Atom Moving

THIS COMPANY IS A SCAM!! Do not use them under any circumstance! I decided to go with them because they quoted me the lowest price ($99/hour forquilted 3 guys and a truck). The time frame that they were supposed to arrive at was between 1 and 4. At 4:30 I receive a phone call that they won't be there until 5. They showed up at 6. One of the guys slept in the truck the entire time. My father was visiting to ensure things were handled properly, he ended up moving most of my things because the movers were so slow and careless. They destroyed my kitchen table and all of my walls. With my father's help their truck was loaded in 30 min and the distance from my old place to my new place was a 15 minute drive. I agreed to a 3 hour minimum. Fine. We get to my new place and they start unloading for about 15 minutes. It is 7:45 (they started at 6 and I paid for 3 hours) and they stop unloading and one of the men pulls me aside and insists that I pay for 4 and 1/2 hours worth of labor. He claims that I must pay from the time they were SUPPOSED to be there (4pm) and include the travel time back to his office (JP to Allston) which he calculated as an hour and a half. Needless to say some choice words were exchanged and the police were almost called after the men threatened to KEEP the rest of my stuff if I didn't pay the amount they requested. We argued and eventually came to an agreement

Quick update: A few days after I posted my review, I received a voicemail from the owner/manager (?) saying he wanted to check in with me and see if I received all my stuff. A few days later, I called back and got their voicemail. I left a message that I did receive the missing items, but that I was unhappy with the move- not only with the delay in receiving my items, but also that it felt like every little thing that could have gone wrong along the way, did. And if they'd like to discuss it, to call me back. It's been 2 weeks since I left the message and I haven't heard back.

Moving is stressful, you deserve better. This company is despicable, atrocious, vile, corrupt, deplorable, shady, and villainous. Is that enough for you to move on? I hope so. If not, read on.

I hired them in 2009 for a move from Boston to DC. My belongings were 4 days late for a local move. Reason: The truck was impounded in NY because they drove it on a parkway that prohibited trucks and their driver had a suspended license. In DC, the contents of the truck were held hostage on arrival, and I was threatened repeatedly on the phone by the owner/manager of the company who extorted 3X the original quote in cash for the driver to release my belongings.

The owner refused to accept a credit card, despite this assurance in the contract. I was threatened by the owner both during and after this episode.

The owner goes by fake names when communicating with customers. I ended up contacting the MA Attorney General, and after the company refused to mediate through their office and ignored certified mail requests to do so, I ended up taking them to small claims court in Brighton, MA. After the owner did not show for two hearings, I hired Chris Waites, a MA Constable (yelp.com/biz/massachuset...) to take him into custody and escort him to Brighton Court where I won my case against him. I filed jointly with another Yelp user, (Chris D) who had the same problem.The constable we hired was armed. In order for the owner of the company to comply with the capias filed it took an armed sheriff to get him into court on the third try. But the sociopathic behavior continued. The owner of the company made inappropriate comments and gestures toward me in front of the judge. The owner won't disclose his name and keeps removing this review through Yelp when I reveal it.

These scammers change company names before negative information catches up with them. There are also now (as of 1/2015 280 filtered ("not recommended") reviews of this company on Yelp that are resoundingly negative. Pretty sure the company does its work to flag bad reviews to demote the hundreds of reviews that are in the filters.

The fact that there are a majority of filtered reviews also implies that there is some kind of a financial arrangement with Yelp. i.e., perhaps this business pays yelp to filter negative reviews? I've queried support at Yelp but they deny this and insist that the filtering is just part of their algorithm. Considering the disproportionate number of negative reviews continuing to accumulate in the filter, I remain skeptical.

If you haven't had enough of this yet, read the filtered reviews.

Please do your due diligence and do not hire this company. If you've used them and are reading this review to get validation, write a review.

Check out reviews on BBB, look at corporate filings from the MA Sec of State website for Moving Explorer and Boston Quality Movers.

Other fronts for this company include:

atommoving.com
bostonqualitymovers.com
movingcompanyallston.com
bostonflatrate.com
michaelsmovers.com
movingexplorer.com
bostonquality.com
newwaymovingservices.com
bestratemove.com

If you want to pursue legal action, do it. They deserve to be OUT OF BUSINESS and management IMPRISONED for all of their impropriety.

If you are still searching for a mover, do yourself a favor - find another.

Keywords: fraud, shakedown, extortion, theft, racket, stealing, scum, scam

Update:

I was contacted by the "new owner" of the company via phone on 4/29/15 who requested that I remove my earlier review because, while not disclosing his name, he assured me the company was under new ownership and he was determined to put it on the right path.

I gave him the opportunity to propose a solution and offer proof of the company's new ownership via email. The following day I received an email from a Relocation Consultant at the company.

In the email they offered $750.00 for me to remove my review.

I have serious doubts that the person I spoke with on the phone was in the person who contacted me via email. Given that this behavior was familiar to me (masking real names, lying, etc) my suspicions arose.

I wanted to verify my suspicions. MA active business filings for the Owner of the company that I sued in 2010 are currently mapped to Boston Flat Rate's physical address. Even though I was assured on the phone that the company was under new ownership, the corporate filing did not support this claim.

http://corp.sec.state.ma.us

I wish my story could have a better ending, but unfortunately their despicable practices continue - almost 6 years after my move.

I wish I could give zero stars.

Look for another company to move.

Their drivers taking their time watching soccer while on my time.

They misrepresented to me what the service was going to cost.

They lost my lamp shade.

And on top of that, when I contacted a manager to express my concern, they didn't care. They don't know the first thing about customer service.

