Star Movers, response was: "Headquarters is giving you the 5 day delay claim for it arriving late and Penny in claims is handling the damages.”

The move is over. White Star did their job, but does not care about how the job was done. Mark White has passed it off to Mayflower claims and wiped his hands of it. Thanks for the great customer service Mr. White.

A sample of the damage can be viewed at:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4APoHC-lXPQa1ZTekMyQnlwcW8&usp=sharing.

Service cost: $2400

White Star is an unethical moving business. They will not deliver what is promised, they show up late and expect the customer to supply moving boxes. White Star hides behind the fact that they are Mayflower, but Mayflower, obviously, is no longer a reputable company. I hired White Star with the promise that my items would would remain on one truck throughout the move AND that they would send movers who knew how to move a grand piano. Neither of those requests were honored. Mayflower took my items and United delivered them. White Star does NOT have one-truck, out-of-state moves.

On moving day, the movers arrived without a sufficient supply of boxes kept and kept sneaking off without finishing the job. I called White Star three times to return to the job. They never sent a supervisor to oversee why this was happening. They weren't overburdened. I live alone and am not a collector; they were just lazy. My son kept running to Lowes to buy boxes and had to scour the neighborhood to collect cartons.

I was moving because I'm a senior in poor health and needed to live closer to my son. White Star knew this and took total advantage of my situation.

My damage was great and White Star made it a 3-year, laborious process to collect a miniscule amount. They lost all hardware to furniture that they knocked down (even on my Steinway grand piano), they lost all electrical cords, chargers and even a leaf to a table. Their process of collection is to make the customer jump through ridiculous hoops. "Go online and find similar items and create a spreadsheet of links and costs of all items lost and damaged." These time-wasters are not for reimbursement considerations; they're time-wasters to wear down customers. During the reimbursement phase the customer must deal with Claims Team 4, Armstrong Relocation Services, Unigroup and Estes Relocation, etc. While dealing with all these companies NOBODY answered any of my questions. All my Stifle lamps were damaged and lampshades crushed. No lamp boxes were used. Why? "We don't know." (I never got any compensation for this, even though I supplied photos.) Why were other people's items mixed in the boxes with my things? "We don't know." Obviously, White Star pilfers through boxes and steals. I lost multiple items. Why didn't I get a one-truck move, as promised? "We don't know."

When I warned my realtor friends in Michigan of White Star's ineptitude, they researched this and found that White Star doesn't have one-truck, out-of-state moves. They sold me a lie.

White Star ultimately sent my complaint to a "unbiased arbitrator" for a final decision. "Carrier had to leave and return for additional items several times during the day, and ultimately some of her goods had to be shipped on a separate van. Carrier does not and did not then offer a guarantee of one-truck delivery." Why didn't the carrier tell me that? Does that sound unbiased? They also added, "Carrier was not obligated under the original Bill of Lading to supply any of the boxes or cartons she needed." Do you want a moving company that arrives unprepared to do a job?I paid for boxes. White Star's rep walked through my house and said he assessed all the necessary packing material needed.

Before you hire this company, read all the complaints listed. Then go over to Yelp and read more complaint about White Star.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: $6766

From the initial contact with Joann, to the follow through with the move coordination team, a very stressful time turned into a totally wonderful, easy going experience!  The movers that showed up were dressed in professional attire, were courteous, respectful and efficient.  They calmed all my fears, talked to me throughout the day and made me feel very confident that all was going to go well.. and it did! I appreciated the fact that everything about this move was upfront and honest, there were no hidden fees and no "suprises".  This was a top notch moving company, and I was suprised that they were one of the most economical of the three estimates I've had.  I've referred several friends and family members, three of which moved out of state, and we all agree, White Star Movers is top notch!

Service cost: $1600

Guy came out to the house and gave us a quote. Then my wife and I talked it over, since it was $2000. We decided to go with White Star, so we made the reservation to have them move us. The big moving day came and they NEVER SHOWED UP!! They "had no record" of our reservation. We had less than 48 hours to be out of our house and they were NOT able to do anything to make up for their HUGE mistake. We called Morse Moving and the had a team of 4 out to our house in less that an hour. DO NOT HIRE WHITE STAR. If you want it done right call Morse Movers!!

