Safe Ship Moving Reviews

Turns out my things are not even in route and it could be 5 to 14 days until my things arrive. Although this is not what Steve had told me. Steve advised me to not pay the extra money for the expedited shipping because of the route my things were going it would only make a difference of a day or two. Every time I spoke to someone throughout this process my expense has gone up a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars. Please let my mistake be a warning to you. Do not use this company for your move. It seems that the sales team does not truly understand how this company does business and they will mislead you. and when you call customer service for help, they will tell you It’s your fault that you didn’t read the fine print in the contract. I am now in contact with a lawyer.

It started off well enough. I was contacted immediately after requesting a quote and connected to a local handler, Gavin, who had a great interest in getting me booked on a truck that he had scheduled to arrive in our area a few weeks before our anticipated move. Due to the good price, we agreed on this earlier date. Having moved many times before, we asked many questions. Would we be allowed to ship alcohol? Yes. Did it need to unopened bottles? No - it just needed an actual lid. Would our storage unit down the hall be a problem? Nope. Would there be any extra fees? Nope, long carry, elevator, etc would not apply. Great! We supplied Gavin with an incredibly detailed spreadsheet of our belongings. It listed each item with LxWxH dimensions and what room it was located in. We even included how many hangers were in the closet. Our price was calculated and we made the deposit the same day. Everything seemed great.

After that it was impossible to get ahold of Gavin - he rarely answered any of our communications. Since we were due to fly across the country, we wanted some assurance that the movers would arrive when he said they would so that we could book flights. We also wanted information so we could reserve loading/elevator areas on either end of the move. Eventually he assured us that the movers would arrive on the agreed date, so we booked flights for the afternoon of the day after the pack. We were told that we would receive the arrival date of our stuff on the date it was picked up. The move was anticipated to take around 14 days.

A week before the move, we get a call from somebody else, who wants us to go through our inventory AGAIN. We detail the exact same items. At this point, this new individual increases the price of our move - despite the highly detailed inventory being EXACTLY THE SAME. He also informs us that no alcohol will ship whatsoever. Yup, all 10+ questions we asked Gavin about alcohol he completely lied about. We get a call before the day of the move telling us that movers will arrive 2pm-5pm, which is a little late. We had detailed to Gavin what would make it easiest for the movers -arriving early and securing the loading bay. Sometime later the arrival timeframe moves to 11am-3pm.

Day of the move (Friday) we get a call at 4pm - movers wont be arriving until 5pm-6pm and they want to start in the morning. This is a huge no since we have a cross country flight at 2pm the next day. The time continually slips - apparently they allowed the customer before us to leave while they were packing and he never came back. Why would you allow somebody to leave before paying and signing the paperwork?? The movers don’t arrive until 7:30pm. The man in charge says that this should count as long-carry but he wont charge us for it if we “take care of his guys at the end of the night”. Thank you for yet another lie, Gavin. At the end of the night the price goes up yet again. Shame on me for not checking the truck to see how awful of a job they did at packing it - apparently what they use to calculate cost.

Finally with everything packed, he tells us that we will need to call the office on Monday to get an idea of when the truck will arrive across the country. More lies, yay. We call on Monday - the truck is just sitting there, no driver has been assigned. They will text us towards the end of the week when a driver is assigned. They never do. We have to call many times to get an update. The truck does not start traversing the country until 7 days after it was loaded.

When it finally has a driver, they tell us on a Friday (7 days post-pack) that arrival will be in 3-5 days and that we will hear from the driver 24 hours prior. This is again, not at all what we were told when we booked. On Monday (10 days post-pack) we get a text that arrival will be in 4-7 days — quite a different story from the 3-5 days we receive THREE DAYS EARLIER. Another week of no contact from the company - despite responding to the text informing us of the 4-7 days. We call several times on Friday (14 days post-pack) for an update. The update - the driver will arrive between Tues and Thurs, aka beyond their last timeframe and now in the 18-20 post-pack days.

This company should be ashamed of themselves for how many times they have lied to us - and we don’t even have our stuff yet. Completely awful experience, would recommend this company only to my worst enemy. The following Monday (17 days post-pack) we get a call from Mike from Moving. He informs us that we have been unable to get an ETA for our delivery because we have been calling the wrong department. This is confusing to me since SafeShip reached out to us - via text - about our delivery. This is the number we were contacting. These were the people we communicated with - shouldn’t they have known if they weren’t the correct people to talk to?

