As we are slowly approaching the peak of the moving season, now is the perfect time to hire a moving company for your move. Waiting to hire movers just a few days before the move is not a good idea. You have to do this week or even months in advance as it will have a lot of good impact on your moving process. How come, you might be asking yourself. Well, knowing exactly when your movers will arrive in advance will make it much easier to organize your time and your responsibilities during the moving process. It will be easier to decide when to start packing for example. This will make getting the necessary packing supplies on time easier too. But, no matter when you decide to hire movers it is important that you hire reliable movers. And when you have to find reliable movers in the USA, you will be faced with dozens of options. How to choose just one? That is exactly what I am here to tell you more about. If you need to find reliable movers in the USA, use this simple guide that will help you make the right decision.
Don’t go online immediately
If you need to find reliable movers in the USA, I suggest avoiding going online and searching immediately. It is the fastest way to find a moving company but it sometimes isn’t the best way. But surely, the best way to find a reliable moving company is to ask your friends, family, and other people in your surroundings. Getting a referral is always much better than searching for a moving company by yourself online. Because getting a referral means that someone who you know is honest with you is giving you an honest opinion. This will also make trusting movers much easier and that is something that is very important. After all, they will be handling your belongings, you have to have trust.
Go online
After you’ve asked people you know if they have any referrals for a reliable moving company, even though you will surely get at least one, you might want to go online and search for a moving company by yourself. And if you decide to do this, you have to be very careful. There are plenty of unreliable moving companies online. This is something I am going to talk more about later.
When you go online to search for moving companies, you will find that there are plenty of them. And one of the best things you could do is stick with the moving companies that appear on the first page of your search. This means that the websites of these companies are visited by people and that they put in a lot of work into creating their website. This is something that tells you right away that the company is reliable.
How to recognize scamming moving companies?
Now that I have mentioned that there are plenty of unreliable moving companies online, I want to tell you what they are and how you can recognize them. So, what do I mean when I tell you that a moving company is a scam or unreliable? Well, a lot of scammers create websites for moving companies that don’t exist and they offer great deals and amazing prices. And of course, people who are looking to save money when moving see this as a perfect option. These scam moving companies want you to pay this price in advance and then they never show up. This has happened to people around the country. There have also been cases where people paid and then the movers asked them to pay some additional fees that were absurdly big. When you add it all up, simply hiring reliable movers would have been cheaper and less stressful.
Get estimates and quotes
Another way to tell whether a moving company is reliable is to get an estimate. But the trick is not to settle for just one estimate. Pick a few moving companies that seem reliable and get a few moving estimates. An estimate is an estimated price of your move. The price of your move depends on the time of the year, the distance, the amount of time it is going to take, and the amount of stuff you are moving. Estimates aren’t always the most precise but they will help you create your moving budget much easier. And by getting a couple of them from a few different moving companies, you will be able to get an even better insight into how much money you are going to need as well as which company is unreliable. If one of them offers you a price that is much lower than the other prices you were told, it might be a good idea to scratch this moving company off the list.
Talk to someone on the phone or in-person before hiring
Before hiring a moving company even after getting an online estimate, you have to talk to someone in charge. Calling the moving company to ask for more information is always a good move to make. This is going to tell you a lot about a moving company and the way they work. The person you are talking to on the phone has to be ready to answer all your questions and give you information about everything you are interested in. And if something doesn’t add up or you don’t have a good feeling, maybe searching for another company is a better idea than not trusting your instinct. This won’t speed up your moving process at all but it will make it less stressful.
Read online reviews
A very important step when it comes to hiring movers online is to read online reviews. You can find them usually on the company’s website or their Facebook page. Checking both won’t hurt. It is going to tell you a lot about the company. You will be able to read the experiences of other people. Not all the reviews are going to be perfect but if they are you have to make sure that you check that all the people who are posting them are real people. Scam moving companies sometimes buy fake likes and reviews. These things can easily be faked so you have to be careful. This is also a friendly reminder to leave a review after moving with a certain moving company as it is going to help future clients who are thinking about hiring the same company.
Licenses
It is very important that your moving company has a license. You can check this on multiple websites. The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issues a U.S. DOT number to licensed interstate movers and you can verify the moving company’s license through the FMCSA’s website as well as request the company’s U.S. DOT number. That is if you are moving out of state. And if you are moving inside a state, the FMCSA’s contacts database has a list of local agencies. Doing these things won’t last a long time but it will help you make your moving experience as least stressful as possible.
Moving insurance
To make a moving process as least stressful as possible, you will also need to have moving insurance. A reliable moving company offers moving insurance to its clients. What moving insurance does is it basically protects you and your belongings financially if anything goes wrong. If any damage or breaking is done to your stuff, the moving company is going to cover a part of the expense of fixing it or replacing it. That is if the damage is done by someone who works in the company. Getting insurance is always a better idea than not getting insurance.
Conclusion
Moving without a moving company is not something we recommend even though you will have a lot of things to look out for when you need to find reliable movers in the USA. Use this as a reminder of all the things you need to check before hiring a moving company and you will find a reliable moving company in no time.
