u/Powerful_Aside4284

I just want to hop on here and tell people about my experience hiring a movie company - I basically don't want anyone to have to ever go through the nightmare I went through.

First off, I've never hired a moving company before and thought they operated like any honest business. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. I ended up hiring Coastal Moving Services who lied about literally every single thing they do in a manner that cannot be easily caught for a first time customer/mover.

Here is the sequence of events I went through:

1. I googled movers and found their name. If you call them, a very savvy salesman will pick up who will tell you they can move your stuff within a 7-10 day delivery window. They never shared that they are just a broker, who hires other companies. When asked if they can also move cars, they will tell you "sure thing, that's handled by another department" and transfer your call. SPOILER ALERT: They do not handle ANYTHING themselves and deceive customers that they can guarantee what they are saying. This may sound minor but its a very important sneaky detail that will affect you later.
2. They got an inventory list from me for a small one bedroom with no major furniture (only personal belongings) and told me I am way under their minimum requirements so I can easily take 30-40 more boxes without it increasing my cost. Their salesmen are VERY savvy and trained to deceive you into signing them but it is hard to figure this out because they sound like normal customer service reps except that nearly everything they tell you is a lie. They got details like how far our place is, whether the building has an elevator, etc. and give you an estimate (Spoiler: This estimate has zero significance whatsoever and they only use this number to get you to make a deposit). I also contacted other moving companies and chose Coastal not because they were the cheapest but because they sounded like they had a good handle on their stuff and I wanted to have zero issues.
3. Everything sounds legit until they get your non-refundable booking fee and moving day arrives.
4. On moving day, they will sent third party laborers they contract your way (this was NEVER disclosed before) headed by a guy who was extremely rude and unprofessional, and whose main job is to rack up your prices by complaining about EVERYTHING. The company who came to us was Loadrans, a third party Coastal sent our way. Before he even entered our place, he complained that the parking lot was 5 mins from our door, which would cost extra. Then he rudely threw open our door and barged in, recording everything without our consent and after 20 mins of ravaging threw our stuff, declares that our stuff will take twice the space than what is listed in inventory because it is non-standard sizes. Remember that our inventory has no furniture to begin with, everything fits into boxes they bring, so this is entirely impossible and a made-up statement. They also are not measuring anything, just stating. At this point, we have paid a large deposit, and they have changed their estimate from around $3000 to over $6000, literally doubling the charge but we are stuck since we already paid thousands in a deposit and cannot change movers. This is why the Coastal and Loadrans operate together - Coastal doesn't have to operate like the mafia Loadrans is and Loadrans gets a guaranteed moving job from Coastal since customers are locked into hiring them as they've already paid a deposit and cannot cancel.
5. I contact Coastal's customer service, who informs me that my items (that they took full inventory of) suddenly are taking twice the space (no evidence apart from just the Loadrans guy sjust making this up) when all I have is clothing and small kitchen items that they need to box. I ask them how their estimate can be so off and they tell me "its just an estimate" and basically treat me like I was stupid to believe their quote in the first place. When I tell them nothing has changed in my inventory, they tell me "that's just my opinion". I am astonished and have to pay double as I have no choice and had to move out that day.
6. I pay Loadrans double the Coastal quote and the main guy tells me my stuff will get to my destination in 9-10 days. Then he gets to sign documents that say something different in fine print that's 5 pages long in tiny font and he asks me to sign to confirm that I agree with what he's saying.
7. They pack my stuff, still complaining that it's too much after I've paid DOUBLE and still refusing to take items that they themselves examined IN PERSON when they doubled the quote.
8. After several weeks of waiting, my stuff is still nowhere to be found. I haven't heard a single thing from the delivery people. When I call customer service, I never get the rep that promised me 7-10 day delivery with insurance covering damages. The reps I get say "you signed a window of 30 days". I would never pay for a company that left me stranded and essentially homeless without my essential personal items for a month. It's been almost a month and I've been told that the truck hasn't even left the site of our pick up.
9. I emailed customer service and they are now blatantly lying by telling me that my scheduled delivery date (which Loadrans said would be the latest my items would be delivered) is apparently just the start of my delivery window and I should expect my stuff to get there 30 days later. I have never dealt with such insane crooks in my life.

What truly bothers me is how easy they find to mislead relatively reasonable customers like myself. Since they only deal with customers once in their lives, they do not care about screwing people over.

What's even more strange is that they enjoy relatively decent ratings on Google, which is how they are getting new customers all the time and deceiving them. I think they bought the positive reviews to stay in business because if you look at Trustpilot (a site I found out much later), the reviews are much more detailed and largely negative.

It is truly bizarre how these guys have been operational for 10+ years after screwing over so many people in exactly the same way! I truly hope no one else has to go through this.