Emerald Moving & Storage

I can’t say anything for the updated services as I didn’t end up using them. But I called to confirm the day before and was only THEN informed that only cash or check would be accepted. Unfortunately this was also at 4:45 on a Friday leaving me 15ish minutes to scramble to find a replacement.
I realize moving is so often a ‘cash’ business, I just find it uncomfortable to be exchanging and unknown amount of cash and would like an electronic record. I picked them originally because I had used card previously so to find out they didn’t was a surprise.

I just used Emerald Moving again and I was even more pleased than before. They showed up on time and were very professional and efficient. They finished my move in less time than they originally estimated, saving me money! I would definitely recommend this company for all of your moving needs!

The moving was just ok but the problem was with the storage. I stored my things for 2 – 3 months but they kept charging my credit card for 7 months afterward! I would phone to request a refund check and would have to follow up more than once. Twice he promised he would take care of it and make sure I wasn’t charged again, but I kept being charged. I was close to canceling my credit card but I think it’s finally taken care of.

Horrible phone etiquette – very discouraging and doesn’t inspire confidence and professionalism.

Excellent moving experience! I’ve used Emerald twice. It seems to be a family-​run business. Both times, the movers were on-​time (even early once). They were able accommodate my schedule with ease. There were three men, all friendly and eager to please. I had to move a large object through a small door and they were able to take the door off to move it through a tight area. They did this easily and very quickly. They were also able to maneuver a three-​story, spiral staircase. Everyone had a really great attitude, even with the challenges of the move.
The rates were cheaper than other places. They were very professional. It was a pleasure to work with them (unlike my experience with Fog City).

To be fair,
Their MOVING business seems to be OK and well liked.
THEIR STOARGE business is the WORST! and completely unprofessional.
Like the others have said:
DO NOT USE THIS STORAGE COMPANY!!!
I agree 100%!
I wish I had read the reviews before I signed up to store my things here. Storage management is the worst, unprofessional. Hidden fees, they don’t stand behind their initial quote. Damaged my property (but did attempt to fix my furniture), but staff did not admit to management they damaged it. They showed up late, even though they charge you by the hour. etc more to come once this is settled…
You are required to have them pull from your bank account. My bank suggest NEVER to do business with a company that does not let you pay the way you want to pay. As I suspected, they charged me even after I was out of their facilities! And took a while to get the money back, of course.
More to come…

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY or do ANY type of business whatsoever with owner, Roger Ryan, and his crew (Donna et al).
These guys owned a furniture company called Z Barn until October 2010 (look up that stores reviews for reports of equally shady dealings as Emerald).
They took a bunch of orders in the summer and fall before closing, including a $ 2500 couch from me, and then closed their doors. I’ve had Roger and Donna on the phone and they refuse to offer any type of restitution. They basically told me «tough luck, we got you.» Emerald Moving, who was supposed to deliver the couch, takes no responsibility even though it’s the same ownership.
I have submitted a compaint with the SF DA’s office and they told me that they have numerous compaints regarding these individuals.
These people are criminals. Stay clear.

Moving… who likes to do it? No one! But Emerald made the experience almost a PLEASURE! Very professional, arrived on time and even took less time than originally quoted! I will definitely be using Emerald for all my future moves!

WARNING: DO NOT USE THIS STORAGE COMPANY!!!
When I wanted to arrange to get our belongings out of storage after 3 years at $ 60 a month, I could NOT get hold of them and after several days finally got a call back from someone who was very difficult to understand. I explained that i wanted to test the lock and then the following week remove our belongings, he got the storage unit out for us to access, (the storage location is remote and disgusting), then when i called back to confirm my move date they said they were out of state, the company was closed for a week, and they could not get out belongings out for us… meanwhile I’m moving and won’t be able to get them. When i explained this to them and suggested that they deliver the goods at no cost. THEY HUNG UP ON ME. They finally got my belongings down for me, too late to make the moving truck, so I had to spend an additional $ 200 to rent a van to get them.
This is the communication that ensued:
Jill,
I found your email to be quite rude, especially after I went above and beyond the normal standard of customer service.
I called you and emailed you to notify you that your vault would be ready in time for your movers, even though you didn’t make the written request within the required 5 business day minimum. Unfortunately, you didn’t receive the message or email until you’d already sent your hired movers away. After that, we even extended our warehouse hours to accommodate you.
You did sign a contract when the access fees were still $ 25, which were subject to change. When I spoke to you on the phone, I made the $ 30 access fees clear. You have since been charged those fees and I’m sorry to say they are not going to be refunded. In fact you should have been charged the $ 50 expedited access fee instead, $ 20 which I waived due to the confusion.
Additionally, I gave you my personal cell phone number and assisted you while I was on vacation and again when I was at the airport. I’d appreciate it if you call the main office number directly at 415.647.9300 for any future verbal communication.
Thank you,
Donna
Sent from my
On Aug 4, 2010, at 7:37 AM, wrote:
Donna, considering that it cost me an extra $ 200 to get my belongings due to rogers lapse of memory as to my arrangements to vacate on the 27^th, it would seem good customer relations to not charge me for retrieval at the very least. Were it my company I would have delivered it at no cost. Your reputation is not good as I have since found out and it will not get better if u continue to treat customers with such disregard. I realize now that you just had a baby and sleep deprivation may be playing a large part, but ther is no justifiable reason to milk dissatisfied customers dry. By the way the charge for access when I signed my contract was $ 25.00, but the $ is hardly the point.
— — Original Message — —
From: Emerald Moving
To: Me
Subject: Re: billing error
Sent: Aug 4, 2010 6:58 AM
Hi Jill,
You were indeed charged $ 60. This charge was to cover your $ 30 vault access fee for both times you accessed your vault last month. Therefore, this charge was in fact valid and will not be refunded. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks,
Donna
Sent from my
On Aug 3, 2010, at 8:25 AM, Jill wrote:
Hi Donna,
this is to remind you to take me off auto billing and credit me for the August 1 debit of $ 60.
thanks

