Innovative Moving Company

I am right with the other reviewers. ZERO stars would be appropriate. I have actually worked with Thumbtack and, after some investigation on both of our parts, their company has been removed from the Thumbtack site because they are NOT EVEN LICENSED TO DO BUSINESS as a moving company! Here is my experience to add to the mix.
Like many other customers who used Innovative Moving, I relied on an overall excellent score on
. The business description cites that they are a «master moving team» who does this professionally, not just «on the weekend.» The end result gave a different story. First, I reached out via Thumbtack to Daryl, the owner, to get a rate question answered and propose our moving date. He never responded. My husband finally called Daryl on the cell number provided and confirmed the date and time of 9 a.m. on August 27. On August 25 I was walking my three small kids around the block and noticed a car circling our neighborhood. He asked me if I was moving that day, and because I didn’t quite like the look of him, I said, «No.» After another circle around he asked me again. I finally got him to say who he was, and he apparently was working for Daryl as a hired hand and was told our move was that day (two days early). He called Daryl on the spot and we all confirmed the real date of August 27 at 9 a.m. On the day of the move, I took our kids to the new house and waited. I texted my husband at 10:40 and still no movers. They finally arrived around 11 without explanation and got to work loading their rented U-​Haul (not their own «professional» truck). While waiting for them to arrive, I Googled Innovative Moving to find a phone number for them and started to discover some disturbing things about them online: the BBB shows them as unaccredited and on a moving trade publication website they are listed as part of a class action lawsuit for operating without a license. I contacted Thumbtack about this and was told they would look into it. Meanwhile, when the movers finally arrived (smelling of cigarettes and beer), they were courteous enough and worked fast. They did not appear to slack off or take breaks, which is why they have earned the one star I gave. However, at the end of the move, we discovered the wooden feet were missing from our kitchen island and Daryl asserted that my husband had left them at our old house. My husband, who is the world’s most meticulous and careful mover, maintained that Daryl and his guys were the last ones to have the feet. Needless to say, we never recovered them and they were not at the old house. Chances are the hired hand tossed them into his pickup and they are gone for good. They also put a scratch in my husband’s new, extremely cherished leather armchair and broke a foot off my son’s dresser. Had we not moved most of our valuables and breakables beforehand, I don’t know what else would have been damaged. At the end of the move, annoyed at their 2-​hour-​late arrival and damage to our items, and sickened that we might have hired unlicensed movers, when Daryl quoted me $ 360 for 3.75 hours’ work plus a «fuel surcharge» I paid him $ 340. I pointed out how late they were and after a pause he said, «That’s fine.» Later my husband texted Daryl about the missing island feet and got a «That’s so weird! Oh well» response. Bizarrely, we seem to have ended up with some other poor customer’s step stool. I wonder who will get our missing island feet. Good thing we are staying put in this house because I cannot deal with another moving experience with shady movers again.

We decided to hire Daryl with Innovative Moving Co. because his quote was in the middle price-​wise, not too high and not too low, and his ratings were high. It turned out to be the move from hell.
To start, his two men were 6 hours late with a Budget Rental truck. 6 HOURS late. One of those hours could have been spent packing had the driver owned GPS, or at least known how to look at a map. My family lived off a main road; not difficult to find. The men did not finish loading the truck until after 11pm, which in turn made my husband take a three-​hour road trip to our new home in the middle of the night and not arrive home until 3am. Had Daryl sent four men, as he had originally said, this would not have been an issue.
The next day the truck arrived in the afternoon. As they were unloading, I quickly learned they broke a $ 500 art sculpture we had purchased from a local Seattle artist. How did this happen, especially considering it is made from steel? The piece is 6ft tall and rests of four thin poles, designed to sway. The movers laid it horizontally over a box, creating a point of pressure, and one of the poles snapped off the bottom and another from the top.
The man who had packed the kitchen obviously had no experience as a mover. While unpacking boxes, I learned he had put my oils in sideways, which lead them to tip over upside down and spill, leaking through the box onto others. I often found boxes with delicate ceramic bowls on the bottom and canned goods on top, causing several breaks and chips. The worst case, is when he decided to unload my husband’s large standing tool chest, and add a delicate dish box on top. While bringing it down the rails, he lost control, caught an edge, and I watched as my dish box went flying off the top and smashed into the concrete. Several wine glasses and serving bowls were smashed to pieces (why were they packed together?).
As if things could not get worse, they did not pack our 2300 sq ft home entirely into their truck, so my husband had to spend $ 400 on UHaul, drive another 3 hours to our previous home, load up rest of the stuff (which didn’t even take half the small truck), and drive the 3 hours back. Another 3am arrival. Our main living room and the office contained no furniture, so I was disapointed they were not able to load everything on the first try.
Despite trying to negotiate price with Daryl for over an hour and his EXTREME negligence and unprofessional movers, he only knocked $ 60 off our bill. A whopping $ 60.
Save your sanity and hire someone else.

TERRIBLE. DO NOT USE. We booked several weeks in advance through Thumbtack. He called and left a message late the night before and said he took another job and would be a half hour late, then showed up 6 hours late. Obviously he knows nothing about his business if he can’t see immediately that a job will take 6 hours longer than expected. He provided NO APOLOGY. He was very convincing on Thumbtack initially — we had a mover booked and he seemed great so we canceled. DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD HE SAYS.

If I could give this place a negative rating, I would. Worst.experience.ever. Initially, we set up a verbal agreement for Darryl (sp?) to come and move my stuff on a Monday morning at 10 (which was my bad, I should have got a contract signed or something). I call at 9 and dude says «oh man, I forgot to tell you that I don’t have room for your stuff. The other guy who you’re sharing truck space with took up the whole truck.» Uh — say what? So I work out with Darryl, thinking he’ll rent another truck and drive my stuff down as planned. He says he’ll give me a call back at 3pm — up until this point he has been good at calling me back. Well, 3pm rolls around no call. So I call him an leave a vm. Same thing at 4pm. And 5pm. You get the picture right? Homedude screwed me, and straight up bailed — not the way to do business. He gets 1 star bc it’s the lowest you can give, never trust this man.
Innovative moving, I hate you. Strong words, I know, but I think it’s appropriate seeing how most everything I own is in Seattle and I’m in Los Angeles. Peace with two fingers.