Stir Moving Company

I called Stir moving to get them to come and do an appraisal of a move. I spoke with Lisa on the phone. She refused to do an estimate of a move beyond simply doing the web quote. She encouraged me to have another company estimate the move and then she would quote based upon their estimated total weight.
I agree with the previous reviewer: Lisa is the antecedent of ‘customer service’. I would not trust them to handle a move if they are not willing to do an in-​home estimate.

If I could give this company negative stars — I would.
The first review sounds eerily similar to what I went through with Stir on the front end of my move. They were middle of the road after having seven moving companies come look at my stuff so they seemed like a good fit. And the infamous Lisa was SO nice when we were trying to decide.
We did a cross country from VA to AZ (four bedrooms with a basement) with two small children. I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy move but I was not expecting any of this. At least Will H had a decent crew. Our crew was very terse, not at all friendly and not the least bit efficient with their time or effort.
Like Will H, a rep had come out to my house for an estimate (his girlfriend waiting in the car). They also under-​estimated the amount of my belongings. Half way through loading the truck, the crew told me that not everything would fit, that they would have to leave and unload at the warehouse and then come back (roundtrip — about a four hour process — and it was already 4pm). I called Lisa to have her explain to me what happened and she was rude, snappish and extremely mean. The wonderful person she had been before I signed the contract was gone. In her place, I got someone who blamed me for everything that was going wrong.
We essentially had to pick and choose which furniture was most important to us and which would have to be given away because we didn’t have the time or money to utilize the «return to the warehouse» option. We gave away entire rooms of furniture. And the moving crew was downright pissed that they somehow had to make it all fit in the small space they had.
Now, as I sit in AZ — I have NO idea where my furniture is. It’s supposed to be here today and I’m supposed to get a call 24 hours before their arrival. I have heard nothing. Every time I talk to Lisa I get some story or run around. I was even told at one point that they don’t talk to their drivers once they leave. So, LIsa can’t even give me an idea where my stuff is. And I’m paying rent on a place that I’m not living in while my kids sleep on couches at my brothers house because we have nothing.
Will most likely file a complaint with the BBB and may even call the police in AZ and VA to file a theft report if I don’t hear from SOMEONE within the next 24 hours. Not only do they have everything we own, but they have my $ 4000 deposit.
I also want to point out — this is not my first cross country move. As prior military, I’ve lived in Florida, California, Washington, Arizona and Virginia. NEVER HAVE I HAD SUCH A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE WITH A MOVING COMPANY.
RUN AWAY!
PAY MORE AND GO WITH A BIGGER NAME WHO WILL ACTUALLY PROVIDE ANSWERS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

My family recently relocated from VA to CA. After getting quotes from Allied moving company and Stir Moving (with a representative from each visiting and providing a quote), we decided to go with Stir because the quote was lower than Allied. However, once we made that choice we found that the quote severely under-​estimated the amount of belongings we had by about 400 square feet. Within the quote was the cost per square foot beyond what was quoted. We couldn’t back out the day of the move because trying to get a free company, let alone a decent price at that time wasn’t an option. We were at their mercy.
This wasn’t the only mistake we made. Upon arriving (by car) to California, nearly 2.5 weeks later, I called to check on the load (we were quoted 15 business days to delivery). We said we had to leave town that week, Wed. — Sat. and wanted to know how it was going. Lisa, the customer service representative (if you want to give her a title worthy of that name), huffed and puffed saying that she had nowhere to store the load until we got back and would have to charge us for the load to be stored in Southern CA until we got back. I asked here where the truck was and she said the truck had been in Southern CA since that Tuesday. We understand that the driver may have had other loads to deliver on the truck so we accepted that answer. However, the driver called and said he was broken down in Arizona and would be there after we returned from being out of town. Lisa lied to us. If it weren’t for the driver, we would have never known this fact. This is very poor customer service on her part.
Finally, at the end of the ordeal, we were told to pay the driver with cash on delivery (COD) via cash, cashier’s check or money order. It was never verbally made clear that we had to pay by COD by Lisa on the front end and she said there was absolutely no way that we could continue payment on the same credit card rendered up front (10% for booking deposit, 60% on load pick up) and the remaining 40% was to be paid in cash. We scrambled at the last minute to find the cash to pay the driver when we were budgeting to pay with a credit card for the entire move. I don’t know if this is best practice for the industry to have COD, but it really made us upset to find out about it when they already had our load in transit. We understand that we need to read our contract, but this was a huge and unique part of the contract that could have all been avoided if we had been made aware, verbally and up-​front about the COD. Also the response we got from Lisa was, «you should have read your contract,» with no empathy in her voice nor apology.
I hope that Lisa is reading this, because I am urging everyone in the Washington, DC area to avoid this company at all costs. This company, although those who physically handled the load were courteous and friendly, has an administrator that provide the worst customer service I have ever experienced. A cross country move is stressful. Add horrible customer service and it is at a level that is really unnecessary.
Do not use this company to move your belongings. You may regret it.