Nightmare move, storage even worse. Our stuff was damaged in storage, they made it really hard to get.

So, I have used Emerald for 3 different moves. 2 out of the 3 times I used them for UN-​Packing and one for packing. I would like to rate them on each individual service to be fair. I’m ¼ irish, so I gotta support my Irish/​Emerald Movers.
1) about 7 years ago, my first experience with Emerald. Had just moved from San Diego to San Francisco. it was a NIGHTMARE move. Seriously, no joke. a hint… U-​Haul (BOYCOTT THEM) incorrectly hook up my Jeep to the trailer and my car actually came off the trailer as we were driving North on the 405 in LA rush hour traffic. We were a day late because of this and our friends were not able to help us unpack later in the afternoon that day we arrived. While in tears we called Emerald Moving and a very sweet Irishman (maybe Jerry) LITERALLY came (with one other guy) to our rescue within an hour. The truck kept breaking down while trying to move it and our «Irish Nights» dealt with that too. The saved our asses. The busted their asses to get the truck unpacked even when it was getting dark. We were on the 6^th floor and had stupidly small elevators to deal with. Not one complaint. They kept our spirits up the whole time. I LOVE THEM! I can’t even remember how much they charged but if we had had $ 100 extra dollars just to give to each of the guys as a tip (i think it ended up only being $ 60 to split) we would have given it to them.
2) Move number two: December ’06. simpler move involving packing up 2 Door to Door Containers for a move up to Seattle. Studio apartment worth of stuff. but a large studio. I got 2 more TOTALLY sweet Irish guys. I love my Irish moving men. So sweet and INCREDIBLY hard workers, these two. lord. I had 3 flights of stairs (nightmare) and then threw boxes on their backs and humped them down the stairs as if they were nothing. Dresser, the same. I fed them lunch and they were back at it. Some how they fit all of my crap in those darn containers. TOTALLY worth the money and the tips. Great communication from their office manager. I forget her name.
3) Moving back FROM Seattle to San Francisco: I was OF COURSE going to use my Irish movers again. This was a little more of a bumpy experience. We did have much more stuff this time. 3 bedroom house and a lot of stuff. getting to the review, we had 3 guys and had some doubts when they arrived that they could take this task on. 2 of the movers spoke english as a second language so it was a little more challenging to speak to them about placement and such. There was really dirty water in the gutter so I asked if they could put plastic or something down so it didn’t track onto the carpet but they didn’t have any. The carpets were filthy but the end of the move in. The lead mover was really trying to be very nice about everything but over all it was really hard to communicate to the other guys. While struggling get our monster of a BBQ/​Grill (a beast) into the back yard (it sucked. I felt so bad for them) one of the guys stepped into the skylight of the garage and broke the window. I was afraid he cut himself but they kept on going. props! there were some passive complaints about us saying we had 2 flights of stairs when apparently they considered it 3 flights (we had seen the place once). In Fact: there are 41 steps up to the upper flat. So, this was a more disappointing experience. We were trying to help. I finally hoped in the back of the truck and started sorting things for them and moving them to the back of the truck for them to grab. I actually had to put my father in law to work because it was getting late and very dark. Although they Truly busted their butts and worked for every penny. It was just a more challenging move than expected. I worked with the manager and he sent someone out to fix the window. Accidents happen. they took care of it.
thats my fair review.

