Poor communication, broken stuff, discrepancies, fees, I could go on. 4.9 stars my ass.
I booked our cross-country move through another moving company that I guess contracted with SkyEx, which was news to me. I completely regret it. First, we spent over a week sleeping on an air mattress with barely any communication about when our stuff would arrive. Then, we received one call stating the day the truck would arrive and a time window. Ok, great. Then, the weather took a turn and the temps dropped into the negatives. Half of Chicago was closed and we knew our truck was coming from the South, so we were calling to see if the truck would still arrive, but no one every called us back. We got a text at 8:30am saying they were almost there (our window was 9-12) and they showed up at 8:45. They were vastly unprepared for the weather (each of them only wearing one hoodie, and maybe a hat). No gloves, no scarves. They were slow moving and took many stops to warm up, which we encouraged because it was extremely cold, I understand. I bought them coffee around 11am and things moved much faster, and we loaned them gloves and scarves. As things began to be unloaded, we realized that several of our furniture pieces were broken or damaged, a few beyond repair. There were discrepancies in stairs and distance between the truck and our door that were included and what would be extra, particularly from pickup to drop off, so we ended up paying over $500 more than what we thought we would. There were also discrepancies in payment methods accepted, from what we were told upon booking, to drop off, to pickup. It was all so confusing and no one really seemed to know what was going on. I am so disappointed we spent so much money on movers when we could have gotten our stuff across the country in one piece and hired movers here in town.
They also looked to my Fiance to confirm decisions, even though I was the one with the payment. They didn't take my word until he walked up and confirmed what I had already said. After being grateful that we even had a bed the first couple nights after drop off, we began unpacking and realized we are missing at least one box, potentially more. After all, the movers unloaded a couple things that we knew weren't ours, so who knows what of ours was unloaded at someone else's house.
I made it a point to be very organized in this move, labeling every box on every side, writing FRAGILE on everything that was, and using colored duct tape to correspond with each room. We have opened several boxes to find things broken, even shattered.
At pickup, the movers put numbered stickers on each box and said that at drop off, they would check off each box/item based on those numbers to ensure that nothing was left behind. That was clearly not done as stated. Also at pickup, the main mover guy said he hadn't gotten paid in over a month, and said multiple times that he was about to quit if he didn't get his money. The men at drop off said that is normal for their job and that they had not gotten paid recently either. What doesn't make sense to me is that the company we hired originally for this move is the one that has less than stellar reviews, whereas SkyEx has 4.9 stars. Hear me when I say this: Check before you book a mover that contracts with others, and if they contract with Sky Ex, DON'T DO IT.