Dealing with movers

No matter where or when I have moved in the past, I was the one who was always doing it. Packing it in boxes, loading the truck, driving, unpacking, arranging, hanging pictures, shades, drapes, etc. This move, with its distance and additional heft, presents a challenge in both scope and duration. So, I figured we'd get some estimates from some movers.

Moving companies have a shitty reputation for a reason.They employ classic asymmetrical information tactics upon their usually hapless victims, hapless being defined either as being an individual handicapped with children and pets and a huge house of stuff to move rendering them incapable of packing and unpacking, or being the company who is paying for the individual and all their stuff to move hence having the individual not really care how much its going to cost. (Holy run-on sentence batman.).

The estimators the moving companies send to your house are supposed to be the experts. You rely on them to accurately estimate how much shit you have. But, its not in their best interest to give an accurate estimate because then they don't really make $. So, being that they get paid on both the amount and the distance they move, (and the distance is fixed), they are incentivized by the amount they move, hence they usually overestimate the amount of stuff. But they can't over-estimate too much because they know you, the individual or company paying for the move, are going to get multiple estimates. So, then they might underestimate, hoping to score the work on a lowball effort, get your stuff on the truck, hold it hostage, and then rip up the original estimate because clearly you, the individual, didn't show the original estimator how much shit you really had in the first place. Confused? So am I.

Here's where we are with the process. We've had 2 estimators come in. The first told us we had 1200 cubic feet and would charge us $4300. The second came in and told us we had 1500 cubic feet and would charge us $6300. Fuuuuuuaaaaa......

I call bullshit on both of them, because when I look at the Uhaul site or the Penske site, they both say a 2-3 bedroom house or apartment requires a 17 ft truck, or 850 cubic feet. We have a 2 bedroom apartment. There's no way we have almost double than that.

So, I am going to get a 3rd estimate from the company that is employed by my company when they move people. (We're self-financing this move). I am going to be very honest with them and let them know about the 2 previous estimates, BUT I am not going to let them know what they are.

I will then take their #'s, end up renting the 22 ft truck I already have on hold with Penske, and do the move myself. That'll show 'em.