Oh Boston Flat Rate Movers. As I'm currently moving out of the place you moved me into, the bad memories are flooding back. Everything started out fine, they even moved my date for free after I was hit by a car the day of my original move. They came the next day, packed up my Brookline apartment, and moved me into my Somerville apartment. It was all fine until they brought me the bill. They had charged me for 4 hours and had been working 2 hours, and I obviously would give them another .5 hours to get back to Allston, and transportation from Allston to Brookline was included (they called when they left the warehouse to let me know my time had started).

So there I was, on crutches, braced up, being charged $400 and 4 hours for a move that hadn't even taken 3. I tried calling the company, but it was a Sunday and no one answered. The mover in front of me said "They longer you complain, the more we charge. It's just $96 - pay it."

I called later that week to complain and got laughed at by a manager. I was charged $400 to move a mattress, 4 boxes, a dresser, a desk, and a futon from Brookline to Somerville on a Sunday morning when there was no traffic. Total and complete rip off, never let anyone you like use this company.

I'm going to do my best to write an objective review that will be useful, but I expect that will be somewhat difficult given the hell I've been through with this company. Like many other reviews posted here, I'm considering legal action against the company--or at the very least filing a complaint with the BBB. The following is a brief summary of my experience:

1. I engaged the company in Nov./Dec. 2013. Lauren answered the phone, and was very polite and helpful. The movers arrived on time on Dec. 28, 2013. The move was from Boston to Tampa, FL.

2. The movers worked quickly and efficiently. They refused to use tape I bought, saying it was the "wrong kind." That ended up costing me an extra 150 dollars (they tape everything 800 times unnecessarily), but beyond that they seemed professional. *****This company uses flat rate per sq foot, not weight. This calculation is done by a foreign worker with limited english. Everything is based on estimates. Whatever your "estimate was," it will no doubt be much higher. There is no way to really verify or audit anything he is doing. He essentially sits there with a sheet of paper counting the hundreds of boxes you have and estimating their sq footage. As I will show below, nothing about this company is "flat rate."

3. I was originally told there would be a 14 day window before delivery. What I was not told, and what you will find in the boilerplate language in the contact, is that this number is 14 BUSINESS DAYS. The company took its sweet time, and did not deliver my items until mid-late January, despite giving me verbal assurances that it would be there Jan 3rd or 4th.

4. While awaiting delivery, I was completely in the dark as to where my stuff was. I was only given a call as they were "leaving Boston" and was given a call the day before delivery.

5. The delivery was nothing short of a fiasco. They showed up later than promised. When they arrived, I was told that I lived "too far" from the delivery point. ****the contract only guarantees 70 feet from delivery truck to unit/house/apt. In apartment buildings with delivery zones, this is essentially no one. I was then charged an extra $350 because they had to move my stuff down 2 long hallways. All this was hidden in fine print in the contract and was never explained.

6. The delivery manager was an agent of Boston Flat Rate but is NOT an employee. He is a contractor, and a moody one at that. He whined the entire time and had a horrible attitude, making us feel like we owed him for moving our belongings in.

7. THE COMPANY LITERALLY DIDNT HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO HELP WITH THE MOVE-IN. That's right, they hired two people OFF THE STREET. These individuals even expressed to me that they had no experience with the company and were off the street. They were not experienced movers, and dropped a ton of stuff right in front of me. They would try to move too much and boxes were falling off the push carts left and right.

8. The company, which contractually promises to put back together furniture, gave us an attitude when we asked for things to be put back together. It was a rush job and was not done properly. It was also difficult to find which boxes had disassembled items because the original movers in Boston had failed to label anything. I ended up having to put together multiple pieces of furniture that they were obligated to reassemble. The "manager" literally rolled his eyes at me when I asked him to put back together a table.

9. A family heirloom bookcase had water damage on top. The wood was molded and buckling. I was told by the moving manager not to worry because "it would probably dry out." The company's HQ simply referred me to their third-party claims department, which will "negotiate" your claim and at most will reimburse you cents/lbs if you waived insurance. Query how that helps anyone with, say, a damaged TV.

10. The following was also observed during our unpacking period:

-things were dissembled in Boston without permission.
-Books and other items were ruined from WET BOXES. Boxes that looked like they had been exposed to high doses of water.
-Broken dishware, despite it being triple bubble wrapped and still securely in bubble wrap and tape ball. We feel this implies they were rough and careless with the boxes at multiple points in the trip.
-Screws and other hardware were taken from items taken apart and thrown in random separate boxes without labels. Some were not recovered.
-some pieces from disassembled furniture were and still are missing.
-TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY, they straight up lost and did not deliver our little Nino's cat scratcher.

All in all, the move cost almost 4k for a two bedroom apartment with no bedroom furniture. This company is COMPLETE SHIT. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

I had an excellent experience with this moving company. I recommend them to all of my friends and anyone else that needs movers in the Boston area. Everything was delivered well and fast and on time!

In addition to this, the moving company was incredibly accommodating to my personal circumstances. They were very sympathetic to the difficulties of moving.

If I had to move to a completely new region again, I would use this company again and again.

Do not use! Avoid! They will offer a low-ball estimate then hold your furniture hostage until you've paid much more (in my case, 60% more).

Disreputable scumbags.

Extremely prompt, showed up right at the time they quoted.
Very quick and efficient. Assembled everything and asked for feedback about where to put items in the new house.
Overall, very friendly and polite! No complaints here!

I had a great experience with Boston Flat Rate Movers. I would definitely recommend them to anyone else that needs movers in the Boston area. They were very friendly and extremely fast. My move took under two hours including travel time!

The movers called ahead to let me know they were on their way and even helped me move a couch outside that wasn't being moved.

My move was pretty much stress free and I credit that to the movers.