Regardless of this internal lack of communication, Mike tells us that our delivery will be in 5-7 days, which puts delivery in the 22-24 post-pack day timeframe. This is confusing since I definitely asked Gavin about the worst case scenario timeframe and he indicated 21 days. This was a crucial part of our decision making process since we did not want to be stuck in limbo with no place to stay for weeks on end. Gavin had told us that he sees these moves take an average of 14 days, but it would be here within the 7-21 day range.

To their credit, SafeShip called the day after I submitted this complaint. They told me they would investigate by listening to our recorded calls with Gavin and determine a course of action. Several days later, their course of action was to do NOTHING. They assume no responsibility for lying repeatedly to potential customers just to get them to sign

I do believe there is a need for the service they offer and I hope that the notes I have below will help you have the best result possible!***I came up with $1.5M based off of our move which was $3K after a discount. Half goes to SafeShip and the other half goes to the moving company. Their associates were quick to share with me that they coordinate at least a thousand moves a month.***

A helpful checklist when using SafeShip or any Moving Broker:

1) SafeShip is NOT a moving company. Even though the terms “we” and “our people” all over their website, they are only the Broker. They do not verbally disclose they are a broker while placing your order. They do not have employees that wrap and pack your belongings and they do not own any moving trucks. Their job is to farm out your move to 3rd party moving companies that have been vetted by them. Vetting is a misleading term as you can see from the many 1 Star Reviews below.

My recommendation is that you require SafeShip to provide your 3rd party mover within 24 hours so you can do your research on them. If your 3rd party company does not have any good reviews, you can ask SafeShip to provide another moving company or get your money back. As stated on the SafeShip website, you have 48 hours to cancel. They may tell you it is not possible to find a 3rd party company within 24 hours. I think for $1500 that is a reasonable request unless they decide to extend their cancellation period.

2) There is no %100 Reimbursement. The optional insurance quoted for full replacement was $14,000 and we had a small move. Since the insurance is so outlandish, this is probably why people opt out. Let me be clear, the insurance purchased goes against the 3rd party mover, NOT SafeShip. The claim goes against the 3rd party moving company and if you’re lucky, you may receive a %10 of a refund based on what it would cost you replace the items.

SafeShip is quick to mention that they are “fully insured” but that will do nothing for you if you need to replace items. There is no refund by SafeShip because as they will tell you, when you sign on the dotted line, you waive your right to hold them liable for any damages. Even though they refer you to the 3rd party vendor and work closely with and coordinate your move, they are blameless. When they say they act as your advocate in the event that something happens, please know there will be no apologies on their behalf and you will have to fight tooth and nail for any compensation. Look at this service like buying stocks through a stock trader. You may win, you may lose but the broker makes money regardless.

3) In you decide to go this route, watch your movers pack and stack your items in the truck. Many times your items sit in another state before your destination so it may be a good idea to have a location device in one of your boxes. Take pictures of everything before they close up the truck. If the 3rd party movers ask for more money after packing/upon delivery for more than what is on your contract, do not pay and call SafeShip immediately. If SafeShip does not resolve your issue, call the police. The police will help you get your items off of the truck.

While I did not have a good experience, some do. It’s luck of the draw who shows up at your door. Hopefully this will help you protect yourself and hold SafeShip and the 3rd party movers accountable. At this time I have decided not to continue pursuing a monetary refund and would rather pursue excellence in this industry. I do believe there is a need for this service but not in its current capacity. I would encourage SafeShip to pursue the excellence stated on their website. @Mr. Roger ** and @Stanley **, excellence is achieved through great customer service, complete transparency from start to finish and integrity.

The movers we were contracted with did not do a pre-move survey so their truck was too small and ended up strapping some of our furniture on the outside of the truck. They didn’t show up until 1pm on the day of our move and didn’t finish until 5am the next morning. Safe Ship does not contract with reputable companies and wipes their hands clean once the moving company is contracted out. Their advertisement as “veteran owned and operated” is a way to take advantage of veterans like ourselves who support such companies. This was the WORST move we ever experienced.

Call my rep Giovanni to get an explanation and all he does is transfer me to customer service and then stops taking my calls. It gets worse, movers show up and my price goes up to $13K!!! This is based on them just doing a walk through with the same items I did on the last inventory. Then they tell me I need to provide shrink wrap to wrap all of the furniture. This was never communicated to me. But no problem if you don't have shrink wrap they will provide for you and wrap the furniture at $40 per item. Another miscommunication...The contact states you will receive your items with 7 days. Movers arrive and tell you 7-14 days. Do yourself a favor and find someone else for your move. Safe Ship Moving are criminals!

