DO NOT LET THEM NEAR YOUR FRAGILE ...
I contacted Hardesty Movers out of Muncie, IN to give me a moving quote from Richmond to Indianapolis. The quote was given by its owner, former basketball player, Rickie Caldwell, who since his teen years has been working for this company. It’s a tender story to listen to, and Mr. Caldwell is very mannerly and helpful when he is estimating. Now the estimate: I was quoted on 26,000 pounds of freight and 300 boxes an hourly figure of $165 + $100 fuel fee starting from leaving the warehouse to destination. Mr. Caldwell had inflated the numbers so his estimate would sound very affordable in comparison to the other estimates I had received. It would take 20 hours, a 5 man crew, and 2 day service. The load was to spend the night in Muncie and delivered to the destination the next day. The crew consisted of 5 men on the first day, and six men on the 2nd day. The 2nd day’s crew was unsupervised by the owner of the company. I will say the loading day went fairly well with few issues. I did notice, however, that as soon as the owner left the premises two of the workers were no longer doing what I was asking them to do or becoming argumentative about my requests. More about this later. Delivery was late the 2nd day because of the early morning rain, which was a good thing as it stopped raining about the time they arrived 2 hours later. My issue with this move was that there was no one in charge, except for one worker who was the mouthy one, complaining about how tired he was and how much he was hurting as he jostled my furniture about, which I saw various times. I had antique furniture which they managed to destroy, nick, and/or obliterate. Most of the damage was hidden from me, as I kept finding pieces or piles of furniture pieces hidden in the garage among the boxes. No one said a word about the broken items. Mover had one employee that was especially bad, boisterous, complaining of being tired, knocking furniture about, and bossing the others. I did find beer bottles in the back of the house. I am sure it didn't help his moving maneuvers. In all fairness, three of the workers were very helpful, John, the older gentleman and Jerry, the younger one, were exceptionally helpful. Mr. Caldwell called the same complaining worker that he would deliver the rest of the stuff the next day. I called Mr. Caldwell and asked him to finish the move that same day, as he had to come to address some of the damage. Since then I have been calling the owner of the company, who told me they were cleaning the truck out and the two pieces from the armoire and the buffet would show would show up. He kept putting me off, when I reminded him that it had been several days that they had been cleaning the truck, he went off on me, screaming and yelling, and hung up on me. My only remedy is to seek recourse via the websites and through Angie’s List. In summary, if you are moving boxes and no fragile stuff. But paying a low price is what you get a cheap move in every way. NEVER AGAIN!