Original Moving & Storage Inc

A friend of mine recommended this company to me for our recent move from DC to VA, an 11 mile trip. Since they came recommended I didn’t even think to look at their previous Unilocal reviews or I would have known better.
We moved from a small one bedroom apartment in an elevator building with only boxes, a headboard, mattress/​box spring, 2 dressers, and a small dining set. Simple enough right.
They provided an estimate which I was pleased with based on 3 men for 3 hours of labor and 1 hour of travel time. Note, it costs $ 25 more per hour on the weekend. I was told the movers would arrive between 8−9AM. They called at 8:01am stating they were at the loading dock. The leader was nice enough and so were the other 2 gentleman. They were very efficient and immediately went to work. They told us there would be an extra fee to wrap the glass top for our dining room table and the mirror for one of our dressers, we agreed.
Fast forward, they completed the job, including travel time, in about 3.5 hours. When we received the final bill, we’d been charged $ 300+ more than the estimate. They charged us for 4 hours of labor plus 1 hour of travel time. For one, it was really less than 3 hours of labor and the travel time was around 25 minutes, the trip was only 11 miles. They started at 8:20am and left at 11:50pm.
They charged us $ 3.50 for each roll of tape they used (12 rolls) to secure blankets around the furniture and another fee for the 20 sheets or so of bubble wrap they used on the mirror and I don’t even know what else. We paid this fee on top of the extra fees we were already paying for wrapping the mirror and glass.
When I asked the leader about the final price he told me to contact the company and left. Guess he didn’t want his tip. I called them right after they left and spoke with someone who sounded like they were standing on a street corner because all I heard was a lot of noise and woman yelling in the background. It was clearly his cell phone and the call dropped during all the commotion so I had to call him back. He basically told me the extra charges were listed in the fine print of the estimate and that was that. My husband called back and they told him the same.
I’ve heard of nickel and diming but they took this to a whole ‘nother level. While I was fine with paying the extra fees for the mirror and glass, paying for small rolls of tape (they used 1 – 2 rolls per piece of furniture) and per sheet of bubble wrap, I’ve never.
Also, how can you justify charging 1 hour or travel time and 1 hour of labor for the same HOUR (well actually 25 minutes)? Plus there was a $ 35 fuel surcharge, FOR ELEVEN MILES!!!
They get two stars because the movers themselves were on-​time and efficient. They did scratch a piece of wood furniture and a porcelain teapot that was carefully wrapped and packed in a box marked FRAGILE was broken.
This moving company is very misleading. I’ve moved plenty of times in my life and this by far was the worst company I’ve ever used.
Sorry for the long post but don’t trust this company. Go somewhere else until you want to pay $ 1,000+ to move from a small bedroom apartment to another place 11 miles away.

Whatever their moving estimate is… prepare to pay 30−40% more. These people
are very good at inflating the rate by charging for additional supplies… we were charged an additional $ 290 for mostly bubble wrap. They charged for 11 boxes,
But after they left, we saw no boxes that we did not already have. Perhaps they
Reuse the boxes in the truck and just charge people over and over.
And yes, they pretend to have language issues to discourage questions.
DO NOT USE ORIGINAL MOVERS. If you do, look very closely at what you sign.
This is the kind of company that gives movers a bad name.

To Jennifer who responded to my review in June of 2015:
Actually you guys moved me last September when I lived (and currently still live in Silver Spring, MD). My account was made years ago when I was a college student in Ithaca, NY at Cornell University which is why my location says Ithaca, NY. So don’t come for me. Your company DID in fact move me and I have the expensive receipts to prove it. So yes, your company sucks and I do NOT recommend anyone use your bad service. Thanks!
Review Originally Made September 2014:
These movers are okay.
They were friendly enough.
My one gripe: The excessive amount of tape they used and putting things in boxes that didn’t need to be in boxes. They used their tape to tape things that didn’t need to be taped together and charged me for 12 rolls! For example, they put tape around my hamper, which had a cover. I paid about $ 100 extra because they used an excessive amount of tape and used boxes for things that I didn’t put in boxes. For example, I had a lot of Trader Joes bags with things, and they combined them and put them in two boxes, and the boxes were nearly $ 15 each.
Additionally, I only moved from one unit in my apartment to another unit, and I felt that they didn’t need to bubble wrap things or use the tape and boxes due to the short distance, or about 500 feet that I need to move my stuff. I wasn’t moving across town.
So no, I would not use them again. Or I would advise that if you do choose to use them, make sure EVERY last item is packed or taped up because they will use their materials and charge you an excessive amount of money for it. o

Arrived earlier than scheduled, which would have been ok BUT I wasn’t finished packing. They also really messed up the calculations on a large dresser of mine and wrapped it — starting moving it down the stairs and GOT STUCK on the 1^st floor coming from the 5^th floor. And then proceeded to bang it up bring it back up to the apartment to unwrap it and dissemble it, when in the first place those calculations should ave been done first. So that added almost another 1 hr onto my move out time. They also arrived with a truck size that could have moved an entire house — I was a 1 bed room apt. And as a result the giant truck was unable to squeeze into the garage at my new location so the movers had an extra distance to move the items which took more time so I went over my scheduled time slot. So though I think they did an ok job packing — there were a few key things that resulted in me having to pay more money which was not because of an any error I made.

