How to Move “On-the-Cheap”— A Cheapo Mover’s Survival Guide

If you’re trying to move at bargain-basement prices, you need to be prepared for the worst, because that’s what you’ll get.  So for those of you who insist on choosing the cheapest mover you can find, here’s my best advice and a few survival tips for your bottom-dollar move:

Plan to Lose Everything

When you move, you are entrusting your property to someone else’s care—care in handling your property, care in moving your property, and care in delivering it.  The cheapest vendors don’t know the appropriate ways to handle sensitive equipment, sensitive records and valuable items, and frankly don’t care—they are more interested in finding their next mark and getting their next check than in doing right by you.  So as long as you expect to lose everything, you won’t be disappointed.

“Insurance? What Insurance?”

Reputable movers are insured, so that if an accident happens, you, their valued client, are made whole.  Cheap movers can’t afford decent insurance because they don’t charge enough for their services, so don’t think for a second you will be able to recover anything from their insurance, if they even have any.

“Liability for Breach of Confidentiality Costs HOW MUCH?”

Just because your mover doesn’t have insurance, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t—in fact, you should beef up your insurance to cover your exposure to additional risk, or in the move you could lose everything you ever WILL have in addition to everything you currently have.  Not only will your cheapo movers not protect your and your customers’ confidential information, they might very well help themselves to it while your records are in their custody.  So unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars socked away for a rainy day, you’d best prepare yourself.

Incompetence Will Rule the Day

If you think moving can be done right by any dumb fool, prepare to have your hypothesis tested to the limit on moving day.  There are logistical issues about where you can park, how to best load and unload to maintain the stability of the truck and protect its contents, how and what you can stack, how to protect furniture and equipment from damage in transit, and even the best way to carry heavy or bulky items so you don’t drop them.  Your cheap movers won’t have a clue about any of that, so plan on hours of extra time and thousands of dollars in extra damage their stupidity will cause.

“Call Someone Who Cares—if You Can Find a Number”

Cheap movers are often either fly-by-night operations or firms that are about to go belly-up and file for bankruptcy.  They don’t necessarily have real offices, or real phone numbers, and even if they have either of those now, there is no guarantee you’ll be able to find hide or hair of them when everything with your move goes wrong.  Just try filing suit against someone you can’t find, and see how satisfying it is to win a default judgment you’ll never see a dime of because it would cost you thousands of dollars to even attempt to collect on it.  They have no assets, no property in their names, and no licenses you can try to have revoked— and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Real Movers Charge Real Rates and Offer Real Peace-of-Mind—You Really Do Get What You Pay For  

Moving is a service, and real movers make a point of providing excellent service to you before, during AND after your move.  They know how to handle all of your property with care and concern, and in fact treat it as their own.  They want to earn your business in the future and your total satisfaction at the time of your move, and they invest in the right equipment and personnel to handle everything for you quickly, efficiently and properly.

Real movers charge appropriate rates and carry appropriate insurance including liability insurance, and they will prove it to you with a certificate of insurance.  Real movers have an established, long-term presence, a roster of repeat-customer fans, and a track record of avoiding problems altogether or, if they can’t, making things right.  And they do it again and again.

Real movers want to provide the very best service so they can charge higher rates, because they know your peace-of-mind is something you’ll pay to keep, especially where your valuable property, furniture, equipment and records are concerned. 

You’ve invested thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in what you’re moving—why on earth would you skimp when you’re moving that kind of investment? 

So if you choose to cheap out on your move, I wish you the very best of luck, and hope you’ve made the very best preparations—you’re going to need it.