Five College Movers

I made an appointment for a free estimate for a move in Northampton. The day before the appointment, I received an email confirming the appointment. They did not show up. When they were an hour late, I called and left a message. After three hours I emailed to ask what happened. I never received a response.

I hired five college movers on the basis that they were going to provide a stress free move, the actual move date was 5÷1÷2015, when Luis was moving a piece of my sectional couch, it got stuck on the doorframe and caused a tear in the couch. After they were done with the move I let him know about the rip and he told me no problem, he will start a damage claim and Patrick will take care of it. Up until this point my experience was good so I trusted him that Patrick and Five College Movers would make it right. The report was filed on 5÷2÷15, after almost 4 weeks of calling Patrick to try and resolve this situation, today, 5÷27÷15 Patrick finally called me back and said he was sending a check and the amount was sent in an Email. The couch portion that was damaged cost me $ 800, they offered $ 60 for my compensation. When I said that this amount wasn’t going to work for me Patricks attitude changed from the nice helpful guy I had spoken with before. He even went as far as trying to elude that I only said something about the damage when the final bill was presented to try and get money back. I couldn’t think of a less professional way for a company to treat their customer. Five college movers was a good company to deal with until there is an issue. CONSUMER BEWARE, their insurance will not cover what it will cost you to fix your damage and when they say STRESS FREE MOVE, they only mean that if they don’t damage your stuff… A company’s true colors show when they are faced with issues, and I got to see how disrespectful Five college movers can be first hand. One star, only because zero isn’t an option.

I am writing about an experience I had with 5 College Movers in November of 2012. I will explain later why I am just writing now. I was planning an in-​town office move and researched moving companies. Five College gave me the best quote and hourly rate, and I decided to use them. I was just moving from one office to another in downtown Springfield (literally three blocks apart) and wasn’t moving anything truly fragile or expensive, so I was just looking for the cheapest option. Again, Five College was the best price, so I chose them. The actual move went fine, they went slightly out of the estimated time window, but that was okay with me, as I didn’t think it was unreasonable (that’s why I’ll at least give them two stars). However, my head almost popped off when they gave me the bill. They were charging me for the time spent traveling to and from THEIR warehouse!
Because of this, my relatively inexpensive move was now almost 50% higher price! (I think total moving time came to $ 550 but then got charged an extra $ 200 for the travel time to and from their warehouse– before they ever even started the move!). The man in charge seemed to anticipate my reaction and was quickly like– «It’s in the contract you signed» and made a big deal about how this was «an industry standard.» Well, I checked my contract, and indeed it was in the small print, so I reluctantly paid the bill, thinking it was just my fault for not understanding the moving contract, but was really pissed because if I had known this was «industry standard,» I wouldn’t have hired a moving company to come all the way from Amherst, I would have just used one from Springfield or West Springfield, because even if their hourly rate was higher, I would make up the difference because of the travel time– again, industry standard, as claimed by Five College.
Well, the reason I’m writing now is, I just had to move offices again, and this time I made sure to use a local company (A-​Z Movers in West Springfield) so as not to be screwed by the travel time. As it turns out, when I specifically asked them about the «industry standard» travel charges, the owner laughed saying it most definitely was not industry standard, and he never charged for travel time to and from his warehouse, only between the moving locations. He said he’s heard this complaint before about Five College.
So basically, I’m writing this review now to make sure people know not to fall for this trap from Five College because it’s bs and not at all «industry standard.»

I am hugely impressed with these guys. I had a very large piece of equipment (a Tippmann Clicker Press, weighing about 550lbs and a very awkward shape) that we needed to move into our shop, which is down a half-​flight of stairs in the basement. Five College Movers were by far the least expensive and most receptive to a non-​traditional project of the several people I called asking about this project, which I realize is sort of out of the norm for a moving company. I was impressed with the speed at which they worked, their teamwork, and their patience. I was also quite delighted that they weren’t put off by being asked to move one piece of equipment, which basically most people call their cousins to help move. Further, they helped me move a couple other things around the basement that I haven’t been able to rearrange myself. I didn’t feel rushed at all and there was absolutely none of the smugness you often get when you ask people bigger than yourself for help. I will certainly be calling them when we move into a bigger house and need to haul this material back OUT of the basement (we are looking to move out of this house into something larger in two or three years). My partner, who is deathly paranoid about relinquishing control of projects of any kind, was also very impressed with them and comfortable enough with the experience that he’s now talking about hiring them on to help move other things than the equipment out of the basement, which impresses me as much as the performance of the team with whom we worked. If anyone can get through his fear (generally extremely justified) of frustrated disappointment, they get all the extra points from me!

First-​time hiring movers, and we had a good experience with FCM. Pat came to do a walk-​through estimate. He gave us good communication about what to expect, and the estimate ended up being very close to our final charge. He estimated 5 hours with a 3-​person crew, and the final charge was for 5.5 hours, but I’m pretty sure that’s because we weren’t completely done packing when the crew arrived. It would have been faster if all our stuff had already been boxed up. The crew was nice and careful and efficient. I’m not sure I believe there is such a thing as stress-​free moving, but this came pretty close.

Update on our previous report: we were finally contacted by someone at Five College Movers who was extremely apologetic and said that he simply didn’t put our appointment into the schedule. He also offered to cover the cost of the other movers we had to hire last-​minute due. So we at least give them credit for doing their best to make things right, despite the screw-​up.

Excellent experience! Professional, careful, quick, helpful, personable, funny, respectful, and knowledgable. They did everything from packing up our dishes and our «junk drawer» to carefully moving the flat screen TV. The price was excellent and customer service was on top of their game. They made the moving experience fun and prevented any bickering that usually accompanies a move.

We used these guys to move from Amherst to Northampton.
They came recommended by our new landlord, who had used them herself to move out of our new unit. We arranged the move in advance, and were able to take advantage of an expired coupon deal they were kind enough to honor.
On the day they did arrive with an truck rather too large for our needs, and I was concerned we’d have issues with the parking at the back of the apartment block — a little surprised by this, given they’d dealt with our building and it’s limitations before. Ultimately that didn’t pose a problem and the crew moved in pretty efficiently, with all the usual (at least for my experience) service — mats put down on floor, taking apart and re-​assembling furniture, positioning in the apartment etc.
The crew was friendly and considerate, nothing damaged and the service was good all round.

Our move with this company was a huge disaster. First the movers showed up over an hour late without the supplies I was told they would bring. The move was estimated to take 3 – 4 hours but took 7.5, which means I had to put out twice the money I thought I would when I hired the company. A number of items were damaged– the movers did things like lie a $ 500 Fly By Night wood futon on the floor of the truck, leaving the finish scratched. The movers tried to cut corners, resulting in more damage– an armoire was moved with everything inside it, resulting in damage to the piece itself and the walls of my home (which I then had to pay to repair). The movers did not put the shipping bolts in my washer (despite the fact that I handed them to one of the movers), resulting in damage to my machine. I could go on and on. On top of this, they left a ton of stuff at my old house, resulting in me having to move about 7 SUV loads on top of all the money I paid them to move my things. All of my boxes were piled into one room at the new house. Furniture was just placed into the middle of each room. The movers themselves complained all day long. I know moving sucks; that’s why I hired you. Finally, when I contacted the owner, he said he’d talk to the movers but nothing of came of it.