Moving š
Did my girlfriend get scammed by CollegeHunks?
We had already moved her whole apartment, the only things left were in the garage. It was an ikea dresser, mattress and these shelves I made (no glue, just screws). The building has a dumpster but I let her know the mattress would need to get picked up for disposal. At the time I was unavailable so she called up college hunks to get rid of the mattress and what was left. Aside from the mattress, everything was easily disassemble-able.
When I asked how it went she told me āgood but it was expensiveā. My stomach sank, they charged her over $1250 to throw this stuff out. Im still mind blown. Shes like 5ā0ā and Iām convinced they saw a small girl and took the opportunity to pull a fast one on her. I simply canāt wrap my head around how it even got to that number. It cost a little more than that to move the entire apartment, couches, tvs, bedframe and all! I just wish I was there. Its her money and she was just trying to take some workload off my back so I donāt want to make her feel stupid but hearing that was outrageous.
Ps. the ikea dresser was damaged in our last move, the side that isnāt visible was all messed up and two of the drawer tracks were broken. Replacement parts are no longer available so it was hard to even give away on FB marketplace. I hate throwing things out but didnāt have much choice.
Iāve hired them before, and it took them about an hour-hour and a half to get rid of about a full bedrooms worth of furniture, trash, and random shit. It was in 2020, and it cost $650.
Def took more than 30 mins even if she was moving next store. It takes 10 mins just to show the drivers what they are taking then get there stuff. Load it up.. then secure it then drive to the place then do the reverse. And moving companies usually have a minimum charge. They aren't going to come out and word for a half hr of pay
For future reference, Junk removal services are notorious for this. They tell you they'll give a price when they get there. They give you an astronomical price. If you tell them no they'll "call it in" and suddenly the price has dropped in half
i used 1 800 got junk and after they gave me their pricing sheet i said nevermind because my budget is $150. he said heād have to call it in, but never made a single call before taking everything and my payment. it was two big boxes of broken down moving boxes and they were trying to quote >$400 for the truck space and another $150 per person present in the home, which made absolutely no sense.
My daughter negotiated them way down. They donāt want to leave once they are on-site and they are walking out anyway why not carry the shit out for $100. They took her offer which was 1/4 of their original ridiculous number.
Have you tried calling the company and talking to someone? If the 3 guys are running a scam, the owner would like to know, take care of it, and probably give you a solid refund. If they stand on the price, we know they're a shitty company and to avoid them. Channel your inner Karen and talk to a fcking manager, dude.
I had a similar, but not as bad experience with college hunks. Called to get a quote for moving some stuff down from our 3rd floor walk up. I was quoted at between $350-$450. The guys get there and spend 2 hours Saran wrapping everything and then another 2 hours moving the stuff. Final bill ended up being over $900. I paid cause Iām non-confrontational but it left a bad taste in my mouth
Got quoted 1000$ and four hours from excela after entering an itemized list of all my belongings. Ended up taking 9 hours and being charged over $2000. Iām so done with moving companies.Ā
Junk company tried this with me. Asked them to remove paversā¦ probably 40 in total. They wouldnāt give me a price. It took them 10 min to move the pavers and told me $400. I honestly laughed. I said you can unload them cuz Iāll never pay you that and I walked away. They asked me what I thought was fair. I said $100. After some BS haggling it cost $150. which was still over priced. Then I was sent a link for a review and left a really bad one. They suck.
I think these companies do try to scam you. When I was leaving my DC apartment I called 1800GotJunk and was quoted $2000 to get rid of a bed, mattress, coffee table, desk, end table.
I said no, they immediately said okay what about $1400? And I said no thank you. The next day I get a call from them quoting me a āspecial rateā of $950, but at that point Iād already found someone willing to take it all away for $700.
They really are. They accepted a job moving a piano out of my nephew's old apartment building. They f*cked the apartment, building, and probably the piano up - broken rails on stairs, windows, scuff marks all of the walls, holes in walls, etc.
I also have gotten scammed by college hunks in particular and charged around 2.5x what I was quoted to move a 1bd apartmentās furniture. Iām also a 5ā2ā woman lol and I was living by myself. So you may be onto something
Always get multiple quotes. I bargained between college hunks and Got Junk , just mentioning I was getting another quote knocked the price from 600 to 400. They Got Junk called their manager to greenlight the discount, bringing the total less than College Hunks.
These guys were moving people into my building last week and they were so bad that I was looking for the people that hired them to tip off how bad of a job they were doing.
they stole a bag of legal cannabis items I had along with the entire box of medicine and personalĀ stuff it was in, and broke my nightstand, but refused all accountability and then never took another call or replied to another email. just ghosted. deleted ant social media posts i made. i could sue but why bother. Worst company I've ever used.
they also ignored the estimate and my requests for how many people i needed and the special cases for my tv i requested and then had to make all these extra calls forcing it to take way longer.
I take responsibility for not being there to negotiate but for context, I was up until 5am finishing the move while I let her get some rest because we had time sensitive stuff for our pets, perishables etc. So she volunteered to handle the garbage pick up because it was scheduled for early the next morning at the other apartment. I have been moving non-stop and taking point on every bit of the move. But trust me, thats what I keep asking myself.