We had an AWFUL move with Emerald. We were moving from the Mission to the East Bay. We had a 2 bedroom with a garage full of stuff. The two men that showed up to move us were both well over 55 years old, and looked like they were from a circus. One of them was wearing a filthy wife beater and smelled like he’d just got up from 4 days on a barstool at his local Irish pub. His counterpart «Cisco» was a schmoozer who tried to smooth over the crappy situation, but it was all talk. They both said how much experience they had, but:
* they chintzed out and didn’t call in extra help when they began to realize how much stuff we really had. I think they just wanted the money.
* they were fighting on our stairwell about how to move different things. Seriously yelling at each other! So stressful.
* the total move took 9 hours!!! Seriously!
* They were unpacking the truck in the DARK in Oakland, after showing up at 11am in SF.
* they gouged the front door at our old house and we had to have it repaired. (We did finally get reimbursed by Emerald but it was a big pain.)
* they damaged our beautiful wood bed and some other items
* it was really expensive. Something like $ 700 I think.
Awful! Do NOT use these people! I would go back to One Big Man and One Big Truck in a heartbeat. Those guys moved me 4 times over the years in SF. I wish I’d used them for this move.

I had a terrible, stressful experience with Emerald Moving. I specifically requested experienced movers as I have large expensive furniture for my move from SF to Marin. One guy had some experience, however the other guy was a rookie mover with only 5 months sporadic moving experience (he told me he’d been with them for 5 mos.), didn’t speak English, and scratched the hardwood floor by dragging my furniture. When I contact them to find some happy medium on resolving the issue, they were very uncooperative and defensive. I would never use these guys again.

I needed movers at the last minute for a typical end-​of-​the-​month move. Emerald had availability on the day I wanted and were less expensive than a lot of other moving companies I called.
They charge $ 100/​hour for 2 men, and the two guys that helped me with my move were very efficient and careful not to damage my furniture. I was so pleased with their service that I gave them both a big tip at the end!
The only downside about Emerald was that I called them twice to see if they could send me an e-​mail confirmation about my move day and time, but they never sent me one. Otherwise, I was very happy with their service.

When I decided to bite the bullet and move into a one bedroom from my studio not only did I need someone to help move me, I needed some furniture as well. I needed a complete bedroom set and a desk so I went to Valencia Interiors which is owned by the same people that run Emerald Moving. They were awesome at not only delivering my new furniture to me, but moving me at the same time as well! What a treat to have it done all at once. The guys arrived right on time and they were quick about moving me out and moving me in. I have had several friends use them as well with the same positive experience. Yes, they are rather expensive, but it’s totally worth it. I would use them again in a heartbeat and always recommend them.

I have used these folks to move on numerous occasions, and they are definitely the best. They make it effortless, and they are very nice as well. I cannot believe how many boxes one human can carry at a time.

I would definitely use them again.
I needed someone to unload a truck of items stored with another company. They worked with me patiently while I tried to squeeze them into my tight time frame. I talked to 3 different people in the office — all of them knowlegable and willing to work with me. For example, I hadn’t thought about the fact that the type of truck I had to unload would not have a ramp — I would have been totally stuck if I’d gone with my original plan to hire some local college kids.
I did not use this company for storage.

I recently relocated from SF to Portland, and rented a Budget truck to drive up with all of my junk. Enter Emerald Moving & Storage!
I had the opposite experience (at lease initially) to Jerry’s — the person I spoke with at the office gave a somewhat scary estimate (really high) but the work needed to be done and I wasn’t about to lug my stuff down three flights of stairs alone.
It was like the beginning of a joke: an Irishman, a Mexican, and a tattooed dude from Philly go into a bar… but instead they came, they divided, they conquered in about two hours. Actually, I think it was a bit more because Bobby was so determined to fit as much of my stuff into the truck as possible. He probably would have kept unloading and re-​loading to make it all fit if I’d let him, but I took it as an opportunity to leave behind some stuff instead.
Definitely recommend them — friendly, competitively priced, and when they were going to be a little late, they called twice to keep me updated on time frame. Much appreciated.

I will only use this company if I ever move again. They did an awesome job, were very professional and courteous and strong. I had a horrible experience with a previous moving company and explained that I had a TV that weighed 300 lbs (main reason for hiring movers), the previous company dropped it twice, so I told these guys the story and they moved it like it was a piece of paper.
Anyways — they were pretty speedy and didn’t break anything and brought anything to my attention that was needed.
We fed them pizza and cold drinks. We hired 3 guys (we moved a 2 bedroom house).
They are well worth the money!
Try to schedule a morning appointment and make sure you have EVERYTHING packed before they get there — it saves time. Organizing your boxes and labeling them properly also helps speed the move time hence saving you money.

Professional. Competitively priced.