The savvy consumer should be aware of the types of long distance movers nearby before making an educated decision on which long distance movers near you to hire. When researching long distance movers nearby, residents should also ask specific questions – don’t just assume that because you found a long distance mover near you online that they are licensed, insured or even located the US!
TYPES OF LONG DISTANCE MOVERS
Moving Broker – Moving brokers do not actually perform any moves. They are essentially booking a move for whatever they can and then selling your move to the lowest possible bidder which is usually un un-qualified mover who may or may not show up. Moving brokers charge between 25-40% as a booking fee. So, as you can imagine, the service is going to be much lower hiring a broker. See, a lot of these rogue movers will “claim” moves from the moving broker and if they are in the area at the time of pick-up they will get the shipment. If they aren’t they will either show up really late or not at all. You will get your deposit back from a MB one way or another but you may be out of luck getting your long distance move done in a timely manner.
Van Line – A van line, to me, is a glorified moving broker. Essentially, the van line – Mayflower, United, etc. will book a move and give the move to a local agent that is affiliated with the van line less a 30% deposit. Van line movers will have to adhere to van line standards, which, 20-25 years ago used to be much, much higher. Now, being an agent for a van line isn’t as wonderful as it was – mainly because the van line corporate offices take more and mover money from their agents. So, the quality of a van line agent has gone down – therefore the quality of move suffers. Again, service is compromised for long distance moves because of this. Van lines have copious amounts of damage from loading/unloading, etc. Most van lines have gone though bankruptcy to dissolve debts. The ones who haven’t have merged with failing companies. Van lines are highly inefficient for a long distance move and can cost you a ton of money. Van line long distance movers generally use a local agent to pick up a shipment and then it is brought to a storage facility, then picked up by another agent, taken to another storage facility, offloaded/reloaded, repeat. It can take 2 weeks to get a shipment from Connecticut to Florida. All the while, you are sitting in a hotel room racking up bills waiting for your shipment.
Private Moving Company – This is the new age of long distance moving. A private moving company can pack, load, and unload a shipment from CT to FL in 3-4 days. There are new logistics tools/schdulers/bio-fuel trucks that make private moving companies the most efficient and cost-effective way to move long distance. In the past 5 years or so, many more of these private long distance movers have raised the bar in long distance moving. A few that we recommend:
- MOVERS NEAR ME ® ( throughout US)
- MEATHEAD MOVERS ( mainly West Coast)
- MONSTER MOVERS ® ( mainly East Coast)
- GIANT MOVING CO (mid-west and Rockies)
THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR LONG DISTANCE MOVERS NEARBY
There are so many long distance moving companies near me advertising long distance movers that aren’t even located in your country. For example, many of long distance movers in the US have foreign ownership which means when you have issues with your move or concerns you will not be able to find out who to bring to council if needed. So, the most important question for long distance movers near you is:
“Who is the owner”
Yes, that’s right – asking who the owner of your potential long distance movers will help you to:
- Research the owner – where are they located
- Research any pending or past court cases
- Know the owners name in case of any issues during or after your move
Residents are expected to fill out massive amounts of paperwork when using a broker or van line. Of course you will be signing this at the load when you have no time to reconsider who you’ve hired. There are companies out there with vague names like “cross country movers” and “long distance movers” that don’t actually own any moving company at all. Other important questions to ask any long distance movers near me that you are considering:
- Are you licensed and insured?
- How long have you been in business?
- Are you movers full time crews hired by your company?
- Do you have your own trucks or are your trucks leased by your company?
- What is included in the estimate?
- Is the long distance moving estimate guaranteed not to exceed?