Now, 3 weeks later, my items still have NOT arrived. EVEN WORSE, they won't deliver my items until I prepay an additional $500 to have my items delivered from a semi truck to my home (which is a normal residential area). THIS COMPANY IS SUPER UNTRUSTWORTHY. WARNING I highly recommend choosing a different vendor. DO NOT CHOOSE Safe Ship Moving. This has been a NIGHTMARE.

I submitted a request for a quote on their website. I received a phone call in literally ten seconds from a smooth talking sales rep. I told them the details of my move. I told him that I will be moving items as a single person from a 500 sq. ft. apartment. He created an itemized inventory list with the furniture I would be moving. He estimated that I would ship 20 medium sized boxes in addition to my furniture. Of course it was too early to know how many boxes I would ship since the estimate was done a month before my move. He gave me a quote of $3,400 including a $1,000 discount for accepting the offer with him over the phone. It sounded like a good offer, so I accepted it.

Four days before the movers were scheduled to load my items, a rep. from Safe Ship Moving Service called to verify that the inventory list they made. By this time, I had most of my items packed. After giving him an update on how many boxes I would be shipping, he said that the original quote did not accommodate for the additional items. He said that he would have to charge me an additional $1,000 for the move. I thought this was outrageous considering that this was done four days before my move, which made it too late to find an alternative moving service. I only had about ten additional boxes from what was on the original inventory list, and they were mostly small boxes. As soon as this happened, I knew this was a corrupt company.

I had many more problems with Safe Ship Moving Services. I went through them to ship my furniture, belongings, and my car. The pick-up date of my car was delayed twice. I confirmed with them weeks before that my car would be picked up by Tuesday, April 25th since I was flying out of Los Angeles the evening of the 25th. The pick-up date was supposed to be April 23rd or 24th. I never received a call from the company with updates. I had to take the initiative to call them multiple times to find out why my car wasn't being picked up. I would call the company and the staff seemed to have no idea why a pick-up time wasn't on file.

After days of confusion and no information from the staff, I finally was informed by a manager named Wendy that the company they hired to pick up my car canceled at the last minute and that they couldn't get a truck to pick up my car until Friday, April 28th. I told Wendy that this was unacceptable since I was promised the car would be picked up by April 25th since I was flying out that evening. She said that there was nothing she would do and that I would have to leave my car at a friend's place to be picked up. I had to inconvenience my friend who is a mother and works full time to have my car picked up at her house during working hours. I was happy my friend was willing to help. Wendy would not offer me a discount and was unapologetic to my situation.

Safe Ship Moving Service does not care about its customers and how stressful moving can be. They are only in business to make moving even more stressful than it already is. Please do not use this company.

- The company ONLY hires third party movers and sets pick-up date. The agent you speak to is getting paid COMMISSION who reels in the broker’s fee and gets you to sign contract. Moving truck charge is loosely based on a few questions about items to guess the truck space needed (computer program that generates the quote.)

- ANYTHING needed after this is not and will not be provided by them. You now must handle the rest of the move with the third-party movers if you can contact them. If you need status on your items, this company does not provide it. You will have to attempt to contact the third-party movers.

- UPCHARGE IF your items exceed the quoted space AND/OR if the movers cannot or will not arrange the items in an efficient way within quoted space. (I could see more square footage available in the truck that I paid for, but the movers couldn’t figure out how to arrange items to fill the space and had to use more space and charge me more. I’m sure that was convenient for them. I cannot handle the items myself or I would have tried to rearrange. I had to let them over charge me and drive off – I must move today.)

- The estimated delivery date of your items is meaningless. They will give you a date but movers legally have 30 days to deliver and will use the entire month with no apparent reasoning. My items were to arrive within 3-10 days max and was delivered in 3-4 weeks.

- Once delivered you must look through all items to sign off that all items were delivered – even though they have an inventory list they can use to do it. Once they leave they will do nothing to accommodate any missing or damaged items.

They say they are licensed and insured – this means nothing. Moving brokers are a SCAM. I will warn everyone who moves about them. They use every excuse or reference the fine print but there is no excuse for the experience I had with this company especially with an out-of-state move that is already stressful. I was in a personal crisis for my safety and needed to move asap otherwise I would have spent more time researching. Save yourself money, time, and frustration! Hire local help, get a U-Haul, do it yourself, this company is not and should not be an option! Good luck fellow movers.

At this point there was no way to find another honest and reliable company (obviously Safe Ship does not fall into that category) and I had already deposited $1,400 upfront to secure them. I couldn't get a U-haul because even if I could find one the refund from Safe Ship (if they would have given me one) wouldn't credit back in time to my account for me to secure a U-haul. I called multiple people there and they did "discount" me $400 "making my total increase only $800." I cannot stress enough how much money and tears this company had caused me and not one person there cared. Please please please never ever use this company for anything.

