Prevent Your Upcoming Movers from putting you in a very bad and costly situation.

Our Management at Quick and Careful Moving has issued a major warning to Oakland County, Michigan residents to use significant caution and get informed this fall and winter going into 2023. Adam Crans, founder of Quick and Careful in 2013 recommended the following: “Don’t just ask your friends, family, and trusted App users from Nextdoor.com who they hired only to proceed blindly down the same path. Many moving companies are prone to give one customer a great experience and the next customer whoever they can find off the street for a cheap experience. Also do not screen a mover by asking yes or no questions about their qualifications without verifying their answer to be true. They are often likely to say whatever gets them hired. Are you insured? Wrong question! (Although it’s the most common). Do you think someone that would cheat the government compliance laws by not having insurance would have the integrity to say no to that question if the answer was no? Do you realize that thousands of uninsured movers are operating in nearly every state in the U.S.? Here’s how you can rephrase: I was recommended by a friend in the moving industry to request a copy of your insurance prior to scheduling, can you email that with your move quote?

While also speaking with the customer service representatives of Quick and Careful Moving they wanted to express the following:

“Michigan Consumers are at a higher risk than we’ve ever seen of falling victim to the Moving Scams, and they are getting more creative too. I can’t tell you how many same-day clients we’ve relieved when the original company they called and hired didn’t show up.”

The problems often originate from large national entities that broker thousands of moves to local laborers and inexperienced gig workers whereby the two parties often have never even met in person” Referring to those who call themselves professional, call themselves insured, and wish to “fake it till you make it.” When applicable a spotty broker will even help the local crew look qualified to consumers as long as they can keep their pockets full.

Hiring service-based businesses to enter your home has evolved into a bigger decision than it used to be as there are a very large growing number of ways to enter the moving industry while flying under the radar of the Michigan State Police, FMCSA, Michigan Movers Association, Better Business Bureau, and the State of Michigan. You can literally have a completely legitimate-looking website in an hour filled with realistic-looking reviews and stock photos. Believe it or not, there are widely used apps and WordPress plugins that basically generate recent fake reviews. Moving and freight brokers or even lead generators can lend real reviews to subcontractors and use stock photos to prop up their reputation and get the customer deposit in a single conversation. Did you know there is specific laws that prohibit movers from using certain stock photos? Attorney Michael Garcia from michaelgarcialaw.com covers the subject in depth. It’s the result of the falsehoods many movers display on their websites.

“No longer are the times where communities can leave vehicles unlocked for consecutive weeks, months, or years, free of worrying about theft. Where people respected the elderly, offered to take off their shoes at the door, and understood what customer service is really about. Common courtesy and common sense are often abandoned these days or replaced by overly self-entitled philosophy. People are increasingly in business only for themselves and without the desire to make their community better.” says Adam Crans, Founder, and Owner of QC Moving Systems of Farmington Hills, “and I encourage everyone to take the next chapter of your life, your next move, with caution. From my full decade of experience in the household goods/furniture moving industry, where 9.5 years was providing quality full-service relocation services for Quick and Careful Moving of Farmington Hills to Grand Rapids Michigan, I have heard far too many mortifying testimonials of other moving scams and negligence right in our Michigan communities.” He continued, “just to imagine you only hear about a small percent of them because the consumer/victim can’t help but feel ashamed that it happened to them, threatened by the aggressive movers that came to their home, and ultimately keep quiet.” For those exciting money-saving quotes far below the others, all the joy in 30-50% percent savings only to find that the moving crew is nothing quite like the gentlemen and women who first answered the phone or who entered your home to estimate your move.

Searching for “top moving companies near me” in the Bloomfield Township, Farmington Hills, and, well, any Oakland County neighborhoods, can ultimately lead you to a quality, insured, and reputable moving company like Quick and Careful Moving of Michigan, and several others. Unfortunately, it can backfire into more than migraine headaches and legal battles if you go with many of the passively managed or downright broker situations. There are many start-up moving companies that hire a small group of overconfident day laborers who literally can easily and sadly destroy furniture on the way to the new home that awaits you, by downright negligent loading practices. There are some crucial steps before risking that irreplaceable wedding gift during your move, your quality furniture, or even that brand-new flooring or freshly painted entryways of your precious home. Let’s be real, even your safety could be in jeopardy if your mover doesn’t conduct background checks and enforce a high standard of conduct company-wide. A majority of folks looking for labor-intensive jobs tend to be folks with a criminal history or unreliable. So how do you ensure your chosen mover steers clear of all these vulnerabilities?

In my decade-long experience of in-home estimates I have seen shocking vulnerabilities that make nice and intelligent homeowners prone to tragic or heartbreaking moving outcomes. The vulnerability is that so many decisions are made from “the gut” or purely based on the lowest bid. At Quick and Careful Moving we are a proud service-based moving business that focuses on the customer’s needs from start to finish. I have seen too many heartbreaking stories where engineers, teachers, business executives, medical professionals, military personnel, small business owners, retirees, widows, and even those going through a divorce and painful chapters, go with a bid much lower than the rest or from the gut because the estimator said everything they wanted to hear, only to be sorely disappointed or worse, taken advantage of or left overcharged and under-delivered.

The absolute most common issue people are finding with many moving companies near Royal Oak and surrounding, is that the bid that comes in 30+ percent lower than the rest is honestly a nightmare in the end. One single damage, late arrival, no-show, offensive comment, injury, vehicle accident, or wood floor scratch can cause you much more headache than paying a little more for the BBB Accredited Quality Moving Businesses near Farmington Hills, Michigan.

If you were to compare an American Airline pilot’s level of expertise to a Delta Airline Pilot, you might find that both have successfully directed thousands of planes for large corporations and have very similar training, skills, and qualifications to one another. But comparing one moving company to the next is not so similar. To start a moving business you can simply rent a U-HAUL truck, hire a couple of “bodies,” rent some blankets, claim you have insurance, make a moving t-shirt, and if you are lucky or deceiving you can even convince homeowners to hire you. There are HUNDREDS of these moving companies in Metro Detroit like this.

The barrier to becoming properly licensed, trained, and experienced, like Quick and Careful Moving at 37624 Hills Tech Dr. Farmington Hills, is actually a tough barrier. It’s filled with a plethora of operating and start-up costs, registration, training, loading gear, insurance filings, warehousing, weeks or months of waiting for approvals from various parties, planning, hiring, marketing, trucking, and much more. So in theory the barriers to entry are reasonable. However, the major problem that partially gives the moving and storage industry a very unfavorable reputation is that those very barriers are passively regulated, or that anyone can ignore the rules and requirements and simply claim they are a business. This is the most common q and a from start to finish and is not how you screen a company: Are you insured, yes! All it takes is a phone call and you could have a dangerous or reckless pair of “movers” inside your bedroom or living room eager to keep their fake it until you make it.

The Owner of QC Moving Systems LLC of Farmington Hills wanted to emphasize that going for the lowest bid is a smart financial decision, but you have to filter through some difficult concerns before making that final decision. Is the bid lower because they have fewer customers than the competitor? If so, why? Are they getting fewer referrals? Lower cost because they don’t even pay for insurance and an office? Do they pay their movers a lot lower resulting in a discouraged workforce that does a poor job? This is literally how it works. If you pay less, cut corners, and say what people want to hear, you will win more people over. Folks must truly screen these companies with caution. Ask more questions and demand proof.