Studdard Moving & Storage

Incompetent. We used them back in January, and they are refusing to pay on destroyed furniture (which were destroyed because they failed to blanket wrap certain items). We purchased full value insurance, and other pieces of furniture were damaged. They sent a repair person over to estimate the cost to repair, and they are also refusing to pay the full cost of the repairs. These people are incompetent.

Studdard was the company the military contracted to move our stuff from our old address to my husband’s new duty station. We worked with two other companies during the process –one we hired personally to get our stuff into storage in KS, and one the military contracted to move our stuff into our new home in a different state. The two other companies were by far more efficient, competent, professional, and easier to work with.
Studdard was only responsible for moving our stuff from a small storage unit to a truck. Most of it was already packed, with the exception of a few awkward items, fragile items, and a few small boxes that needed to be packaged into larger boxes. We had one TV, no couches, no dining table, and very few other large/​heavy items. We left fragile items out, because we were told the company would likely prefer to do it themselves and after all, we figured they were experts. Wrong! I had discussed all of these things with their move coordinator over the phone previously, so it’s not like any of this was a surprise.
Anyway, it took four workers almost all day to move the stuff directly from the storage unit to the truck. The moving company who moved our stuff into storage took 2 hours, with three workers (this included dismantling multiple beds). The movers who unloaded our stuff here with three people took three hours, including a lunch break. One of the Studdard workers complained THE ENTIRE TIME and didn’t help the other workers much. They took frequent breaks. They didn’t ask us any questions about packing the stuff we had left out. Granted, it was cold, but as a mover, you work in the elements. The other moving company moved our stuff on a colder day without complaint!
Once our stuff was delivered to our new home, wet discovered how poor of job Studdard did packing the few things they packed. The moving company on this end was irritated, because Studdard did things like put several smaller boxes of text books (clearly labeled) into giant moving boxes, creating really heavy boxes. They used one strip of tape on the boxes and most were coming open. Several large boxes were half packed so they crushed under the weight of heavier items that had been placed on top. The moving company here said it seemed like a professional company packed the boxes we packed, and the boxes packed by Studdard seemed like they were packed by people with no moving experience. The boxes Studdard packed were clearly labeled with the Studdard logo, so it was obvious who did what.
Once we started unpacking, we discovered more craziness. Studdard mislabeled multiple boxes. When we first got our boxes unloaded, we were shocked how many of them were labeled «baby clothes». We knew we had many boxes of old baby clothes, but not that many! It turns out, we didn’t have that many. We found kitchen stuff, linens, garage stuff, books, etc. Packed in boxes marked «baby clothes.» All of the boxes we packed were clearly labeled, how hard would it have been to simply copy over the writing from the box we packed, to the larger boxes they put our stuff in? We also have multiple broken items because they did things like pack a printer in a box with a full tool box and heavy poker set on top. Our wedding champagne flutes (again clearly labeled, in the original Lennox box and packaging), were crushed because they were packed at the bottom of a box full of books! Sturdy stuff that has been with us through several moves was broken. The toddler bed they disassembled was thrown into pieces in random places. The hardware to put it back together was stuffed in another randomly labeled box. It goes on and on…
Sorry for the length of this review, but we were really upset with our experience, especially after having such a great experience with the other moving companies. Between the two other companies, we tipped over $ 300 in cash and food. I felt bad not tipping this company, even with poor service, until we got unpacked and realized how many broken things we had. I’m not sure if the company just didn’t care, or figured it wasn’t a big deal since we didn’t have many high value items like expensive TVs and fancy furniture, but I sure hope people who do have these things see more care taken with their items. It also irritates us when we see companies making good money on government contracts doing crappy work.