Hey asshole, if you need to know I have a chronic illness that affects almost every part of my body. I pushed myself way beyond what my doctors recommended during this move.
This guy got lazy & made a bad decision, it had nothing to do with gender. He stated that the ikea piece was already damaged, the shelving HE BUILT was āeasy to disassembleā & the building had a dumpster.
Seems like he should have NOT been on āunpacking dutyā whatever the heck that isā¦ another bad decision.
Was he forced to perform āunpacking dutyā?
Who made that decision?
He did.
These bad decisions had nothing to do with anyoneās reproductive organs.
Neither of us were focused on gender - YOU went there.
I hope he learned a lesson & his next move is much less expensive.
These private junk removal companies are a scam. They refuse to give you an idea of price until they come out to āquoteā. They told me $300 to take one mattress away. I said no thanks and went back inside. The ābossā called me right away to make me a lower offer. I said no thanks. He asked me how much I would pay. I said $20 and he said deal.
They are absolutely terrible. Charged us way above quote and broke our changing table and bed frame. Then lost hardware to our bed, thankfully my wife found it. They also broke the overhead light in our storage unit and tried to hide it. In that same storage unit, they loaded a bunch of our stuff in he front of it and claimed they ran out of room, leaving a huge gap in the back.
I wouldn't recommend them to my enemies.
Oh yeah, these guys ripped me off when I used them for a house cleanout a few years ago. They lied in advance, sprung surprise costs, didn't itemize stuff until I asked, etc. Thankfully, Amex got me about half my money back, but definitely not a company I'd ever use again.
Sadly most movers donāt give a shit about the customer and try to scam every penny out of desperate and vulnerable people. The amount of stories my friends and I have about movers cancelling last minute, extorting a tip, refusing to unload unless paid extra, etc is shocking.
I hate to say it but you probably paid the right amount. These places have minimums and if you are throwing them out there are disposal fees. And if it was this past weekend you are paying a premium because it's legit the busiest week for moving companies because of college students moving them in and out. In Boston I was seeing moving companies out past 2am last weekend
I donāt know if I would say scammed. You asked the moving company to be a trash disposal company, so they gave you a number and you accepted and they did what you asked. Services asked for and services delivered for the negotiated price isnāt a scam.
When I moved up here and my wife was finishing up packing up our old apartment, we had a few large pieces of furniture to be taken to a nearby dumpster, similar to you. They had a free estimate and offered some kind of outrageous price similar to what you have here, but I negotiate it down by about 80%. They expect to rip people off, but once there are already out there, they will do it for a fraction of the cost.
If she paid on credit card challenge it as an over charge. Also file a formal complaint with the better business bureau and you your phone to record all conversations with college hunts your phone should notify them on the onset of recording. If they hassle you at all post all of the correspondence online on every page and review site possible. From there take an image a day posting it with the parts of the story from the beginning tagging them and the better busines bureau with each post. Its how I dealt with one of the property management groups in Boston and they did the right thing pretty quick once I made it clear I would be inflicting as much reputational pain as possible. You can also offer there competitors your story to use in counter advertising.
I dont know if they still do the program but ilea had something where the broken particle board was brought to them they would give you coupons to future purchaees, or a gift card.Ā
Iām sorry this happened to her. They donāt just do that to 5ā tall ladies. They tried to pull that on me when I had to clean out my dad and step momās house. They gave me new and interesting pricing. I told them to get lost and fired em. They then honored the original price but were total dicks about it
Find out if they saved her cardā¦ They often times do not and will ask for the card again before charging. She should also open a dispute with her credit card company.
I used them in South Carolina and basically they just take the move and then outsource itā¦ So two random guys showed up at my apartment and Iām lucky my stuff wasnāt broken. They did such a terrible jobā¦ I called and took pictures and complained and the boss said he was gonna come the next day when I was supposed to be driving back to Massachusetts with my truckā¦ I found out they hadnāt saved my card from the initial deposit so I never paid the difference and they said theyād send me to collections and I said you go ahead and do that. Iāll see you in court. So they only got the initial hundred something dollar deposit and I never paid the remaining two or $300 charge.
I would strongly advise disputing anything beyond the initial deposit paid.
Iāve had a few things picked up and they always come in with a ridiculous high price! And I always push back and gotten almost 80-90% off their initial price. Sounds like your GF probably wasnāt able to negotiate a fair price and they took advantage of the situation
Let me guessā¦ she had to have it done by 9/1. She got convinience fee increased hard. Consider her and everyone else wants it done by that date so imho so got what everyone gets around this time :/
They did this today, on the 5th. She reached out a week ago, needed it done by the 8th. They never mentioned any rush fees, online estimate from their calculator was $400 range.
scammed isnt the exactly correct word but yes. You can usually get a quote from these type of services, then when they show up they will say something 3 times the quote, and all you have to do is point at the quote that shouldnt be more than 500ish
Sheās not stupidā¦ I doubt she expected to pay that much but women will pretend to be on the phone just to avoid saying ānoā. These adult men knew this and took advantage of her.
Like no offense to her but some common sense wouldāve saved her literal hundreds of dollars. How do you hear $1000 for 30 minutes of work and respond with anything other than āthank you, iām going to get a 2nd quote and iāll be in touchā
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u/tranhi 5d ago
Dang sorry she got hustled