I DO Not Recommend AcrossUSA
Summary: I strongly advise against hiring AcrossUSA for your move. I ended up paying over double the initial quote, had multiple items lost/damaged, waited 21 days for my items without receiving any sort of update, and now cannot get the company to answer my calls or return voicemails/emails/claims. I will likely be forced to hire an attorney to collect the damages on household items broken during the move.
I decided to hire AcrossUSA due to an initial quote that came in lower than the national brand name moving companies could offer. I have moved 4 times with my current employer, always using the national brands in the past, with no issues. I had a one bedroom apartment worth of goods for shipping, so I figured that AcrossUSA could handle the job just as well as the previous moving companies I had used (Atlas, Mayflower, North American Van Lines). I was assured that the one bedroom move would be no big deal, and was quoted for a volume of just over 300 cu ft. I was happy with the price and reassurance of the salesperson, so I decided to go with AcrossUSA. After additional fees of pickup/drop-off shuttles, $280 in packing materials, and coming in at over 500 cu ft I ended up paying double the original estimate for my move with AcrossUSA. This is not including the items lost or damaged along the way.
As the shuttle truck pulled up to my apartment in Chicago, there was a mechanical issue and the truck sat stalled in front of my building. The two movers assigned for my pickup struggled to reach a manager or dispatcher for over an hour. Finally a manager was reached and another truck showed up over 2 hours later. Upon arrival, the second driver complained about having to park a ways down the street due to “the customer not reserving a space in front of the building for the truck”. I had a space reserved for the movers weeks in advance, however the first arriving AcrossUSA moving truck was stalled in the space. After an hour of struggling with paperwork, tablets, and number of cigarette breaks, my goods were packed and loaded in the second moving truck that arrived. What should have been a 2-3 hour job had turned into a 7 hour fiasco.
Following the pickup, I reached out to a representative in the office to request an update on the movement of my goods so that I could time my move from Chicago to Atlanta. What I received was an email with an operations manager copied stating that I would like a daily update on the location of my goods. While daily was probably a bit too frequent, I never received a single update regarding my goods from anyone with AcrossUSA. The most communication I received was after reaching out myself to inquire the status of my goods. The responses from the team were no more than “Yes the goods are still in Chicago”.
I had never used a moving company that could not provide a delivery window at the very least, so I figured that an update on the status of my shipment would be no problem. I should have foreseen this being an issue early on when asking about a delivery date and being told that “we are allowed 21 days for delivery by law” by one of the team members. It is interesting to note that my delivery arrived a perfect 21 days following pickup. I attribute this to the fact that AcrossUSA brokers out loads to various drivers/trucking companies (I can only assume with the latest possible delivery date attached). The fact that the loads are brokered out worried me initially. My lost item was located in the back of my contracted driver’s truck, and the driver contacted me following my move to tell me he had it. I will likely not be receiving this item until April. I will say dealing with the contracted delivery driver was the most pleasant part of my move with AcrossUSA due to his customer service at delivery and constant updates during the drive to destination. After scanning a few other reviews for AcrossUSA, it appears that others were not as lucky with their contracted delivery drivers.
I work for a Fortune 500 company that moves hundreds of employees per year. Somehow, AcrossUSA was on a list of “preferred movers” provided to me by a coworker. I will be having our HR group remove AcrossUSA from the list. This move was by far the most undesirable service I have ever experienced.
Summary: I strongly advise against hiring AcrossUSA for your move. I ended up paying over double the initial quote, had multiple items lost/damaged, waited 21 days for my items without receiving any sort of update, and now cannot get the company to answer my calls or return voicemails/emails/claims. I will likely be forced to hire an attorney to collect the damages on household items broken during the move.
I decided to hire AcrossUSA due to an initial quote that came in lower than the national brand name moving companies could offer. I have moved 4 times with my current employer, always using the national brands in the past, with no issues. I had a one bedroom apartment worth of goods for shipping, so I figured that AcrossUSA could handle the job just as well as the previous moving companies I had used (Atlas, Mayflower, North American Van Lines). I was assured that the one bedroom move would be no big deal, and was quoted for a volume of just over 300 cu ft. I was...