Went without a hitch!
Written: Aug 18 '02
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Pros: Courteous drivers, telephone people, and email support. Punctual delivery. Clean truck. No damage.
Cons: Renting the ramps is expensive. Can't be sure you'll get a ramp at your destination.
The Bottom Line: Courteous and helpful staff, clean truck, punctual delivery, no damage. I didn't expect to be this satisfied, but I couldn't have asked for a better moving experience.
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| presn's Full Review: ABF U-Pack Moving |
I just used ABF to move some stuff from a self-storage facility in Troy, Michigan to my family's house in Portland, Oregon in early August, 2002. Since I have no contacts in the Troy area anymore, it was critical that things go smoothly during the couple of days that I was going to be in Troy (I live in Japan). I chose ABF because of the reviews here on Epinions.com which were generally favorable compared to other options.
I got an online quote via the web page, and would have gotten a $25 discount if I'd also done the reservation online, but I needed confirmation that the truck would be picked up the same day (the only way you can set it up on the web form is to select the next date for pickup). So I wound up doing it by email.
The email staff was quite friendly and everything was set up quickly. When I realized that we were going to use my wife's credit card instead of mine (I should have thought of that beforehand), the ABF person happily re-sent a new copy of the quote that included her name.
The price was $1148 for the minimum 5 feet of trailer space. We also splurged and rented the ramps on either end for $75 a piece, because the floor of the truck is quite a bit off the ground - maybe neck-level - and with only the two of us loading the furniture we were shipping, it was a necessity. Note that the quote can't include the destination ramp because they don't know if you can get one until you call when it's time to pick it up, so we had to pay for that by a separate check when the truck arrived. Only the ramp at the origin terminal was included in the quoted price.
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In Troy we called the terminal the day before the move, confirmed that a same-day pickup was possible if I just call them when I'm done, and requested that the truck come as early as possible. They said that'd be about 7am, and it arrived Friday morning at 8am, giving us a smidge more time to get things ready.
The truck was shorter than I'd expected, sort of an 18-wheeler cut in half, though that was good because I doubt a bigger truck could have made it into the storage facility. The driver parked the trailer right by our unit, lowered the legs, unhitched his truck, had us sign the form (identical to the one I'd gotten via email), and off he went.
The trailer was clean and waterproof, and I was surprised that it had a translucent roof, making it easy to see as we loaded it up. It had the two partitions and ramp inside, as promised. The ramp was turned around the wrong way, but having watched the streaming videos on the ABF site, I knew how the ramp should have been, and had no trouble dragging it out and unfolding it. (Though it's still quite heavy!)
We loaded everything up in a couple of hours, and installed the partitions as best we could. Two people is a minimum for this, as you have to get everything lined up as you're ratcheting the bars that hold it in place. We also had some trouble getting one of the partition bars to ratchet in - it had a tendency to ratchet _out_ no matter where the little switch was set. Eventually we found that we could do it by having one of us pulling in on the bar like there was no tomorrow, while the other ratcheted. (In other words, brute force.) Eventually we got them into place.
We ended up using about 4 of the 5 feet of allocated trailer space. Note that there are no marks in the trailer and we forgot to bring a measure, so we just had to eyeball it.
We called the terminal again for pick-up, and were were told he'd arrive in about an hour. A little more than an hour later, the truck indeed arrived. (And it took me a moment to realize it wasn't the same driver that dropped it off...I wondered why I had to tell him what unit the trailer was parked in front of! LOL)
He hooked up his truck, and then realized that the first driver had neglected to attach a sticker to our paperwork. He rummaged around in his cab and found that he fortunately had some of the stickers, and stuck them on the paperwork and on both partitions inside the truck. He also gave the partition bars a couple of extra cranks each to make sure they'd stay in place, even though I thought I'd already tightened them fully. Good thing he checked!
With that, he thanked us and drove away, leaving me dancing in joy that it was done!
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We used the number on that sticker to track the truck online, and when it arrived in Portland we called the destination terminal, managed to get routed to the Dispatch desk, and asked for the truck to be delivered the next day. We also managed to reserve a ramp. We asked for 10 am, but they said the earliest slot was the "11 am to 1 pm" slot, so that's what we got.
The truck arrived a bit after noon on Friday, for a transit time of exactly one week. Again, the driver was helpful and volunteered to help us get the partitions out, collected our $75 check for the ramp, and left us to our unloading. We unloaded quickly, and were pleased that nothing at all was damaged. We'd done everything we could already by wrapping the furniture, putting pads under the feet of the antique desk, and packing everything tightly together like 3D Tetris, but it was still gratifying to have no surprises when we removed the partitions!
We then called the terminal around 2pm to have it picked up. As it happened, the pickup finally came around 6pm, long after we'd given up on having it picked up before the weekend. He checked the trailer, found that everything was OK, and the truck was gone. Once again I was left dancing in the street.
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Conclusion:
Everyone we talked to was quite friendly and went out of their way to help us, with the slight exception of the destination terminal person, who took a minute to figure out that this was "one of those U-Pack things" when I called. And even he wasn't surly or anything, just mildly confused when I asked to have my empty trailer picked up. (: All of the drivers were courteous and helpful, and I was impressed with some of the maneuvers they pulled off to get the truck into and out of the storage facility - I certainly would have given up!
I didn't like that you don't know if you're even going to be able to get a ramp at your destination until you call to have the trailer delivered, by which point it might be too late to arrange anything. Not that we had a problem, but it was one more thing to worry about.
Both times the trailer was delivered pretty much on-time, and was in good shape. The overall transit time was just what they said on the estimate. And most important of all, our stuff arrived without damage.
All in all, a very good experience.
Recommended:
Yes
Punctuality: Showed up on time
Ease of Filing Claim: N/A
Lost Goods: No
Amount Paid (US$): 1223
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Epinions.com ID:
presn
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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