2 Jun 2019 · MoveAdvisor
1.0 out of 51.0
I never intentionally hired this company. I hired a company called American Moving & Storage from FL and they sent these guys from IL and NM to my place to pick up my stuff.
They arrived 9 hours late and insisted I sign a blank Bill of Lading, telling me they couldn't know how much the move would cost until they finished loading the truck, but couldn't start loading the truck until I signed the blank form saying I'd pay whatever it came to.
At 1am I finally signed it after I was told I could probably get back the money I paid the broker (AMS) because they gave me wrong information. I needed to leave the next day, so really I was just accepting an excuse to sign to get my stuff moving, since it wasn't like I could get another mover before I had to vacate.
The wound up charging me almost twice as much as my original estimate, while not taking the washing machine or sectional sofa! They even charged me $100 cash to dump the sofa somewhere for me, since I couldn't leave it in the house but they said they couldn't fit it on the truck with the next pickup they had to make. (In retrospect, they probably kept it and later sold it.)
You can read my review of AMS (the broker that hired them for my move) for more of the overall move details, but to stick just to Sparks' role, they failed to deliver about 20% of my belongings and several items were broken. They also use Bills of Lading (BOL) contracts that are not valid in the state I was moving from, New Mexico, because the fine print font size is only a third of what state law requires, they don't give you a copy of the BOL at time of pickup (or later), and they don't provide the 3 day cooling off period for door to door sales. This became door to door sales as soon as they mover started negotiating price and items to bring with me.
I've shared this information with them but they ignore it. They have not compensated me for broken or missing items I itemized nor acknowledged that their "contracts" are invalid. Yet they pass these invalid contracts on to yet other movers, who deliver the items, and demand even more money from you, waiving the invalid contract as their proof you owe before they will return your belongings.
I had to call the police to get my stuff back, but then that's the next mover in the chain, the ones Sparks Moving & Storage hired.
See how this works? You pay each one and at each step they can say it wasn't them that did you wrong and they can't fix anything.
If you use this mover, and wind up being charged more than your original estimate by more than 10%, and/or wind up with broken or missing items, you can go through the motions of contacting them for redress, but just realize that in the end any remedy will come from your disputing the charges with your bank (which you can't do if you gave them a personal check) and filing a Moving Fraud Complaint with fmcsa dot gov (part of the Dept. of Transportation) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Take the time and do it!
Plus leave a review here, on Yelp and on Google Reviews to try to protect others.
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