SmartBox of Portland

I am a fan, and will use them again. Affordable, very small, fit my 1 bedroom apt w/​o a bed. convenient that the drop off and pick up. If you DO NOT have a driveway, I had to get permits from the city, this took 5+ days and was a TOTAL hassle. ASK them to help you with the contact numbers for this.
you do not have access to the unit between load and unload

Well I took the day off work today and waited for Smartbox to deliver my items and they never showed up. I’m not surprised. Im used to being jerked around by Smartbox as explained by my previous review.
The funny part is that around 4pm today, they called and left me a message and asked if they could change the date of the Box pickup. They asked if they could pick it up a day earlier or 3 days later after I told my HOA it would be delivered today and picked up on Saturday ⁹⁄₅. I told the agent over the phone that I find it funny how they are asking me to be flexible with them but won’t be flexible with me, especially when I call 2 weeks in advance for delivery and wont even show up to deliver the product.
So the agent over the phone called the delivery driver and the delivery driver didn’t answer his phone. Its 8:38pm, I don’t think they’re coming tonight.
Smartbox’s business ethics and customer service are pathetic and I feel like an idiot for choosing to do business with them. I’ve been living in my newly purchased house for a week now without 95% of my stuff. I have some clothes, hygiene stuff and bought a towel but don’t have my microwave, lamps, bed, pots and pans etc. Yeah ive been sleeping on the FLOOR for the last week and dragging my butt to work tired and aching because these Morons won’t deliver stuff and I paid them for the delivery 3 weeks ago.
I always thought that my first house purchase would be a wonderful experience but dealing with Smartbox has added a whole new level of bullcrappery to this experience. Thanks Smartbox.

1. They don’t provide locks and don’t tell you.
2. They dropped off only 1 of 4 boxes due to a «typo»
3. You pay ahead of time so you lose all ability to require good service
4. They refused to drop off my boxes in the designated spot with a city permit that we paid $ 100 for. because there was impromptu unauthorized construction (not permitted) happening on the street and parking the boxes would have impeded traffic.
5. Had to pay $ 300 for movers and they had nothing to move.
6. Have to reschedule everything again and «hope: no one decides to randomly impede the streets.
DON’T DO IT

I was looking for a storage solution for in between moving into our new home. I liked the smaller size of the boxes for getting our boxed items to the new home. They would be left out in the elements for approx 1 week after delivery.
What was delivered was a PLYWOOD box with a ripped cover on it. The bottom of the box is plywood and sits directly on a wood pallet. Waterproof? Probably not.
While the customer service of the initial call was great, the lady I talked to about having their box misrepresented to me was curt. Eventually they refunded everything except the «delivery fee» of $ 119, even though the outside of the damn container says «FREE DELIVERY» right on it.
I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. Apparently the new company misrepresents their products and won’t stand by their advertising.

I’ve had such a great experience with SmartBox. Laura was the sweetest customer service representative I’ve ever had on the phone, and the service is fast, super simple, and takes the headache out of moving.

I used Smartbox for a short move across town. Everything was smooth and I like that it was easy to estimate how many boxes I needed for my move.
Plus, the destination house had a narrow, shared driveway on a pretty busy street. It was perfect to set these standard sized boxes on the driveway. The POD type boxes of other companies would have been too big to work.

If there were 6 stars (or 7) I’d give Tom and his driver Matt those too! I had 6 boxes delivered for a condo complex where I’m on the Board. Tom was far less expensive than competitors but more importantly, he’s one of the best communicators in any business I’ve ever come across – really. He made sure of our needs and when we ended up needing to keep one of the pods an extra 2 weeks rather than charge us the full month (which he was entitled to do) he pro-​rated us. Awesome and very very good customer service. We’ll be repeat customers should we need temporary storage again – there simply isn’t a better box service in the metro area. And, an added bonus, Matt (the driver) is a very nice guy and Tom is a hoot to talk to about his days living in SF. Have fun at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Tom… and Matt… make sure you hold down the fort while he’s away. CHEERS! Paul

I recently had several boxes delivered and picked up … I gave only a few days advance for the delivery… And Tom worked his magic to make it happen, even with the busy student season. They arrived on time and were unloaded and leveled quickly. I have good access but the lifter could easily have maneuvered into tighter space. Being still in a somewhat rainy season, Tom ensured I had good covers to protect the boxes…, however even if there had been tears, I don’t think there would have been water damage as they boxes appear to be well built. I spoke with Tom thru out the process from scheduling and his follow up calls… It is nice to talk to the owner. His business sense is professional but I felt like I was dealing with a trusted friend. I am very pleased with everything. The convenience of having the boxes on my property to fill at my pace was so much easier than too many trips, to and from a storage unit. Thanks. Keep up the good work…

They did great. We had excellent communication about the details and logistics of what I needed done. The price was right. Ideal solution for short term storage in a moving situation… there are lot of things to worry about, but having extra days to load and unload the boxes allowed us to keep calm, and even use some of that margin to get our kids involved (they loved being useful, and loved finding ways to spend the cash they earned!).

When we sold our house a month before we could move in to our new one — we knew that we wanted storage boxes so we wouldn’t have to move 4 times! After booking PODS — i read the reviews and here and thought i’d give them a call.
Super friendly & helpful folks at the 1 – 800 number and they provided a flat rate option that beat all the competition. Plus, i was able to rent moving blankets!
Tom, the local manager/​owner was amazingly helpful when at the last minute, we realized we didn’t order enough boxes for all our stuff! He sent a couple more the very next morning. He also saved us when we moved in and could only get 4 boxes at a time (but had the movers on the clock!). He finessed the schedule and worked his magic all around and we were extremely happy with both the boxes and the amazing service.

Was doing garage remodeling so needed to take everything out for two weeks. I compared the cost of PODS and this company which I used for several reasons: 1) About 35% less expensive 2) was able to speak with local owner unlike the PODS office here and 3) poor online ratings for PODS and a local news story about them putting one over a street drain in PDX; the box flooded, and customer was on his own. There were less ratings about this company online everywhere but no news is better than bad news so took a chance. Happy with the outcome as evidenced by my recommendation to neighbor who had two boxes moved down to his house after.

When we were getting ready to sell our house, I compared several companies by comparing the costs of storing 4 boxes for 4 months, and we chose Big Box as the most cost effective, generous in their drop-​off/​pick-​up policies, with boxes that would actually fit in our driveway and be fillable in the time allotted. During the time our stuff was in storage (over 2 years!), they were bought by Smartbox *and* switched local franchise owners. This was all seamless for us as customers. National and local were great every time we interacted with them, whether it was to order another empty box or going to their site to retrieve things we needed. Owner Tom is very accommodating and knowledgeable about local street parking ordinances and permits (I’ve seen competitors «park» boxes illegally and dangerously based on what I learned). The delivery drivers were very skillful and courteous. I don’t want to move again anytime soon, but I know who to call when it’s time.

I have done business with SmartBox for over a year. They have the best customer service I have had when using a storage facility. The owner Tom, is very accommodating. I recommend them for moving, pick up and storing. Also, the security is the best!