Avoid falling victim to moving scams by asking important questions and completing thorough research

It’s often said that moving is one of life’s most stressful events. We can see this to be true as you work to buy a new home, pack up your belongings, and move on from your last home in what seems like a quick whirlwind of events.

We’ve built our brand on helping to alleviate some of the stress involved with moving by offering professionally trained, background checked, and drug screened movers paired with professional moving equipment and trucks to ensure your belongings stay safe and protected throughout the entire process. Unfortunately, this same level of care and commitment isn’t always available, and the industry has taken on a bit of a bad reputation at the hands of illegitimate operations who are out to scam customers, not help them.

These shady, “scam” moving operations offer lower prices than the professional services to draw in new customers who are looking to save extra cash while avoiding the heavy lifting themselves. However, this usually means sacrificing quality and getting movers who aren’t properly trained, are day laborers, and who don’t have the experience or equipment to do the job correctly. They’ll take your money and leave you with a nightmare of an experience.

There are a number of ways to do your research into reputable companies, and one of these ways is through reading customer reviews online.

“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.”

So, while there can be illegitimacy to some online reviews by scammers, they can still be a great way to take a measurement on what the public is feeling about a business. Since these are through third-party apps generally, the brand has no influence over the review and they come straight from the customer. Both good and bad, you can get a good feel through online reviews for what you’re about to purchase.

Researching the internet about a brand can also give you some insight into other important factors like how they treat their employees, how professional they are, what types of services they offer, and company policies regarding their services.

“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 thing to look for specifically with moving is online quote forms. Getting your moving quote directly from the moving company is critical to ensure your personal information isn’t being sold to advertisers and data aggregators.

“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.”

To learn more about how to avoid moving scams, please watch the video below from TWO MEN AND A TRUCK CEO Jon Nobis.

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.