Liberty Moving and Storage

I was a bit apprehensive about using Liberty because the reviews on Unilocal were not very favorable. This company was recommended to me by another moving company in the Detroit area. Liberty called to set up an appointment for an estimate (8−10am on a weekday). I made a point of rearranging my schedule to be at home. Nobody showed up. At 10:30am I called the person who’d made the appointment and left a message. At noon the following day another company representative called to say that nobody had written it into the book. I decided to go with another moving company.

DO NOT USE! They broke two pieces of furniture, including a handpainted personalized coatrack that had been given to our son for his first birthday and then offered is 30 cents a pound for breaking it ($ 3 on the coatrack that had a replacement cost of over $ 100).

I got a corporate relocation, so I didn’t choose Liberty, as they were the provider my company gave me. Liberty’s staff in NYC was efficient. They came on time and were done in the timeframe provided. They did however use way too much paper to pack everything and the actual packing of the boxes could have been done a lot better.
The delivery timeframe provided was a week and my goods were delivered the day prior to the end of their timeframe. The staff on the delivery end were not as professional. Some items were damaged and one box was missing for a month. As for price, the total ended up being almost $ 1,000 less than the quote, but it was still a lot considering I moved from a NYC studio and didn’t ship all of my furniture.
I think they could have taken better care of the furniture I did ship, and not used so much paper and separate boxes for everything. Maybe their services are better for shorter moves where your items aren’t being moved between a cross country truck and then shuttle trucks.

An utter disaster.
They forgot to schedule our move, didn’t provide the service we ordered, and damaged our belongings along the way.
Over a year later — that’s right, over a year — we are still dealing with the fallout and have had to file an arbitration claim because they refused adequately compensate us for the breach of contract, waste of time, and damage to our stuff.
These guys are amateur, incompetent, and should be put out of business.
Don’t hire them.

Liberty Moving And Storage (Agent for United) are professional, efficient, kind, helpful, and most of all i trust them with my moves ! They work as a team, and take so much pride in what they do, so that the customer will be satisfied. They go above and beyond!

They did not live up to their promises of a excellent and stressful move. Sent 2 packers at 3pm to pack a 14 room house. Moving person yelled at my 86 year father and badmouthed Liberty… he works for Liberty. He also did quite a bit of damage in the house. They kept changing times and amount of workers. Most unprofessional movers I have ever worked with.
I give them a 0.
3 months later I am still dealing with them trying to get paid for damages in the house.
Many items that were packed by Liberty arrived broken or damaged.

NOT A DISASTER, BUT LOTS OF SMALL PROBLEMS
Unfortunately — There were problems with our move that are still not resolved.
FIrst of all, communication with our move consultant Bob was untimely. He would go days without answering a basic email sent from us, never called to check and see how our move was, and continued to not answer emails in a timely manner when we contacted him regarding the shipment problems.
The shipment problems: Several items were broken within the boxes. I did the packing, but I packed them well. I believe the guys were less than 100% careful with unloading — I’ve moved myself several times and never had anything broken that I have packed. They also took a chunk out of the apartment wall where they were unloading all the stuff. We weren’t there for their delivery (we were driving across country) and saw that they even left the chunks of plaster on the floor.
They also did not label two items that were not in boxes — a hockey stick and speaker stands. I guess they deduced who’s items they were after they unloaded their other customers stuff, drove back to Denver to deliver the hockey stick and stands to our apartment building. While we appreciated the fact that they DID get the items back to our building, it does show that they missed tagging items — probably rule #1 — TAG EVERY ITEM, right?
Lastly — We expressly told Bob that we would unpack everything ourselves. We did not want ANY unpacking charges. And we DID unpack everything ourselves — including the mattress which was wrapped tighter than tight and took me 15 minutes to cut through all the layers of plastic. Later — we got a bill including charges for unpacking the TV and the mattress. Very frustrating.
Anyway — Good note:
Tami from customer service has been very helpful in the process of handling the claim. I will edit this with the results as soon as I know how it turns out.
UPDATE:
After months of no contact, and thinking our claim was forgotten, Tami finally contacted me and said our claim check was sent out (will have to wait a few days to see if it actually will come to us.) She also said another 15 dollars for the repair of the damage in the aparment would come to us when I sign and return the release form. Good News.
But what about the charges for unpacking the mattress and TV? She said she fought hard to get us a credit for those but UNITED VAN LINES REFUSED TO PAY IT! ARRRRRGH!!! Why? Because they say they don’t have to «by law.» Basically they said «F U!»
Tami said she WILL issue a check but it will be through Liberty NOT United Van Lines — which brings me to my admonishment to ANY of you looking to hire movers: WHO EXACTLY IS DOING THE MOVING??? WE thought we were hiring UNITED VAN LINES, and actually we were hiring a contracted company LIBERTY MOVING. Very confusing and frustrating situation. I hope I NEVER have to hire movers again.

