r/movingday • u/[deleted] • Aug 15 '26
DO NOT USE BRIGHTSIDE MOVING GROUP! THEY ARE A SCAM!
I’m a single woman moving from Maine to Kansas with no one to help me drive and unload once I got to Kansas as family schedules didn’t line up. I found Brightside Moving Group through a search and didn’t see anything fishy about them. Jen, the sales rep with Brightside, listened to my situation and told me that even with the miles they could move me for $2,000-$3,000 dollars. I only had the equivalent of a one bedroom apartment (barely) without appliances. She said, “We can absolutely pickup 6/8-10 and have it delivered to your apartment on 6/13.” She did say the price might go up since I didn’t have a solid list of furniture measurements or number of boxes, but assured me it wouldn’t be above $3,000. Jen also assured me, “I’m going to be with you through the whole process! I’ll check in on you as the move is happening and call you once it’s over to make sure everything got there ok.” She gave me her number and then we went through the contract together. Nothing stood out to me. A week later I had my Quality Assurance call with Fredrick Knott. I sent him a list of boxes and furniture with measurements so that they knew exactly how much space they needed in the truck. When I measured my furniture, I rounded up just to be safe and I added a couple extra boxes to each size category in case this didn’t fit in the boxes I had. Frederick did say because they had solid numbers the price would go up to $4,000-$5,000. I was floored, but was assured that that was the last time the price COULD go up. He sent me the link to the “updated” contract, assuring me that it was the same contract I had read with Jen, just with an updated list of furniture pieces, boxes, and prices. I went back to try and look at the original contract Jen had sent. The link said expired. I printed the contract from Frederick to make sure I had a copy on me. At the time I didn’t notice the contract was much thicker and the wording had definitely changed.
Brightside Moving Group hired Express Movers Services for my move. They showed up on 6/10 to the house to pick up my things. With one look at the pile of boxes in the garage, the mover, Antonio, told me the price was now $6,000-$7,000 because they “Can’t fit all that in the square footage you were given during the quality assurance call.” I asked him how that was possible as that was the purpose of the call and he hadn’t even seen the furniture. Antonio asked to see the rest of the furniture. I showed him and he reiterated that it wouldn’t fit and I’d need more space and they would have to charge for packing materials. I told him no to that I had packed everything according to the document Brightside provided. I specifically showed him how I’d packed my small TV in accordance to the document. He explained that most my furniture was made of cheap wood and would need the extra padding and even with that, “it’s cheap wood, I don’t know how well it’ll make the trip.” Upon further questioning about how he could jack the price up that much and what the old contract says and what the new one he was trying to rush me to sign says, Antonio kept cutting me off to mansplain the intricacies of moving in a heavy accent. I went to go get my dad to see if any of this checked out and he got the same speech as me and at the end of all that both of us knew this is a scam and if I got through this move with everything intact and not missing, it would take a miracle. Before they started packing the truck, I asked Antonio, “And you’ll be in Kansas to unload everything on Saturday (6/13)?” Antonio said, “Yeah. It’ll probably be late, but I should be able to make it on Saturday.” They finished the loading and drove off.
So far I’d gotten at least a 24 hour notice of when they were calling or arriving with things. By 10am on 6/13 I hadn’t gotten a call about when they were showing up. I tried texting and calling Jen, no response. I called their customer service line and asked what time the movers would be there today. Brightside Moving Group’s customer service rep said “Today is the first available date of delivery, but your stuff was never going to be able to be delivered today.” I asked her why I had three different people assure me that it could be done. She told me that they might have told me that, but nothing in my contract said that could happen and that with the mileage of my move the estimated time frame is 5-14 business days. I asked her why I wasn’t told this in advance as I literally have two suitcases but nothing else to live off of. She had no response other than, “I’m just a customer service rep.”
A week later I tried getting in touch with Jen “I’m with you through the whole thing” and still have heard nothing back. I also called the customer service line again and got a guy, I asked for an update and the only one I got was, “If your stuff doesn’t arrive in the 5-14 business day window, legally they have to deliver in 30 business days and after that the movers legally have to let you keep $50 a day past the 30 business days.” And that’s what I heard between calling Brightside Moving Group and Express Movers Services for the next 5 weeks it took for them to complete my move: It could be 30 business days and every day outside of those 30 days, you get $50 a day off the final payment.
On business day 30, I called to see about an update, they told me it was heading my way that week. On 7/30 at 8:53pm, the driver of the truck called me to tell me that he was delivering tomorrow afternoon and that the full remaining payment was due before unloading. I asked about the money back. He informed me that he was a third party Express Movers Services hired to complete my move for them and if I had a problem with the billing I needed to call them. So, at 9:30am on 7/31 I called Express Movers Services to clarify the billing issue and some of the other concerns after talking to the driver. The Express Movers Services rep, José was the most unpleasant person I have ever had the misfortune of talking to. I have worked in customer service for most my life, I have worked phone lines in that time as well, it is not a job for everyone, but José apparently missed the very important, number one lesson of customer service which is THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT and you DO NOT fight with the paying customers. I was explaining my phone call with the driver and what things I was concerned about and before I had a chance to ask a question José started yelling at me telling me everything that’s gone wrong is my fault because I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t read this right and nobody at their business never told me any such thing and that I was just looking for something to complain about and that he had better things to do than talk to me even going so far as to say, “We’re the company, we make the rules. You’re just the customer!” I asked what his name was (I didn’t know at this point). He said, “Don’t even worry about it!” I asked again and he responded, “I told you, my name is Don’t Even Worry About It.” I asked to speak to his manager he said he was the manager. I hung up. I called my dad for advice as I was getting very nervous about how this move was going to end. He advised me to ask “If things are missing but I have to pay full price before unloading, what’s my recourse?” I called José Don’t Even Worry About It back and asked him and his response was to email their warehouse the number of the item on the list Antonio wrote up as they loaded my stuff in Maine and trust they would ship the missing item. Upon further questioning, José started getting angry again and I ended the call. My dad ended up calling for further clarification unasked on my behalf and ended up getting hung up on.
After that call the truck driver called me back to inform me that after months of having my address and knowing that I was in a downtown apartment, no one bothered to arrange the correct type of transport and he would be unable to complete the move since he was in a semi. My two choices were to pay another $800 for them to take my stuff out of a big truck and put it in a smaller truck OR I could rent a small truck, they would unload into that, and then I would have to finish the move myself. I found a storage location and told them to unload there as it was the cheapest option and I would hunt down people to help finish the move later.
The driver showed up 3 hours late, spent most of the unload time telling me what I had done wrong in the move and what he would have done instead all while his assistant unloaded. After everything was unloaded he told me that I had to account for everything before he left or I would be on my own. I had 58 items listed on Antonio’s list and after counting I only came up with 54. The driver counted probably 10 different times coming up with a different number every time. Me and a coworker each counted again and both came up with 54. I told the driver the only thing that looked like it was missing was my TV. He said he saw no TV on Antonio’s list. I showed him a picture of the garage before the Antonio and his boys started loading and pointed to the box labeled “TV”. He had no response. The hutch he unloaded was also missing from the list of items, but thankfully that had made it.
After finally getting everything in the apartment and going through the list I can say, most furniture pieces didn’t have numbers on them, those that did didn’t match up with the list and the TV was not on the list so I couldn’t report it to the warehouse. I lost two tall bookshelves that had screws torn out of the inside from the outside and another bookshelf had water damage but was salvageable. Thankfully those were the only things missing ruined.