The movers to whom they subcontracted did not have their own trucks, they rented a Uhaul, they were intimidating, they tried to buy furniture/belongings from me at a fraction of its worth when they realized I could not afford to move all of it (after the doubled estimate). I complained to Safe Ship and was gaslighted. I was able to successfully dispute 3000 through my credit card company, but the distress, fear, and anxiety is not something I'd ever want to experience again.

Both Mayflower and United sent agents out to do a thorough walk-through of our home and provide written quotes of all the moving expenses. The two quotes were within $1,200 of each other. Safe Ship, based in Florida, requested copies of the two quotes and based their quote on what United and Mayflower provided. They explained that their price would be lower as they didn’t have the overhead of having to pay someone to come to our home to provide the quote. That made sense at the time.

It was explained that their quote was based upon cubic feet instead of weight, and using the quotes from Mayflower & United, they were able to accurately convert weight to cubic feet. Safe Ship’s quote was several hundred dollars less than the other company’s and because they were ‘veteran owned’, I chose to contract with them. MY BAD DECISION! I was provided with both the phone numbers for Safe Ship’s customer service and the ‘agent’ that brokered the contract and told they would be available at any time if I had questions or problems. Note: once the contract was completed, the agent totally left the picture and never accepted any phone calls or returned any request for follow-up. He was just a ‘sales guy’ as the customer service agent for the company explained.

Moving on to Best American Moving, they were a disaster waiting to happen from day one. We were told they would be on-site to begin packing between noon and 1pm; they didn’t show up. Calling Safe Ship’s customer service, I was told they were delayed on a job and would be at our house in an hour. An hour and half later, after they still failed to materialize, I called back and was told they were still unloading but would be at our house in an hour. I then inquired as to the exact location of the truck and was told it was in Hutchinson, Kansas, but that they were just finishing up and would be with us in less than an hour.

At that point, I explained that Safe Ship was being lied to by Best American Moving, as Hutchinson was in fact a three-hour drive from hour home. I asked how they were going to be able to pack everything in such a short amount of time and was told they would have a crew of four people to do the packing and they would load the next morning. Bottom line, so far, instead of being onsite between noon and 1pm, the movers arrived around 6:30pm. This is important, although I didn’t realize the ramifications at the time, the first words from the driver were “Wow, you’ve got a lot of stuff!”

Okay, we’re off to a rocky start, and then it gets worse. The crew of four turns out to be just the driver and his helper to pack and load an entire home. I’m on the phone again, where is the crew that was promised, well, the story changes and the crew was delayed but would be there in the morning. The driver and his helper worked until 10:30 the first night packing. The next morning, the same two people show up and when I asked where’s the rest of your crew, was told they’d be there soon. A while later, two other guys show up but were pretty ineffectual in what they did and there was a lot of standing around. I complained to the driver, the onsite person in charge of the move, and he ended up firing the guys. SIDE NOTE: my wife had withdrawn money from the bank to give as tips to the guys for their efforts – OUR BAD for leaving her purse in the open in the bathroom, but all the money was stolen. We’re down $200.

The packing and loading continued. More and more boxes are packed but the space on the truck is shrinking a lot faster than expected for a load of our size home. The driver makes a point of showing me the space (cubic feet) was being used in the truck and that we’re “probably going to use more space than quoted”. Red Flag – more space = more money for the move. We are now to the point where two thirds of our possessions are loaded and the truck is completely full and I’m told they are going to have to rent another truck. This saga is getting to be too long, but bottom line, there’s a second truck all our possessions are loaded and they’re ready to leave, except for the detail about how much it’s now going to cost.

Based upon our quote, we expected to pay Best American Moving $6,000 and change over and above what we had already paid to Safe Ship Moving. The driver then presents us with a total $16,000 to complete the move. It’s back on the phone, for hours, negotiating the price. We finally are worn down and agree to a total of $11,000. Customer service at Safe Ship is ineffectual through the whole process and actually complained to me that he had to spend so much of his evening on the phone with me dealing with the problem.

At this point, we’ve dealt with the price issue and begin our drive to Chicago, an approximately nine-hour trip. An hour and a half into the trip we decide to stop for the night as it’s after midnight. We continue the trip the next day and arrive in Chicago around 5:30pm and while still in Chicago rush-hour traffic, receive a call from Best American Moving telling us that they will need a cashiers check, money order, or wire transfer of the balance of the move expense ($11,000) before the driver will unload our possessions. This shouldn’t be a problem, so the next morning I sign into Bank of America and execute a wire transfer to Best American Moving (per the transfer instructions provided) paying the extra fee for an immediate transfer. At this point, it’s just let’s get this over with!

