Carroll the Mover

Don’t Don’t Don’t use them. I called them to make a move from Canton to Quincy mass. I was moving to about a mile from their location. We were to go right by their office.
The woman was pleasant enough and even thought the 8 hour minimum was steep, I agreed to have the contract sent out.
They were eight hours late getting to my apt. It took forever to get the owner on the phone. They showed with an extra guy and the move went well once there. But I still had to pay the minimum.
Use someone else.

Light years better than my last experience with movers! The crew was on time (early!) and super fast & friendly (Collin, Augusto, & Mike). They were generally careful, my only complaint was that they got hasty with removing the last screw that held my couch frame, to get it in the door. As a result, they cracked part of the wood on the frame. I would use them again, but have your tool kit ready in case they forget theirs & be ready to closely oversee any furniture dismantling.

Carroll the Mover is a North American Van Lines Agent. I engaged them to move a relatively small load (1,000 pounds) from Brookline to Los Angeles. I have my fingers crossed that North American Van Lines customer service will still somehow make things work out magically, but right now I am horrified and appalled with the progress of my move. We were counting on our goods being delivered on Friday Aug. 28. We paid extra to gain access to our new apartment in L.A. on the 28^th. One of us booked flights and made a special trip out to L.A. on the 27^th to be there to help receive our goods on the 28^th. We had the entire weekend plus Monday set aside to unpack and set up the new place. (Our first day of work in L.A. is Tuesday Sept. 1.)
However, two days before we were scheduled to receive our goods (Aug. 26) we were told by Carroll the Mover that our goods will not be delivered until six days later than planned — on Thursday Sept. 3! And, by-​the-​way, they also told us that our load weighs 30% more than they estimated… so on top of all our logistics and moving plans being royally fouled up, our cost is now apparently going to be several hundred dollars more! And get this: we were also told that we will have to pay storage fees in L.A. if we can’t accept our shipment on Sept. 3 — which they already knew we couldn’t because it will be the third day of work at a brand-​new job!
As indicated above, I’m hoping North American Van Lines customer service will come to the rescue… but right now we are in deep do-​do. We have wasted a flight from the east coast to L.A. We apparently will have to sit for five or six days in an empty apartment with nothing to sit on or sleep on and no stuff! And, we have no one to receive the delivery on Thursday Sept. 3 anyway. (Who can take off the third day of a brand-​new job?) That means we are looking at many more days without our stuff and additional storage charges!
Carroll the Mover says the problem is out of their control (they called it Murphy’s Law). And who knows? To be fair to them, maybe it is. But they knew every detail of our situation when we planned this move and were in sync with us every step of the way. They assured us that our plan was solid and indeed that things were going to plan — until yesterday. Then, two days before the load was scheduled to be delivered, everything suddenly fell apart. (They didn’t call us by the way; we called them to check on the progress of our move and make sure everything was on course, and only after they looked into it and called us back did we find out that everything was amiss.) The bottom line is they knew what was at stake and how much we were counting on them, but they either dropped the ball or fell asleep at the switch (and let someone else drop the ball). Their answer? «This what happens to customers with a small load.» That is literally what they said to us.
Warning to others: if you have a small load — or are moving across country — BEWARE.
Postscript: 9÷8÷09: the mover arrived at 8 p.m. on Sept. 1. Evidently, North American Van Lines Customer Service extended themselves to get our stuff to us as quickly as they could — 1 ½ days earlier than the worst projection, but 5 days later than the original delivery date. I talked about it at length with the mover when he arrived. He didn’t know anything about our delivery date when he picked up our load — Carroll the Mover didn’t tell him. But, movers cannot adhere to an exact delivery date anyway. There is always a window. According to the mover who delivered our stuff, he has worked with Carroll the Mover many times over the years and has never had a problem like this before. Part of me still thinks somebody dropped the ball a bit, or fell asleep at the switch… but it also apparently was a case of very bad luck. As for the money, they didn’t provide us a «re-​weigh» as they said they would. We were tired and grateful to see our stuff, so we paid an extra 10% over the original estimate (on the spot) and theoretically will be billed in 30 days for the remainder.

Carroll the Mover is an agent for North American Van Lines. I’m not sure how our move could have gone worse. We had some damaged furniture, an inventory list without everything inventoried and condition properly noted, and an item left behind in the elevator.
This middle part is more an indictment of the North American (for non-​local moves) network. Upon move in by the North American agent at our destination, we were moved by a couple inept and tiny teenagers. We:
1) had to constantly yell at them to stop before they almost inadvertently pulverized some fixture in the building or dragged heavy objects across hardwood floors,
2) were not given 24 hours notice of delivery as told by Carroll,
3) screwed into paying overtime ($ 150+) because of how slowly the job went due to the general horribleness of these amateur teenage movers (it took ~4 hours to get moved out by two guys from Carroll and ~6 hours to get moved in by 3 people from the destination agent).
Carroll might be fine for local moves if you get lucky with the right guys. We later met some good movers from this company when they re-​inventoried our move out of necessity because of the horrible job that was initially done. Of course that whole process required us to drive down to their warehouse and spend several extra hours out of our day as they re-​inventoried everything. At no point in the whole moving process did the Boston agent (Carroll the Mover) offer any kind of special help or compensation beyond directing us to general North American customer service numbers. I understand sometimes employees screw up, but the most we ever got for all our trouble were excuses and useless assurances that things usually go more smoothly for others. I’ve had plenty of bad business experiences, but the total lack of at least some token offer of compensation for all our hassle has annoyed me enough to share our experience on Unilocal.
First and foremost, beware the apparent Russian Roulette game that is the North American Van Lines network if you’re using these guys as agents for a non-​local move.