Liberty movers offered me a bad price. When I said I was going with Flatrate Movers they sent me an email with negative reviews of Flatrate. This was uncalled for and unprofessional. They should not try to get my business by putting down their competition. I ended up going with flatrate and I’m glad I did. they did the job for $ 1200 cheaper than Liberty and did an excellent job.

I have had a long ordeal with Liberty. I have moved many times and always used top moving companies (United, Mayflower, etc.). On this last move I used United and Liberty Moving was assigned.
During the packing the movers broke something and tried to hide it by throwing them away and not reporting it on their forms. When asked about it they marked down a single item and acted confused that I wanted it listed on the damaged items form. This should have been a sign.
There was some confusion about if city parking permits were included at the destination. I was told, or I believe I was told, that they were but I was then later told that they were not. I said OK, paid for them and thought that would be the end of it. The night before moving day I noticed that the street was not blocked and no permits displayed. I emailed Liberty to give them a heads up. The next morning I hadn’t hear anything (I am on the west coast now so they had about 3 hours head start) so I called. The rep told me that «everything is fine» and that «they would not have put them out yet». Both of these were obviously not right. After sometime on the phone I finally get her to check. In the meantime I go looking around and find the permits are on the wrong block, on the other side of a 4 lane road and train tracks.
Long story short, I paid $ 200 for a permit that was useless because they could not unload me and go across 4 lanes of traffic and train tracks. I negotiated with the building next door to use their loading dock because Liberty wouldn’t do anything to resolve the issue.
As of today, they refuse to refund the $ 200 stating that it is not their problem.

This was the first time I have used a moving service, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, other than the over 30 times I have moved myself, utilizing the kindness of friends with trucks and bribes of beer.
I don’t mind telling you that I was literally terrified. The horror stories I’ve heard are nightmare inducing. I didn’t sleep the whole night before the move. I should have slept — it was a piece of cake.
This was my process. Maybe it will help another first timer. We were referred to United by our management company. We rent from a national company and this is our 2^nd apartment with them, so we all trust each other. Regardless, I sent several inquiry e-​mails to various companies that had gotten good reviews from a moving website. It was a last minute out-​of-​state move, over a holiday, and we own less than 5,000 lbs of stuff, so the lack of response by many companies made the choice easier. There were huge price disparities between the movers that did get back to me, however, and that made me more nervous. Some companies seem to go by distance and some by weight. Some companies insure everything and some will only insure what they pack themselves. Some charge extra for insurance. Some charge for storage and some do not. These are things to consider.
Liberty, the agent for United, was not the cheapest, but they reassured me the most and seemed to have a fair policy regarding weight, possible overages, storage and insurance.
We were packed and ready to go when they showed up, on time, Wednesday morning. Two very nice men counted our boxes (something that had not occurred to us. Duh) and wrapped our sofas and mattress in plastic and tables and chairs in blankets. They stored it over Thanksgiving and were there at our new apartment Friday morning. Nothing broken. Nothing damaged.
I would not hesitate to use them again. Wow, that was a long review, but seriously, I wish I had known some of this stuff before I had started this project. It can be very daunting. But it doesn’t have to be.