Steven's Moving & Storage Eric Bower SCAM ! SCAM! SCAM! Held hostage by three non speaking men while they inflated my costs by 60% then refused to unpack my belongings until I paid their ransom. San Juse, California

I recently called to set up a move with Steven's Movers.  They asked me how many bedrooms and to list the big items and how many boxes.  I told them what I had, and that I would need two stops.  They recommended a 27 ft tuck and said with three people it should take about 4-5 hours and gave me a rough estimate of $460.  Based on their recommendation I agreed and gave my credit card number. On Saturday April 3^rd this move became THE MOVE FROM HELL.  Let me tell you what happened.

1.     They arrived with a partially loaded truck containing someone elses items. 

3.     They came in a borrowed truck that said electronic recycling on the side; we didnt even know they were the movers.

4.      They came with a truck that had a broken lift and ramp which greatly lowed down the packing and unloading time.

5.     Two of the workers could not speak or read English and we could not communicate with them nor could they read the box labels.  The third head worker spoke very broken English with a heavy accent, and was very difficult to understand, and many times did not understand us. His name was Fernando Mehia.  All of the workers were polite and courteous.

6.     Because the truck was partially loaded with someone elses items, we had to make an extra stop to drop off before we could pick up our additional items.  We asked the driver if there would be a trip charge he said off the clock-no charge.

7.     Before we left our first stop we were asked if we wanted certain items packed by them, the driver showed me a packing list and the cost and I said I didnt want any items to be packed.  I told him to use blankets and tape for everything.   He said ok that's free. Later in the day he asked about packing two pieces which we agreed to about $50 dollars worth of materials.  We later came to find out that while the driver was in the truck one of the other workers was packing materials in the house.  The driver charged us $398 for materials we never agreed to, asked for, nor signed for.

8.      Each time before we left a city I asked the driver (because he wasnt clear) if  there was a trip charge.  He said no extra charge and pointed to a $90 charge shown in your original estimate of $450. At the end of the day Fernando charged us $360 in trip charges, two of which were his fault for bringing a partially loaded truck.

9.      They left over 25 items behind because the truck was too full to fit all of our items.  We had to spend the next day transporting the remaining items in our own car.  It took 6 trips to get the remaining items to our home. My apartment charged me $50 for leaving a day late.

10.  Once our items were at the final destination, they asked for payment of $1200 before unloading the truck. This was a far departure from the original estimate of $460.  I FLIPPED!!  $400 of that was for bubble wrap!! $300 was for trip charges that were their fault!!

11.  We asked to speak with a supervisor and were told that it was our fault that we couldnt understand people who dont speak English and that to protect their free insurance coverage they will use their packing materials no matter the cost to us.  They were rude, arrogant and insulting and after some screaming on my part reluctantly offered us a 10% discount on a bill that was inflated by 60%.  He further insulted us by twisting our words and calling us manipulators and liars. 

12.  The driver finally offered us $100 off for the packaging.  My friend with two full sleeves of Tatoo's probably helped pursuede him.  We received a $220 discount off of the $1200 bill for a total payment of $980 cash. Twice what they quoted.

13.   After all of this we still tipped the drivers $50, considering they worked very hard all day and were very nice, then come to find out that while we were in the house they quickly unloaded the remaining items, which was 1 third of the truck, in the garage for us to carry into the house.

We contacted ERIC BOWER the next day and told him if they didn't refund the unauthorized charges we would contact Rip off Report, the Better Business Bureau, the Workers Comp Board for hiring illegals to work with the public  the Inland Empire Consumer Reports Division.  They wouldn't return our calls and then took two weeks to respnd to an email which said "We don't like threats, so good luck.  You could tell Eric had done this a 100 times.They are ripping people off every day. Someone has to stop them.

If you see STEVEN'S MOVING AND STORAGE coming down your street run as fast as you can.  This was a total SCAM and the most unethical supervisory team possible.