My Worst Day in Boston

Ok, so maybe that is a little drastic of a title, but it does feel like probably the worst day I will have here (at least I hope it won't get worse ...).

The movers came this morning, and I was so excited to finally get my stuff (an air mattress is not necessarily the most comfortable bed in the world).

Two of them made a point to tell me that the tip was not included in the price, one even mentioned that I should tip them as a group, otherwise the driver would take it all for himself. I didn't realize I was supposed to tip the movers, and I didn't have any extra cash (I already had to take a ton out of the ATM because they required payment in cash). I figured I would wait and see how the move went ...

It started off ok, they were moving my boxes up the stairs, and some looked smashed and ripped, but I thought everything inside should still be ok.

Then they bring up my vacuum. I didn't recognize it at first, because half of it were missing. Most of the remaining parts followed and ended up the floor.

Then comes my treadmill -- the display has been cracked and is barely staying attached to the rest of the machine.

But it got much worse. The driver came up and told me my couches were not going to make it inside. I was surprised, as I have moved the same couches in/out of two apartments, one of which had equally challenging entryways. When I went downstairs to look, I noticed they had taken the protective covering off of them, and they were both torn up, ripped, and stained. They got the first one up the stairs, but just stood around with the second one half in/half outside the door, telling me that it was not going to fit.

I was a little annoyed, as I had managed to fit these things into challenging doorways with just myself and my mother. They started to bring the couches back downstairs, and asked me to hold the door for them, and on the way out, they dropped the couches on my foot. Now, considering that I am currently without health insurance (since school hasn't started), this freaked me out a bit. Coupled with the fact that my couch was now sitting outside on the street and they refused to do anything with it, I was pretty upset. I called their service number, and explained to the dispatcher what had happened to my items and my couch, and that they had dropped the couch on my foot. The dispatcher told me he couldn't do anything about it, and I should see a doctor "and not just a foot doctor, a shrink". Who says that to someone, especially a customer?? Luckily, my roommate shows up at about this point (I had called him right before the couch fell, and I think he got freaked out when I said "Ouch" and hung up). The movers asked me to sign the delivery receipt, but my roommate and I wanted to read it first. I started taking some pictures of the couch (just in case it disappeared later), and meanwhile the movers ran off without the signed receipt, and without giving me a copy of the inventory list.

But it doesn't get any better. As a start unpacking (with my couch still sitting out in the street), I notice that a couple of my boxes are missing -- including my pictures, all of my wall art, my framed college diploma, some of my bedding, my DVD player and all of my electronics cabling. I tried calling the moving company back again, and the dispatcher hung up on me! I could not believe how rude they were being. I called again, and she said there was nothing left on the truck, no way something would have been delivered to the wrong address, and accused me of lying. I thought that was funny, because the movers tried to deliver a table to my apartment that wasn't mine (of course I let them know, and they took it back). She also accused me of refusing to sign the delivery receipt, and told me that I should have checked my items against the inventory. That would have been nice if I had actually seen the inventory and the movers hadn't run away before I had a chance to sign the receipt.

What a mess. So is my apartment right now with unpacking everything, but that is another story. I called Budget, who is the company I originally contracted with (that set me up with this horrible company -- Preferred Relocation), and they are going to escalate the issue with Preferred Relocation for me. Plus, I already submitted a claim to the better business bureau.

Geesh, I really hope my time in Boston gets better than this!!!! I promise my future blogs won't all be so depressing :( I'll post some pictures of my new place once it gets a bit more presentable.