What could go wrong? Here’s what could go wrong – the wire transfer to Best American Moving is flagged by BoA with a fraud alert! The transfer is held up until the banks work out that it is a legitimate transfer. In the meantime, the driver and his helper are sitting in front of our building unwilling to start unloading even though I provided the wire transfer information to them. They must receive the OK from New Jersey to begin unpacking. I’m on the phone with the people in New Jersey and am told that the trucks are going to leave and would come back the next day and would only be staying around for another hour and if they left, I’d be responsible to for the extra expense of the truck rental and per diem for the driver and his helper. The person in New Jersey was very unprofessional, almost yelling at me over the phone saying I should have made the wire transfer earlier and an ‘out of the blue’ comment that if I wanted the move for free, I should have moved it on my own.

At this point, Safe Ship has left the picture – no help there. The wire transfer finally goes through and the driver and helper start unloading the 1st truck. I inquire “Where’s your crew?” “They’ll be here soon”….then the driver leaves in the other truck and is gone for an hour and comes back with another man to start unloading. NOTE: Best American Moving doesn’t have a crew in Chicago – nor did they have a crew in Kansas - the driver goes around to Home Depot and Lowes looking for people that want to work on an hourly basis, off book. The person doesn’t speak English and apparently didn’t know what he was being hired for as they started negotiating the price he would be paid while standing in front of me. The guy wanted $500 but settled for $120.

I have failed to mention that Chicago is experiencing a weird snow/rain/sleet storm and everyone and everything is getting wet. We are semi-back on track and the unloading is proceeding with boxes being stacked inside at the loading dock for the building. I complained to the driver about the slow progress and he get’s on the phone and somehow two more guys show up. The two new guys are fantastic and the move progresses more quickly. By 8:00pm both trucks are emptied and the crew is gone!

SCAM ALERT! How did the price go up so much? Remember, the comment “you’ve got a lot of stuff?”, well, basing the move on cubic feet instead of weight is how we got scammed. By packing the boxes lighter than necessary, they used more space than was necessary, e.g. more than several boxes only had one or two small items in them and were stuffed with backing material for things that we’re fragile and several only had one or two books in them.

Just so you don’t think I’m totally inept, I did research on the moving company through both Google and Yelp. You will have noted that I have kept referring to them as Best American Moving which was their actual name. I was provided, however, a quote by Safe Ship stating that Best American Movers would be doing the move. My research was based upon the quote for Best American Movers not Best American Moving. I was told that it was just a typo on the form. Best American Movers have very good reviews – Best American Moving has terrible, well-deserved reviews.

Examples: flat screen tv was torqued and broken; side table totally destroyed; clothing stuffed in boxes with shoes thrown on top; sweaters were used as padding for a table lamp; the movers didn’t label any of the boxes as to the rooms ; our mattress was dropped in a puddle of mud (we’re still working on the stain); a chair was destroyed and beyond repair, and as we still have unpacked boxes, I’m sure we will continue to find more.

They took my $900 and refuse to do the refund because the emergency came up 3 days after the refund window. I spoke to their customer service telling them that I needed that money in order to find a mover that could move me locally because I will not have a place to live in a month. They refused to issue a refund or be willing to use the money I had given them towards a company they said they would help me find that could do the move. I don't have an endless supply of cash to do this, therefore it was imperative that I have the money back to put towards someone who can help me. The manager in customer service was rude and uncaring. They don't care about their customers, they will take your money and leave you homeless!!

I called and left a voicemail on Sheanna's Phone asking that question and never got a response. The other companies told us that this would happen the day of moving. We budgeted exactly the cost we were told by Sheanna and even spoke with her on Friday, March 3rd stating that we had our monies put away and asking how should we go about paying (VENMO, debit card, etc.) At no time were we informed that we now needed 2600 this week and 2600 when we get to TX.

I asked to speak with the manager and was told he was in a Zoom meeting. We responded that we could wait, but Kevin insinuated that he was busy and needed to get with other customers. Right before asking to speak with his manager Kevin, left to speak with him and came back with a little discount that still kept us in the 2000s. But then all of a sudden the manager became "busy". We are now sitting and waiting to speak with the manager.

I’m sure there is a million excuses this company can say but just know you can give the most detailed list and your cubic feet estimate will be way off than pick up cost and there won’t be anything you can do about it cause guess what? You won’t know until last minute when the movers show up! I advise anyone to not use them and to go directly through movers not these lying ** people!!!!