Extensive research and investigating can stop customers from falling victim to moving scams

-Written by Erik Sargent

May is National Moving Month and for us here at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK, it’s time to start getting ready for the busiest moving months of the year.

If you have an upcoming move planned and plan on hiring professional movers, it’s important to do extensive research to make sure you’re getting a legitimate moving service and not paying for a moving scam. Unfortunately, there are plenty of illegal and “scam” movers out there who will appear to be a reputable service, but provide low-quality service and can potentially steal money from customers.

“It is important for consumers to do their research when hiring a professional mover,” said Scott Michael, President & CEO of the American Moving & Storage Association. “Not all websites are accurate, so you need to protect yourself and your possessions by investigating the companies you are considering entrusting with your move.”

Moving scams are on the rise, and one way to prevent falling victim to this is researching online reviews. At TWO MEN AND A TRUCK – the nation’s largest franchised moving company – we’ve worked to develop a strong reputation in the industry for over 30 years, and use the services of third-party review companies to ensure our reviews are legitimate.

“The number of Google reviews a brand has makes a significant impact on the customer’s decision-making process, but what most customers don’t know is that some moving companies pay or falsify their online reviews, which is against Google policy,” said Jon Nobis, the CEO of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK. “This lack of authenticity in online reviews makes the process of hiring a trustworthy, reliable mover even more difficult for consumers.”

Using online reviews helps to get a feel for what other customers have to say about a business, and you can pick up on positive trends – good or bad – on how the company operates.

While the online reviews are certainly helpful, they are not the final say in how a moving company works. Still, you can use this online research to see what companies consistently have the best and which companies treat their employees with care.

“As a brand, we are laser-focused on transparency and building trust, ensuring that our customer experience is world class,” said Nobis. “Because moving scams are on the rise, we’ve taken these measures up a notch and are committed to further developing our customer service initiatives with the launch of new technology-focused solutions that make booking a move easier for our customers.”

Another area we recommend paying close attention to when deciding on where to a hire professional moving service is with online quote forms.

Various forms of advertisements and data aggregators can give the impression of being a moving service and require personal information, but are just looking for customer info to sell to other companies. It’s important to get a moving quote directly from the company you’re thinking about using.

“It’s important to make sure that you are requesting an online moving quote directly from a moving company that you are intending to work with,” Nobis said. “It can become very frustrating for a customer who believes they are submitting a moving request for a specific company and then three or four moving companies follow up with phone calls and emails. Customers need to be careful during their research phase to ensure they’re only providing their personal information to companies they’re interested in moving with.”

For more information on what to look for with moving scams, check out this message.

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® is the first and largest franchised moving company in the United States. Let us help move you forward! For more helpful tips and information on moving services subscribe to our blog and like us on Facebook.