Chipman Relocations

Extreme caution!!!
I hired these guys to come out for a residential move. The sales lady was kind enough, and ended up getting me to sign up for a full value protection plan — my second biggest mistake with these guys next to hiring them in the first place.
These guys are very professional, although they snapped our dresser base almost immediately at the start of the move. Besides that, everything went smooth right up until I started using my appliances/​electronics after relocating. I had 4 major issues which happened during the move of which 3 claims were flatly denied claiming that they could not be responsible for road vibrations along the move — well then pack it good from the start!!!
Overall, I had bought this full value protection plan and I have no idea what it covered in the end. I gave these guys the benefit of the doubt in resolving the problems which occurred, but they failed big time at making me comfortable with the move in the end. Through the process I also found out that they use contractors (of which my movers were one of those teams) so I doubt quality could be consistent.

This is only the second time I’ve posted on Unilocal but I just had to warn anyone out there thinking of signing up with these movers to run — run away! I interviewed 6 moving companies for our local move (only 10 miles). I had quotes all over the board — I chose Caton Mayflower as they were priced middle of the road and seemed very professional. They promised to do the move in 1 day which they called to tell me a few days before our move (after they had our deposit) they may not be able to facilitate this. We decided to move some of the small boxes ourselves and we sold a vast majority of our furniture on craigslist — we HAD to be out of our house in the one day. Anyway, that wasn’t my problem with them. They came on time — We had everything neatly boxed up — they put our boxes on the truck — my husband monitored the move. I distinctly remember having a wardrobe box at the end of the bed for them to move, labeled taped ready to go. Like I said my husband was there watching them load the truck, he left only when all the boxes had been moved onto the truck. Around 2 or so they brought the trucks over and moved all the boxes in the new house. They finished at 7 or so that night. I checked our old house and there was not one single item of ours left in the house. Over the next day we finished un-​packing our boxes and realized the large wardrobe box that was sitting in the master bedroom at our old house — with our expensive linens — was missing. We checked the attic, under the house, the backyard, the garage, closets, cars, the driveway, the woods behind the house EVERYWHERE. The box had poof vanished. I right away put a called and put a claim in with the company. I called multiple times over the next 3 weeks (it really sucked having no duvet cover, duvet, sheets, pillows). The contents of the box were over $ 500 in value. After 4 weeks of «reviewing our clam» — Caton decided they could not verify they actually moved the box so they could not reimburse us. Ummm… okay what do they think we’re lying and hid the box ourselves or didn’t look hard enough or left this huge wardrobe box for the new buyers of our old house to enjoy. Yah HELLO… first of all why didn’t they catalog each box they moved and second THEY MOVED THE BOX (I can’t even get a wardrobe box into my car). Apparently we will get $ 35 or so back for the insurance they guaranteed for the move… yah WOW that’s going to help buy that new duvet cover, duvet, King sheet set and 4 pillows (oh and that picture I threw in between the pillows thinking it would be safe there). Please people use someone else — I would make sure the company you use checks off the boxes so they ARE liable for boxes that vanish in the 10 miles they move them. And yes I’ll be writing something up with the Better Business Bureau — people need to be warned.