Service cost: $2000

WILL NOT PAY FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE CAUSED BY THEIR MOVERS!! United quickly paid for the damage to the items damaged by Whitestar, but damage to property/the house is left to a third party chosen by Whitestar..Estes Relocation in Estes, TX owned by Penny Estes. Estes Relocation was quick to pay for the $175 wall damage from the crib, but the floor damage would require their 1/2 of the $1700 top coat estimate ($850) and move out of the first floor furniture (free to their moving company or 1/2 of the $3000 estimate if a local Iowa company handled the move), plus 1/2 of the local $39.99 hotel costs per night ($20) for the 5 days for the new top coat to be laid and 5 days curing time. So for $950 - $2450 depending on if they did the move for them to fix my newly refinished hardwood floor they damaged. Their share is only 1/2 because the flooring company made a mistake in my flooring in a separate room from the 2 rooms where the top coat was damaged by the movers and the moveout, top coat, and hotel would need to occur anyway. I did everything I could to get the moving estimate as low as possible for my 1700 sq ft first floors of 1 continuous hardfloor with no breaks..putting the smaller items on different floors in my home, putting my Pottery Barn furniture in a POD in my driveway instead of storage, just moving the large furniture items, etc. When I spoke to Whitestar, they said "Penny [Estes] handles all of our claims. I said that I spoke with her after she offered me a $250 "good faith" settlement for the floor damage which is a joke and she received the estimates for the cost to fix my floor. She told me to call you and provided me with your number, now you guys are saying to call her. Someone needs to fix my floor." This has been going on 1.5 years. I notified both Estes Relocation and Whitestar companies that if they did not fix my floor, that I would contact the gov't travel office to terminate their contract with the government, leave a negative online review, and sue for damages. They responded in a letter I received today (13 June 2017) with a reminder of the $250 "good faith" offer and it would be their final offer. This company might be OK for junky furniture and local moves if your don't care about damage and just want it moved. IF YOU HAVE VALUABLE FURNITURE OR OTHER BELONGINGS, OR A HIGH VALUE HOME.. DO NOT HIRE THIS COMPANY!! Their packers and movers are sweet young kids that will not wrap things properly and have no regard for your home. "Throw it in the box, scoot it in the home across the floor causing damage, don't wrap furniture causing deep gouges to where the furniture will not be the same even after repair, shove it in the room, gouge the wall" seems to be their moving motto. Sloppy and unprofessional. Their claims are worse than the moving itself. How horrible to treat a military family this way even after they charged the tax payer top dollar for this move for top quality service and that did not happen. Please go with a nationally known company if you value your belongings or your home.

Description of work:
Military PCS move of 12,000 lbs from Michigan to Iowa. I had broken glass from items not being wrapped properly, broken heirlooms, autographed items thrown in with exercise weights in the same box with no wrap, military heirlooms destroyed, heirloom furniture gouged from not being wrapped, and the movers did damage to my newly painted walls from gouging the wall while moving an heirloom $1K+ crib and newly refinished historical home hardwood floor by scooting a heavy dishpack across my floor causing tape damage to my fresh floor top coat. 3 flooring companies stated that the top was damaged and the first floor would need to be top coated; it could not be buffed out. I obtained 3 estimates and provided the cheapest estimate in my claim.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: $50000

I had so many problems it is tough to explain it all. I moved from Warren Michigan to Gilbert Arizona. I was upfront and honest with Eric their sales man with a nonsensical title. He stated that since I needed to store my belongings for one month before having them delivered that anything I needed access to after the move would be kept in a mezzanine for easy access. Turns out this is only in Michigan so moving out of state (which he knew I was doing) makes this a non option. Eric also stated that if I needed my things on a set day that this would be no big deal IF I gave at least 12 days notice. Needing my things on a set date I made DAM sure that I gave 15 days notice as to not mess around. A few days after I gave them my 15 day notice I had a weird feeling that something was not right and called Whitestar. This is when the office staff enlighten me to the fact that I would not be getting my things on the day I requested but rather between the day I needed my stuff and 9 more days. This window was so unacceptable but what could I have done since they had ALL MY STUFF?! The kicker is it not only did not arrive in the 10 day window but 2 days after that!! If you need your stuff ever do not hire these idiots. Furthermore if Eric shows up to "sell you" call the cops or grab your gun because you are about to get robbed. Some stuff got broke too and they better be replacing it. I paid for the top tier insurance.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: $7000

I had an appointment with Whitestar/Mayflower today. He never showed up and never called to reschedule. This is after a month in advance booking and a reschedule for or original appointment two days ago (I got a reschedule phone call an hour and half before the appointment time) because the guy who was supposed to come, apparently went out of town all of a sudden. To put icing on the cake, I called their office and no one will answer the phones and no voicemail is available. I understand this may be due to a large storm we had last night but our power company is not reporting outages in their area right now, I checked). None of this excuses the fact that NO ONE contacted me to let me know he was not coming (Good business practice is to have contact info for your next day's appointments in case of a setback or possible early arrival). I am not even going to mention the confusing emails I continue to get from their company telling me that I do not have an appointment and that I need to reschedule (according to an office employee, it is ANOTHER clerical error caused by the fact I contacted corporate first?? Really?)These types of clerical issues are not issues I DO NOT need on my move day, and their office has shown me that they are not capable enough to handle a smooth move day, since they cannot even get the estimate appointments squared away correctly.I understand there was a huge storm last night, I was in it too. But everyone in this area is doing business as usual, and that is after not having power most of the night and some of this morning. Yet I was still able to find their phone number, know I had an appointment and made sure I was available during that appointment time. If you were my friend and I was giving you advise on whether or not to use Whitestar/Mayflower in Detroit Metro, I would say, STAY AWAY from them and go talk to Untied or Allied..THEY SHOWED UP and were SUPER professional!   BTW..I have all this documented to back it up, so Whitestar, if you do what you have done to other reviewers and post ridiculous reviews that are good below this one, that is fine, because, I have all the emails, phone records, screen shots of DTE's outage map etc.

Service cost: $5500

White Star Movers went above and beyond my expectations. Chris came out and gave me an estimate. He was on time and very knowledgable. His estimate came in a couple hundred dollars under what he initally told me, although we did move a few boxes beforehand. We had 4 guys and 2 trucks on a two day move. Most of the same crew was there both days and the guys were professional and respectful. Nothing was damaged and the guys were happy to move things around as my wife changed her mind about where she wanted things.. all afternoon. Overall, my expectations were exceeded. .

Service cost: $1000