Poindexter Moving

My husband and I have moved more than a dozen times in our 33+ year marriage. Six of those were cross-country. We never had a problem with a single move. Then we hired Poindexter.

Big mistake.

I checked reviews on a number of sites before hiring this highly rated company. I prefer to use local businesses when I can, so I went for it.

When you call the office, perky Kimberly answers the phone, friendly and eager to help. She emails an estimate to you within minutes. They don’t do in-home estimates? No, they don’t find it necessary. I thought that odd, but went ahead anyway. Hey, it was a three-mile move, and we don’t own a lot of expensive furniture, antiques, etc. The only thing I was concerned about was my adjustable bed, which I need to sleep on due to medical conditions. She assured me that there would be no problem, so I paid the deposit fee and set the date.

Moving day arrived. It was raining. The three employees showed up late. I showed them what needed to be packed (part of our kitchen and one closet be packed) and gave them notes on moving the bed I’d received from the manufacturer. Two of the guys seemed sullen; the third guy never stopped talking. All day.

Finally, the packing was done and they began to load the truck. It was still raining. Poindexter makes it a point to tell you what materials the movers will bring. Among them is shrink wrap. I think they must charge employees to use it. Despite the rain (and the drainage cascading onto the stairs to our apartment), the employees shrink-wrapped almost nothing, and didn’t even cover things with blankets.

The rain had not let up when they arrived at the new place. They brought my bed frame up from the truck dripping wet, electronics exposed, no covering at all. The mattress and topper were not covered either, and looked as though they’d been dragged around the inside of the truck.

I called the bedding company while they continued to unload. While trying to salvage the bed, one of the guys brought a wardrobe box upstairs and asked if he should unpack it. Distracted, I said yes.

Big mistake.

I am highly allergic to cats, and some things in a downstairs closet had been exposed to dander. One of the employees brought a box clearly marked “First Floor Closet” upstairs and proceeded to shove contaminated clothing from that closet among the clothes in my upstairs closet. We had to empty that closet and clean it from floor to ceiling to prevent me from having to make a trip to an emergency room.

Finally, they were done. We got no copies of the bills of lading—they just had me sign off. By that time all I wanted was to get them off my property and out of my life.

We began to assess the damage--to the mattresses and toppers (the bed frame worked), as well as a bookcase and several fairly expensive lampshades, all of which could have been prevented by shrink-wrapping. They’d also knocked the bottom out of our large, wide filing cabinet, which is now unusable, and tried to leave it in the middle of our garage. My husband had to ask them to move it to the side so we’d be able to park. Finally—the cherry atop the sundae of this day—I found that one of the employees had used a bathroom in the new apartment and left a disgusting mess for us to clean up.

A number of things that were supposed to be moved at the old apartment, and their trash was everywhere. As we began to unpack, we found more damage from poor packing—things broken or bent, thrown haphazardly into boxes, barely wrapped. Two months later, I’m still finding damage.

Two weeks after the move, I called perky Kimberly to report the damage we’d found so far. Suddenly, Kimberly wasn’t perky. There was a deafening silence on the line. When she did begin to speak, she was extremely defensive, and repeatedly told me that the employees were only sent out with the materials listed on the site and so on (what good is shrink-wrap if it’s not used?). I sent her photos of the damage. She replied that her boss, Anthony, would contact us.

My husband fielded that. Anthony reiterated the same things Kimberly had told me. The call ended badly when my husband told him that he wasn’t as concerned about the damage to our property as he was about the health risk to which his employees had exposed me. Anthony had no answer to that.

Because we wanted to be done with this mess, we ended up settling for the amount the minimal moving insurance we’d opted for offered—less than ten percent of the damage we incurred.

I would not trust an employee of Poindexter Moving to move their bowels properly, and I saw the proof. We have never experienced such carelessness, inefficiency, unprofessionalism, irresponsibility, and disregard for property as we did with this company. This was the worst move we’ve ever experienced, and the worst company we’ve ever had to deal with. And it was all preventable with a little care, common sense, and shrink wrap.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: $975