Great American Moving System Reviews

My stepmom was there for the pickup in New York and I was there during the delivery. The moving crew was very thorough in the way they wrapped and cared for the furniture. The delivery person was very conscientious and personable. He took good care, brought everything in, and set it up. We looked it over before the delivery person left. The items were exactly as would be expected when they were picked up. They had the dining set wrapped in blankets and was secure. It's a 100-year-old set that was my grandparents. They had some dents and dings but that was from all of us kids and even my dad's generation as we grew up using it.

The only problem with this delivery was the amount that I was quoted did not turn out to be correct at pickup and it turned into a nightmare. When the crew picked up the dining set and they got everything packaged up, they said it was a misquote and that the amount had doubled. By the time I spent most of the morning on the phone with Great American, with the dispatcher, with the guy who did the original quote, and with the boots on the ground drivers who were picking up the dining set, the price came back down where it was only maybe half again as much as what I was originally quoted.

They then texted me the Zelle number to send the payment to and they made typos in the Zelle. Once the payment went out, it could not be retrieved for two weeks, so my money was out there floating. That was a pretty big hiccup. That aside and looking over the month-long experience, the dining set was delivered on time, as promised, and was in good condition. The pickup crew and the delivery crew were polite and very thorough and did an excellent job.

We had two other cars that we were driving to Illinois and we tried to adjust in our car and somehow managed to do that. We removed and discarded a lot of stuff to the neighbors. The guy was telling me at the beginning that once he starts filling up, I would understand that this much space is available for me. When he adjusted, there was a lot of space still left off, but he did not even once come and tell me that there was still space left off. Every time, he said again and again to try to adjust. Once they delivered the stuff to our home here in Illinois, another issue came up. Even if they did not ask, I would have given them something as a tip. But when you ask, it gives a bad impression. I moved from Illinois to New York and I had a worse experience at that time, but at least Great American was a little bit better than the one that I had before.

The two gentlemen were very nice and efficient. I had a couple of claims, but I never heard anything from them, and it was back in January. So, I just gave up on them. And they weren't big claims, so I just forgot about them. I had a lampshade and a control on my recliner that was damaged. I went ahead and took care of them myself. Everything else was good.

I said, “Oh, I don't think that's really going to work for me.” He said, “That's all that's going to work for me. So if I'm going to pick it up, it's going to be there at 7:30 this evening or not at all.” That wasn't cool.” So, I said, “Okay. I need this stuff picked up. So, that's fine.” Picking it up at 7:30 that evening worked out better for me. It was not nice of the guy. But on the other hand, God's hand was in it and it worked better.

I was told that I could pick my delivery date. So, it was not supposed to be before this specific date. And they had 10 days to deliver after that, which was cool with me. Two weeks before that date, my driver called and said, “Is it okay if I come on Sunday?” But that was two weeks before I expected it. He said, “If that isn't going to work at all for you, I'll make sure it works for me some other way.”

I had just moved my house. And I just got steps that day before he called. I said, “You know what? No, I've got the steps in. We’ll be fine. You can just bring it.” That wasn't his fault. It was packed in the middle of the truck he picked up. And he was very willing to accommodate me if I couldn't handle that. He was wonderful. He got here and it was raining cats and dogs. They brought it all up to the house. They did it as dryly as possible when it poured down rain. They put bags on their feet, and put it in the room where I needed it. They were awesome. They had a horrible time doing it. But they did a good job. I would go that route again.

The second half of my experience, however, was really bad. During the time of delivery, a few things were broken. The wheels of my whiteboard were broken. There were also a few issues with my standing desk which I fixed later on. The other thing was the movers were pretty late. They promised to come one day before on Saturday but they came on Sunday night at 12:00 midnight. They asked me to be available from 9:00 a.m. in the morning on Sunday. I came to my new house at 9:00 a.m. and I was just sitting on the floor until 12:00 because they said they were coming in three hours.

When I contacted them at 9:15 when they were not here as planned, they told me they were running behind schedule and they would be coming around 12:00. At 12:15, I again called them. They again told me the same thing, that they would be coming around 4:00 because they were running behind schedule. At 4:00, they told me the same thing. They ended up coming at night.

Money-wise, that was bad too because the carrier wanted cash. He was not very sure about transacting money through Zelle. Nobody carries $1,000 in today's time and there was also arranging $1,000 in the middle of the night. I asked the carrier if he had some services. After 15 minutes of conversation, he told me, “Okay. Let me try Venmo off my brother's phone.” We also had a discussion about him wanting cash for 15 minutes. Nobody informed us in advance they take cash. All in all, the delivery was not good. Try another service for now.

Delivery was irritating. The driver called me from the front gate and said, "You're gonna have to come pick me up so I can see if I could get my truck back there." I was like, "Dude, all these houses are over 3,000 square feet. People move in and they had it all the time." He wanted to offload my stuff and go get another truck and charge me $700 to do it. My neighbor stopped and he said, "People move in and out here all the time. This is how they do it." "Oh, I can't get my truck down there." Other than that, he kept in touch with me, which I really appreciated.

The movers who came in were throwing my stuff around. They did not package anything like it was supposed to be packaged. They lost some of my pieces too. All of the furniture that I had were damaged. One of the bookshelves was smashed. They ripped the seats on the chairs. I have a dresser that the front of it, they put something on it and it broke off the very front of it. When they came to initially pick up my stuff, they didn't have enough room in their truck. They were just throwing stuff on top of what was already in the truck that they could. I have a coffee table. They were moving it and sliding it on its top and banging it around. I had to go in and take the feet off of it myself because I saw that they were breaking off the feet.

They took my contract at the end, saying that they were gonna put the insurance number for all the stuff that they damaged on my contract, but they just left. It was a horrific moving experience with that sub company. When I tried to call Great American Moving at the end on the day of my delivery, I was on a do-not-call list so I have not been able to get ahold of them and I don't have any contact information to get to the company that I worked with

I'm telling all my friends never to use them. What was frustrating was during the move, once the company had come and picked up everything, I kept getting calls from Great American to ask me to sign up to have my stuff moved. I didn't feel they were communicating within their company well so that my number was still showing as a potential customer even though I was already working with them. That's why it was put on the do not call list because I told them I was already working with them. After I had contracted with Great American, I went to ConsumerAffairs' website, found them on it and saw other similar experiences. I wish I had looked it up before I made a contract with them.