I must not have read the reviews before I called Original. I’m not a satisfied customer.
If you’re looking for a great moving company in D.C., go with Mitch the Mover. I’ll never use anyone but him while I live in this town.
The movers arrived nearly two hours after the end of the window they gave me. After hours of waiting in NW D.C. and calling (and a day taken off work), they arrived, only to tell me that they’d been working on a move in Delaware in the morning.
I’m not sure I’d say this is a scam as other reviewers claim, but scheduling movers to work in Delaware in the morning and D.C. in the early afternoon is bad business. They were late, exhausted, and slow (therefore, much more expensive than I’d planned).
And I had to beg apartment managers on both ends to let me use the building elevators after the time slot I’d reserved. The people in the new building were not very happy with me; not a great way to start life in a new apartment.
The move itself was fine. The movers were competent, if slow, and everything arrived in the same condition it left the other apartment. But that’s not something to be relieved about; it should be a given.

Our experience with Original Moving was nothing short of an outrage. They quoted us $ 450 prior to the day of moving, and they were very efficient & consistent in their communications, which fooled us into believing that they had scoped our job (a very typical 1BR apartment move) thoroughly. But when the movers arrived, they walked around our apartment and drew up a new scoping list, which MORE THAN DOUBLED the original estimate. We couldn’t afford this, so we hired them to work only 4 hours, moving all the large items. And at that, they refused to move furniture with glass cabinets until I disassembled them — I’ve had those cabinets moved by other movers who had no problem with them. So the disassembling, transportation, and reassembling cost me about 4 more hours of my personal time.
WHen they were done, we were left with a half-​moved apartment, and we spent the next three days shuttling our stuff in Zipcars from one side of town to the next.
Do not use these people.

SCAM SCAM SCAM!!!
Do not use they are scamers. We are a military family that needed a simple move from an apartment to a townhome 300 yards away. All we needed was help with heavy stuff: Bed, diniing table, sofa, elliptical, 3 dressers, and 2 TV’s. Everything else like clothing, dishes, DVD’s, small stuff we were going to do our selves. I even took the drawers out of all our dressers so that we didn’t have to pack our clothes and I could just put drawers back in our new place. I was going to move these drawers myself. They quoted us at $ 480, for 4 hours of work. The day of the move 3 guys showed up who claimed they barely spoke englsh, the ring leader walked in looked at our apartment went outside and said it was going to be $ 1100 dollars for just moving these things. They claim that they are charging for wrapping the items so they don’t break. $ 700 in bubble wrap???
When my husband complained the ring leader said my huband had to call the office, my husband had to spend the next 45 minutes on the phone with someone from the office negotiating a price. We really needed this move done that day, I was out with our two small children to entertain them during that time and being military and new to the area we had no family or friends close by to help. My husband settled on a price of $ 700, I was fuming but my husband just wanted to get it done. They made my husband sign a paper realeasing them from any liablitly if anything broke because he didn’t want to use their bubble wrap.
My husband watched them the whole time and because of time constraints we didn’t even move the TV’s.
When they got to the second location, 300 yards away, I was there with my kids and witnessed the scam first hand. They parked their truck and one guy got out and stood guard by the truck door while the «ring leader» cornered my husband and demanded his credit card, although the company already had it on file. He took the information and called in the credit card. I said to my husband, «Honey, I think they are holding our stuff hostage untill our credit card is approved.» When I said this the ring leader who claimed to barely speak engligh smirked and said oh yeah. At this point I had enough and told him you guys are crooks, so he started saying call the office in his «pretend» broken engligh so I gave him a piece of my mind in «Spanish» which completely took him off guard. I demanded a credit for them waisting our time while he called in for an approval.
In the end I managed to bring the price down to $ 672. The whole thing caused me an enormous amount of stress. Don’t use them! They are the tipical moving scam you here about. They will quote you a higher price at the new location and hold your stuff hostage until your credit card is approved. SCAM!!!

DO NOT USE. The office staff is downright incompetent. I had a simple move, 2 bedrooms from a storage unit into a home. The movers spoke very little English and had great difficult coordinating with us as far as how to pack the fragile items. The truck was incredibly dirty so this further increased the time it took to move because all furniture items had to be covered in stretch wrap to prevent soiling. The quote was for $ 900, 8 hours moving time. We were charged for 8 hours of moving time despite the fact that it only took 6 hours to complete the move! Due to this blatant error, the office staff was already gone for the day when we called to question the invoice. The next morning, the office staff was in a blunder over how to refund the amount. We were refunded $ 100 and when I called to verify this amount with the Office Supervisor, she voided the refund of $ 100 and ONLY refunded $ 50 due to her «colleague’s stupid mistake.» At this point I had invested an hour talking on the phone with them trying to clean up THEIR accounting mistake — — - only to get refunded $ 50. DO NOT USE unless you are okay being charged for work that was not completed and if you want to pay approximately $ 500 more than the quoted amount.

I would have given this company and «OK» review EXCEPT. After I signed all my paperwork for the move, Ernesto show me the section of the contract that mentions a gratuity and says «and umm well if you want to» then he showed me the setion and shrugged his shoulders.
If they charged me and had me sign the paperwork AFTER they finished the move and not before, I would have had no problem
ALSO…They finished an hour early and owed me a 1 hour refund, but they already called my credit card in for the WHOLE amount. That was fine I’ll take a refund on my credit card later.
BUT…they charged me for an additional hour on my credit card instead of giving me the refund… so now i’m waiting for a call back from the «supervisor» because miraculously the paperwork says the move took the full time alotted. Imageine that!
ALSO…They bubble wrapped my flat screen TV and my glass dining room table, which was fine but charged an unbelieve amount of money for that and the packing tape the used to wrap them to the tune of $ 176.00!!! Bubble Wrap and tape??? There’s your gratuity Ernesto!!!
I’d recommend staying away from Original Moving and storage!!!