Budget Van Lines

Donald Battles, Customer Service Supervisor, worked many hours to help resolve a billing issue with my mother’s move. I appreciate Mr. Battle’s kindness and professionalism in bringing this matter to a close. Many thanks.

Paul Laier was my representative and he was so awesome. I had such a stressful time limit for my move and Paul was so helpful, patient and courteous, it made my situation so much easier.
I had so many issues come up and Paul helped me through it all. I would definitely recommend using Budget and Paul Laier!

Terrific experience. The guys were fast and professional, and when I realized I didn’t have enough money for a tip, they waved me off, saying «no stairs is tip enough.» Will definitely use again.

Well done from pick up site in North Dartmouth MA to delivery in Canoga Park CA. Would us this service again. Larry Manhan 818 519 9195

If it was possible for me give Budget Van Lines a lower rating, I would. We were promised a truck to move out by or on June 1. We were told they were going to call on May 28^th. We received no call, so my wife had to call. No truck, so they were going to call the next day. May 29^th came and went, with no call taking place. My wife called again on the 30^th, to which they told us they still did not have a truck available for our move over the next day or so. They got back to us within a half our to say «HOORAY» we got a truck. Not long after, we got another call stating the truck had «broken down»…I use quotes because a friend of mine in the moving business mentioned that this is what these companies tend to do when they overbook and have no way of getting to you. They say their truck «broke down» to cover the fact that they just wanted to get your money and business in the first place without having to deliver on their side. Anyway, with the truck broken down, they said we would be moved on June 2^nd or 3^rd. Probably on June 2^nd, but possibly June 3^rd. We get a call on the 2^nd that it will be taking place on June 3^rd. They have a truck and will call us in the morning for a pick up time. Low and behold the next day comes and no call. We call around noon, because someone has been waiting at the apartment all day expecting a truck to show up, only to have no truck show up. When I call, they say they were «just about to call me» and that the truck had again «broken down», with no call being made to me, prior to me calling them. This has been an EXTREMELY unprofessional company to deal with. If they somehow find a way to redeem themselves, I will let you know, but that does not seem likely.
Brandon P.

The first thing you need to know about this company is that they subcontract their moves to other moving companies. So you never know what the name on the truck is going to be when they arrive at your house (in our case, 24 hours after the date and time their operators «confirmed» for our move), or how good they will be.
The whole process is so shady — from Budget giving you one estimate by phone, to the actual movers giving you another, money changing hands and credit cards being charged piece by piece so you can’t keep track of what you’re being charged for in the middle of moving, which is already stressful enough.
We were charged an extra $ 1,500 for «miscellaneous bulky items» that I have no idea what it pertained to, or why I had to go through my moving inventory meticulously with a Budget phone operator, only to be charged a totally different amount based on what the movers wanted. We ended up disputing the charge through our credit card company and it was thankfully resolved.
In the end, given the lateness of the movers and all the different sneaky charges, I would NEVER use Budget again. I would either a) do the move all myself, hiring moving help through U-​Haul or similar; or b) hire a moving company that did not subcontract, but was the actual company responsible for moving, shipping and delivering my items.
ETA: I added a star, because I was happy that my items made it safely on time and were wrapped with care. I do consider this more a reflection of Sterling Van Lines (the subcontractor) than Budget.

If you want to throw away money to basically hire a middle-​man, be my guest.
To begin, they aren’t the actual movers but instead, find someone for you.
For the ‘first’ price of 199.00, they call this the booking fee. That’s what you pay them to call a moving company for you. Hahaha. Rather than waste your first call on them and have them charge you 199.00, just call a REAL moving company yourself and save money.
The ‘second’ charge is 20% of whatever you will pay the REAL moving company. So for example, if you end up using the REAL moving company for $ 2000 that Budget acts as a middle-​man for, Budget will scam you out of another $ 400.
Don’t use these guys. They only take extra money from you without offering any benefit. Even though my company paid for the entire move, this experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
Do yourself a favor and don’t throw away your real money for nothing.

Worst company ever! All lies and false promises! They hired a company for our move and it was the worst experience we have ever had. Donald B. was our rep and he lied to me daily. Still waiting for the refund he promised us for all of the problems that we had to endure. Please do yourself a favor and go with another company for your move.

Budget Van Lines Moving Service is by far one of the best moving companies I have ever worked with. They are very professional, extremely reliable, great communication with instructions, very neat, and over all a great company to do business with. I plan on referring Budget to other co-​workers, friends, and family. I am extremely satisfied with their work.

