How to Find a Reputable Mover: Choose a Local Relocation Service Provider

Think about it. You wouldn’t hire a company on the other side of the state much less the other side of the country to clean your carpets or hang new drapes. When shopping for a local, intrastate or long distance interstate service provider, you're best served when you find someone based in your community who is part of an established area business, or represents a well recognized national chain.

The phone book used to make this task easy. With many companies now moving their advertising online, however, the internet has made it more difficult for inexperienced shoppers to find a moving or storage company, or equipment supplier that operates in your neighborhood.

Until recently, many of the popular search engines displayed only those advertisers willing to invest the big bucks to be indexed on the first few pages. Even today, many “organic” local metropolitan search results return a long list of well optimized lead generating business aggregators designed to “make companies compete” for your relocation dollars. The only qualifiers, it seems, are that participants must be willing to pay to play. An advertiser’s location could be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from your home.

Be wary of Internet based move brokers or third party relocation experts. Although many claim to hire only the best licensed local and long distance carriers, storage operators or equipment suppliers, they don’t really have any financial responsibility or dispatch control over any participating company’s facility operations or driver or equipment resources. Some internet move brokers shop the low, low price quote they negotiated with you to the highest bidder at unregulated virtual ‘job’ boards. Most don’t have any background knowledge, employment data, or safety records of anyone that they send into your home on move day. And neither do you!

It’s best to get at least three price quotes from local resources. When you contact them, ask where they’re located (city and state), how long they’ve been in business. This simple step at the front end of the buying process will help eliminate many unqualified companies from your vendor search.

Still at your wit’s end? Join me at RELORoundTable – a gathering place where interested visitors can participate in a mutually supportive but commercially neutral learning environment that deals with the trials and tribulations of movin’.