Williams Transfer & Storage Co

We had a bad experience with Williams Transfer/United Moving. I'll concede that all service-based companies are having a hard time finding dependable workers right now, so I'll try and be as fair as possible with that in mind.

We moved from Memphis to St. Louis in June. The gentleman who performed our walkthrough and prepared our quote was professional and helpful. The quoted price was higher than I expected, but we decided to go with them anyway because we figured United was a large, reputable company that would take good care of us.

The real trouble started on the day of the move. There we were, all packed and ready to go when, at 8:30 am, I get a call informing me that we won't be moving that day after all. Apparently, Williams didn't have enough workers to perform the job. We had already arranged for childcare for the day, a hotel room for the evening, and doggie daycare in anticipation of a full day of packing. Instead, we had to scramble to move everything back a day. I've asked repeatedly for some sort of compensation for the extra expenses we incurred, but Williams has ignored my requests despite initially promising to 'make it right.'

Anyway, they did show up the following day, and the moving team was ROUGH. They left significant scratches on my wood floors in three different places with their wheeled dollies, and they tracked crushed red berries all over my carpets. I followed behind them all day, trying to conceal scratches and clean carpets.

We were told that our stuff would likely be delivered to St. Louis (only 4.5 hours away) within a couple of days. Once again, however, they didn't have enough workers to drive the truck and unload, so we ended up without our stuff for 9 days, having to crash at my in-laws the entire time with a dog and two young children, and essentially wasting the time that we were off work and planning to unpack/settle into our new house. Technically, however, Williams/United made their contractual delivery commitment so, again, we received no compensation. Even worse, the 'customer move coordinator' spent most of the 9 days avoiding us and refusing to answer my calls, leaving us up in the air until the very few hours before the delivery arrived.

The unload team (local to St. Louis) was actually fantastic, but the load team had damaged several pieces of our furniture, including our antique dining room set. The unload team was appalled at the way the trailer had been loaded -- we saw them pointing and shaking their heads multiple times as stuff came off the truck. I went through the claims process with United and received a settlement check for the damage, but it still doesn't excuse the all-around negligence exhibited by Williams and their loaders.

In the end, I paid this company approximately $9000.00 out of my own pocket (and we did the packing ourselves and even moved several trailers of boxes on our own too), but the service was well below what we expected to receive.

Day before the move and we found out that they had the date wrong when we called to verify. They basically said 'oh well', with the exception of being told 'I don't give a d*mn what you think' (thanks alot Jeff). They never called to to verify dates (like they said they would do). Horrible company - avoid them!!!

Was quoted 4 men and a truck for $195 an hour. Only 3 people showed up from 9AM to 3:30PM and one went home, so I had 2 men from 3:30 to 6:30. Was charged for 4 for 91/2 hours. Their crew chief reported he had 4 which is a bald face lie. I never left them all day, actually me, my wife, daughter in law, and grandsons all were helping carry stuff to the truck. I just can't handle liars.