American Pro Moving & Storage

Worst. Moving. Experience. EVAR.
Story: I was leaving the fabulous but cold Windy City for warmer pastures in Atlanta. With a two-​month stop in Detroit. So I needed movers to get my stuff out of my pad in Chicago ASAP, hold onto it for a couple months, then drag it to Atlanta once I’d arrived and found a place.
I’d used professional movers twice before so I thought I knew the drill. I was so wrong. The big guys (United Van Lines, Atlas, etc) either couldn’t do it on such short notice, or were triple the price. Ben (the sales guy/​manager) tells me that it’s no problem, they’ll store my stuff in Chicago, and deliver my stuff within 10 days of me calling them to let them know where to deliver it.
I had packed up just about everything but the electronic stuff and the big furniture. I had the electronics boxes, movers’ saran wrap, etc. But no matter. They didn’t use the saran wrap before putting packing tape directly on my leather furniture. They didn’t wrap the DVD player in so much as a sheet of bubble wrap. Just dumped it in a box with cords and remote controls and small stereo speakers. And yet I got charged just short of $ 500 extra to «pack» this small amount, of maybe two boxes and a medium tv. On top of the bid I’d been given (and paid half of).
I protested, but of course, no one back at the office spoke English, nor did any but the head guy packing up my stuff. I was leaving the next day, and my stuff was on a truck, so I was trapped. Needless to say I was in full-​on «Oh my gawd what have I done?» mode after dealing with them, and I wasn’t even out the door. I had paid 80% of the estimate before anything left my old place.
Well, most of my stuff. They left my ironing board in the closet and my calls to ask them to come get it all went to voice mail. Oh, and they refused to bother with the Target shelving. Yeah it’s cheap, but still. All this got left behind by the freight elevator for the neighbors and/​or city trash.
They next day, I’m off to a corporate apartment in Detroit. A few weeks later I get a phone call that they need a $ 175 check for monthly storage. Tomorrow. Sorry they forgot to mention it, but (and I quote Ben) «That’s the way it is.» So I had to overnight a check since they somehow couldn’t take plastic for the storage.
May 1^st, I fly to Atlanta, call them and say «Send my stuff down. I’ll give you the exact address in a few days.» May 5^th, I give them the exact address. May 7^th, I move in to said address. I repeatedly leave voice mails and send emails to ask for an exact arrival date, so I can plan. No response. No response. I start to worry that my stuff has long since been sold on some street corner and I’ll never see it again. I leave a voice mail that I’m contacting a lawyer. I email them, copying said lawyer, and finally get a response that I’m pushy and it’ll show eventually.
May 25^th (because that is somehow 10 days) my stuff is finally in town. But not at noon, as promised. At 5pm. Whatever. Only the driver doesn’t want to use the loading dock to my building, and instead blocks the main entrance to my parking deck. On a Friday evening before a holiday weekend. You can imagine the love from the new neighbors. Management tells them to move the truck, and THEY THREATEN TO DRIVE OFF and leave my stuff in storage. Management gives them a 15 minute reprieve (until the office closes) because I am near tears, convinced everything I own is about to disappear. Again. (I really mean _​convinced_​.)
They get my stuff into my place. And ask if I have a box cutter to cut through the tape and bubble wrap around the furniture. Or a screwdriver to reattach the mirror to the dresser. Because professional movers wouldn’t carry such things. And I would know which of the 30 boxes my versions of these things are in. I just told them to get out. Like the demon from the Amityville house. GET OUT.
Did I mention that they demanded an extra $ 250 upon delivery for having to take more than 75 steps? But conveniently didn’t have change when the nearby ATM only gave out twenties?
Worst moving experience EVER. I seriously wish I would have paid triple to get one of the unionized movers. Or just set everything I owned that didn’t fit in a car on fire.
Do NOT trust these people with anything you value or want to see again. Don’t even trust them with your evil ex’s stuff, no matter how badly you want his/​her cheating ass’s stuff out of your life. They’re that awful.

HORRIBLE!!!
I used American Pro Moving a year ago and still get sick to my stomach just thinking about them. Do not trust their original quote!!!
They quoted me at $ 300 for my move out of a small one bedroom first floor walk-​up into a third and fourth floor walk-​up ½ a mile away. Once they got the truck filled and to my new place told me that it would be closer to $ 600 and that if I didn’t want to pay that, they could just leave my stuff in the parking lot. It ended up being $ 775 in total! I believe that the ‘manager’ took advantage of me because I am a young woman and was alone on moving day so would not be able to move the items myself and would have to pay the higher amount. There also were many hidden fees and they charged for each blanked that they put between my items even though they did not ask if I wanted them to do that. Regardless of the blankets, they managed to scratch a lot of my stuff, break my desk and got a black oil substance all over many of my items.
The movers themselves were very unprofessional. Each of the four movers took about ten smoke breaks throughout the three hour move and there was one guy (who I was charged for) who did not lift anything but just stood by the truck. They complained about the stairs at my place and glared at me the entire move making things very uncomfortable. One guy ignored me completely when I asked him to move items to the fourth floor instead of the third and just abandoned my items in the middle of the third floor. To make the situation more maddening, each mover took me aside to tell me to give them the tip money because the other guys would steal it if I gave it to them. Once I did tip ($ 20 each because I was unsatisfied and poor at that point), they told me that I didn’t tip enough and would not leave until I gave them more. At this point, I actually felt scared and threatened so paid them more so that they would leave.
DO NOT USE AMERICAN PRO MOVERS!!!