No!
If my one star didn’t get your attention, you will pay in more ways than you can imagine.
Any, and i mean any good reviews on Unilocal ABOUT THIS BUSINESS are BLATANT LIES.
This company is not a moving company — it is a moving broker.
What’s the difference?
One holds liability for your goods (MOVER)
One will not help you and will lie to you every single time (BROKER)
Your choice people.
There are nightmare stories about this company that California will not shut down —
IF YOU want to be yet another nightmare episode of this horrendously managed and executed «business» — go ahead and hire them!
Not buyer beware — buyer check the darn net for horror stores first!!!
I am one who has a long story but it’s elsewhere on the net and i still get emails from people who have been taken far worse and far more devastatingly than even i have been taken.
Do not use this company even if it is the last business on earth.
If you look, not one of the «good» reviews «moved» much if at all.
There are shills on Unilocal and Unilocal needs to improve and «certify» someone has USED the company they are writing about!
How much were the GOOD reviews BELOW MINE PAID since MOST of them are in LA and didn’t MOVE recently???

Took almost 1 month to get my stuff from DC to LA and some of my items were missing. After some delay I was contacted by Donald who apologized for the situation. They compensated me the error and they explained that the mishandling was due to the job of one former carrier. I’m glad they contacted me and made up for the error and they handled the situation well.

The experience was truly saved as Mr. Battles came in and saved the day. He supported me along the way and kept in constant contact with me regarding my move. Thanks for saving the day he was a perfect example of great customer service.

So after 2 years, a new representative «Donald B.» contacted me about my review on Unilocal.He was very polite and professional. I finally got my refund! YAY!
Unfortunately, I’m unable to give this company a higher rate than a 3-​star at this point of time. But I’m pretty sure that this company is doing a face lift because of the Social networks, Internet rating and review services like
and
.
I’m quite glad that I’m a part of this matter, even though I went through a hard time with them. I truly believe that when they started the company, it wasn’t their intention to rip people off, I know they are trying to do the right things and give the best services to their future customers.
Good luck to Budget Van Lines.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY IT WILL MAKE YOUR MOVE A NIGHTMARE
My move contracted to On Time Moving, by Budget Van Lines. On Time Moving is on record as being out of business, and is not a BBB accredited business. So many things went wrong I’m just going to leave bullet points of the BS I had to deal with.
1.The sales specialist was deceptive made & convinced me my delivery would happen in 2 – 3 days that it is atypical for the delivery to go as far as 7 business days. My things were delivered almost two weeks following my pick up, beyond the 7 business day window.
2. When I complained about it, the customer service reps exchanged words with me, yelled at me, and then proceeded to hang up on me. Budget Van Lines has absolutely no etiquette in customer service. You will be wasting your time calling, because your issue will still be unresolved when you get off the phone with them
Moving Experience with Budget Contracted Movers
3. I was told one amount that I owed, and when the driver arrived he told me I owed $ 25 more, and if I didn’t give him the $ 25 he would leave with my things and not come back. All I had was the money order of the full balance, so because he threatened to leave I had to go to the ATM and get the $ 25.
4. When I got back with the money I asked, «Can we start the move now?» He responded by yelling at me saying he was leaving with my things and not coming back, and at this point he had my money and was intending to leave with my things and my money.
5. When I called the movers boss, the mover said verbatim, «You crossed the line by calling my boss. Don’t you know I have your whole life on this truck? I can break all of your shit!»
6. At the end of the move I noticed the top of my dining table top was missing. Turns out it was left behind in Chicago!!! When I asked when I would receive it they said another 5 – 10 business days!!!
7. When the move was done he requested I signed the inventory list confirming I had received all of my belongings, to which I refused because I knew I had not received everything. He then refused to give me a copy of my own inventory sheet.
8. As I unpacked I noticed my tv stand was broken, my dryer is dented, my wood furniture is scratched significantly. For all of the issues I had with the move Budget Van Lines/​On Time Moving offered me no compensation, and still have not delivered by table top, almost a month after they picked up my delivery.
****Budget Van Lines Contracts your move to people that will deliver late, damage and lose your belongings. Budget will stand by and say they aren’t liable for anything, and they aren’t because they include that in the contract. My move cost me $ 2000+. For that cost you are better off finding someone reputable that will not contract your move to hoodlums, or disrespect you when you ask for customer service.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE A NIGHTMARE

TL;DR: Used to move my one bedroom apartment from Boston to San Francisco on my own dime; I’d recommend. I had a positive experience with a great representative and a reputable moving company – though if those factors aren’t in your favor, you may be in for a headache. I would contact my rep again.
Look, friends. Let’s think about what this company does for a moment: they resell unbooked space inside of other company’s long-​haul moving trucks. It’s like Priceline or Hotwire – you don’t get to name your own price or choose a star rating, but you do get a deep discount on unsold services. You will absolutely pay more than you’re quoted, and there are additional fees to think about, but you will also save over the name-​brand movers.
I dealt with Joe Gatsby out of the Los Angeles office and he did a great job. I imagine the experience differs based on the representative you get. Post-​sale, you don’t really work with your sales rep, but rather with the Budget customer service department and the actual mover with whom you’ve been booked. The transfer to the moving company (I landed with Infinity Movers out of New York) was smooth, and Joe did his best to coordinate some very specific logistics to the company.
All told, I saved $ 2,000 from booking directly with a major moving company.
Quoted by Joe: ~$ 2,600
Quoted by Gentle Giant/​Mayflower/​a few others: $ 6,000
What I actually paid: $ 3,100
So yes, the quote was off – I got hit by needing a «shuttle,» a small truck, on both sides for a incremental cost of $ 400, and my stuff was heavier than they thought it would be – but I still paid a lot less than booking directly.
You may or may not think that a moving broker is right for you – but if you’re open to the business model, I recommend Joe and Budget.

