Low Bidder, High Anxiety
Written: Mar 31 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Goods transported safely
Cons: Bidding practices seem designed to create tension between firm and drivers
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| TFarmer's Full Review: Bekins Van Lines |
When we moved our (then) small household across country from Virginia to Washington State, we got bids from Mayflower, Allied and Bekins. At $5,300, Bekins was by far the lowest bidder -- the others were at $7,500 and up. Plus, the Bekins agent offered us a "guaranteed not to exceed" estimate. My new employer was only covering the first $5,000 of moving costs, so we signed up. We did most of the packing ourselves; we hired a couple of Bekins pros to do the china and other few breakables.
The anxious part came when the driver appeared to survey our stuff. It turns out the agent had seriously lowballed the estimate. Instead of the driver being able to take two whole households out west, our stuff took up three-quarters of his truck. He was furious and said he'd protest the job with Bekins. Of course, the agent was nowhere to be found. It was very tense during the load-in... you hate to entrust all your worldly possessions to a guy who's angry about the circumstances. But everything went into the truck, including our Honda Civic, and off he went.
After that, I have to say everything went smoothly. At no extra charge, the Bekins driver dropped by our temporary corporate apartment outside Seattle so we could offload a few key items (the Honda, the TV, the baby's crib) before everything else went into Bekins cold storage. And two months later, when we moved into our house, everything was accounted for and only a glass or two got broken. The Bekins people we dealt with on the west coast turned out to be direct and honorable. But we didn't like the idea that Bekins agents may go around lowballing estimates to win jobs, making drivers angry... it kind of sours the deal at whatever price, and makes an already stressful experience even more so.
Would I use Bekins again? I guess so... I guess so. But I'd have plenty of free pizza ready for the probably-enraged driver.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
TFarmer
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Member: Tom Farmer
Location: Edmonds, WA
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 10 members
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