Holy crap, I am still getting page hits!
The new job has started to level out. I'm loving it. Out of the training phase an in the learning-how-to-do-it-for-realz phase. It's a lot more rewarding and a lot harder than I could have possibly guessed six months ago.
Contrary to what I posted back in December, I will not be attending WIS3, mostly, I just don't have enough vacation time to spend on a conference right now.
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So the moving company we'd used this last time was Allied, which leases their name to independent movers cross-US.
So the Atlanta-based mover we used managed to scratch or break Every. Single. Piece. of furniture we own. The good news here is that I had bought the "no-deductible" insurance for the extra $500 bucks upfront. Yes, this is effectively the same as a $500 deductible. However, the deductible options were several hundred bucks for the claim plus an amount based on the estimated value of damage, so since we did use it, the $500 was considerably cheaper.
Among the items most damaged were a brand-new two piece hutch we'd gotten, they actually managed to break one of the corners on the lower portion. It is solid wood, not plyboard. They shattered the 24" LED monitor I'd gotten my husband for our wedding. They scuffed every flat surface, which is lovely and visible, as all our furniture is black. They broke the feet off two of our bookcases. Pretty sure they lost a few boxes, as there are a few items I still haven't located. We have metal trash bins both for the kitchen and the bathroom, both have massive dents. They totaled both of our (admittedly) cheap bikes by loosing the connector pins for the front wheels and scraping most of the paint off.
That's just the shit I can remember off the top of my head.
So I took my Grandma's advice. I dug up via the all-knowing internet who the CEO/President was. Turns out Allied is a name owned by a company named Sirva. I managed to get a hold of the line to the CEO of Allied, who is an employee of Sirva, and he had his very friendly secretary call me back.
I have strong suspicions that what happened from here out would not have gone as smoothly as it did if I had not done that.
I ended up filing all of the paperwork with the secretary, who was very through and helpful. She ensured that we had a reputable restoration company come out and repair the things that were repairable, and evaluate the damages. I am *very* happy that a disinterested third party did the valuation, as he had no reason to undershoot us. The restoration company fixed the visible dents and nicks, and even the corner of the hutch (which was done with good enough resin and paint that at a glance, you can't tell it was ever damaged).
This was all in December.
The paperwork finally wrapped up in March, and they sent us check #1, and a letter explaining the damages they were and weren't paying for.
This led to more phone calls and emails, as one of the things on the 'we won't pay for' list was the monitor, reason being it had been packed by us, therefore wasn't their fault...Except--you guessed it!--their people were the ones who had packed it. So we had to wait and extra 30 days for their review board to look at our records and go "Oh, we did pack that, our bad." For which we got check #2.
Overall I was able to tolerate the insurance claim process, they seemed to know what they were doing. But, it still sucked. I would much rather all our stuff had gotten here in one piece. BUT they did pay us very nearly the full cost of the move. So there is that.