Recently, we had a need to move our household. Everything we owned was in a commercial storage facility and that’s where I found the loading crew and driver at precisely the time we had all agreed on. The driver was a most friendly man named Kevin and he quickly planned their days work. His crew began their assigned tasks and I was impressed with just how careful they were whenever they were actually moving our things, particularly the manner they packed the truck gave me a feeling that this crew knew what they were doing. The day long work session was finished with all that called for packaging done properly. This crew took great pride in doing what they were doing —-it was obvious.
The Budget crew finished the load up without incident and we said our good bye’s to Kevin and all the other crew members.
Right on time we saw Kevin and his helpers at the proper place and he immediately started unloading our goods into our new home. As expected the day went well and the job was finished without any accidents at all. It soon became time to say our good bye’s once again. Certainly, our experience was far above average and I would use Budget Van Lines again if I had to move again. For us our Budget experience just could not have been better. Budget was professional, they communicated well and had no difficulty answering any of our questions. Their charge for services was very competitive and we did not have any problems during our move. If you have to move, Budget is a great choice, and ask for Kevin!

DO NOT USE BUDGET VAN LINES!!! I was moving from Minneapolis, MN to St. Louis MO and had made my reservation back in January. They were to come the weekend of June 26^th, since I had to be out at the end of the month. On Sunday of the said weekend, I had yet to hear from them. Keep in mind this is the day before I had to be out. When I finally called to find out the status of the truck and movers I was told that they did not have a truck available for me and that they rescheduled my movers for later in JULY. 6 months of holding a reservation and this is what happens. I had to be out by the end of June! I cancelled my service with Budget after they tried to blame me for the situation and I spoke with about 5 different people and was luckily able to rent a Pod and hire movers and packers at the last minute.
Bottom line: USING THIS SERVICE WAS A NIGHTMARE. The actual company representative admitted that they overbook all the time and leave people hanging on a regular basis.

Also posted under the NY Budget since they are the same company.
I used Budget Van Lines because they had a lower overall cost for full service moving than other companies that came out. I worked with Chrissy S. at Budget and she helped me customize all of the pieces that we would take. It came to around 5,100 pounds of items. We went over the list once more before the movers came, too, and made some adjustments. Chrissy made sure that I understood the costs and services before making a final decision. We decided on the full service move of packing, wrapping, loading, boxing… the works… and then unloading w/​setup upon delivery. She also recommended the insurance since we had some pretty expensive items.
I was a little nervous when I didn’t hear anything on the first day of our three day window. Sure enough, Chrissy told me not to worry and she called Moving Central to find out the status. They then came within our window and everything went smoothly. We were only over by 50 pounds and they didn’t charge us extra.
Great job Budget Van Lines and Chrissy S! Our family is successfully relocated with all furniture, nothing broken, and nothing missing! Thank you for making the process so smooth!

First things first, Budget Van Lines is a moving broker, not a moving company, so they don’t actually do the loading and unloading of your stuff – they set you up with a moving company in the area. They explained that to me on the phone when I called them for a quote to move from Detroit to LA.
I was pretty hesitant to book with them because of all the negative reviews (not sure how reliable they really are), but they gave me a price that was actually in my budget (hence the name) after getting pretty outrageous quotes from the moving companies themselves.
My experience with them was average, the sales agent was helpful, nice, and informative. I was pretty clueless with all the stuff I needed to take care of so he answered all the questions I had about the process. He even called after I moved in to see how things went.
The moving company I got was slow but careful in loading my stuff, there were no damages so I’m happy about that. I’m in LA now with all my stuff in tact thanks to them so I decided to leave a review. Overall, it was a pretty good moving experience. I think your experience with Budget Van Lines will change based on which sales agent you get, how thorough he is on the phone, and which moving company you’re set up with. If you can, ask for Barry Allen, he’s the one that helped me.

GREAT MOVE!
I was a bit skeptical because of some of the reviews, but I had faith because of the volume they do.
They were excellent, so much better then expected.
Heather, my moving consultant was so helpful and was with me for my entire move. My stuff just arrived… FAST and in perfect condition.
Couldn’t be more pleased!!!