Reviews of Allens Transfer & Storage (Moving Company)

Oldrico Minton

Jon Car was my contact with Allen Transfer for a move from Maine to Michigan. He was prompt, courteous, friendly, forthright about services and charges, responsive to questions and accurate with estimates and quotes! Moving is not fun, but Jon made it as pleasant as possible. If I were making the move again, he would be the first and only person I would call! My furnishings arrived in good condition with next to no damage - less than if I had moved it myself. The loaders and unloaders were prompt, professional, and helpful. This was not my first move, but was the best I have experienced.

Gabe Garcia

Do not trust this company!! This is a continuation of the terrible experience Emilie G. wrote about in her previous review. Customer service responded to her review that Lisa was working with us to resolve the issues with the move. That is a lie. It was not until after the movers delivered our belongings and we were forced to pay the remaining balance that we received an itemized invoice for the entire move via email. After reviewing the invoice, we found over $400 in charges for things we did not use. We were billed for materials that we provided and the move time was significantly overestimated. We wrote to them asking for a refund for the items we did not use. We were told our request would be forwarded to the office manager, Lisa, and she would get back to us. After a week with no response I requested Lisa's contact information so I could reach out to her directly. I emailed Lisa to check on our request and did not hear back from her. Over the next couple of days I called Lisa and did not receive a response. I finally got someone from the office to answer and I was told Lisa was the only one who could help me but she was gone for the day (at 3:30pm). I explained who I was and my request. I asked if it is common that it takes over 10 days for her to respond and was told "we share an office with her but we can't really speak to how she goes about things". I was told Lisa would return my call. However I was not asked for my phone number so that she could call me back. Our experience is that this company displays a pattern of dishonesty. I would not wish this experience on anyone. Moving is stressful enough without being lied to, overcharged, and then ignored. Do yourself a favor, find someone else.

Emilie Garcia

If you plan to use Allen’s Transfer & Storage for your next move, I’d like to offer a word of caution. Pay close attention to the quote you receive or make it simple - go somewhere else. We requested a quote from Jon Carr to have most of the large household items and furniture moved from our old home to storage and then moved from storage to our new residence. We were quoted $1,988. What we did not realize at the time was that this was only the cost to move our items and store them for one month. The quote did not include an estimate for the cost to deliver our goods; a point that was not made clear in Jon’s correspondence to us. It was not until our items were delivered that we were then told we owed an additional $1500! Could this have just been an accidental oversight? An innocent mistake? That was not the explanation we received when we asked Jon about this unexpected cost. Jon acknowledged he was aware that we planned to have our things moved to our new home (not kept in storage indefinitely) and that our original request was for a quote to include delivery. When I asked him why we were not provided with this information up front, he explained that this was just his customary way of operating. He referred to it as a “misunderstanding.” I would say we were duped. Jon knew that if he had told us at the outset that our move would cost about $3,500, we would have shopped around and he may have lost our business. He knew that his “way of doing things” is a successful sales technique. Quote a low price, conveniently fail to mention that the quote doesn’t include everything the customer asked for, get the job, and then make them pay more money later. Two of the movers essentially confirmed this to be true and were entirely unsurprised by our experience; they had seen this and similar scenarios happen several times before. With regard to the the move itself, we were left with uncertainty about whether or not we received all of our things. We believe so, but can’t be entirely sure. We have used professional moves on one other occasion. For one thing, the price we were quoted corresponded with our request. Secondly, there was an organized system for keeping track of our items. At the time of pick-up every item that went into the truck was tagged with a numbered sticker. Upon delivery, I was tasked with checking off each number on a list as the item was brought into the home. That system of inventory left no doubt that all of our things made their way to our new home. With this move, our items were tagged with numbered stickers, but we are unsure when this occurred. They weren’t tagged when they left our home, but there were stickers on them when they were returned. This was entirely pointless from my perspective since I did not have a way of confirming that the numbers matched an inventory list. Our experience with Jon Carr and Allen’s Transfer & Storage added unnecessary frustration to an inherently stressful ordeal. If you don’t like surprises (especially surprises that involved shelling out large sums of money), hire someone else.