U-Pack Moving

Steven and I used ABF Moving to move from Fort Collins, CO to Tacoma, WA. A driver came out and dropped the trailer at the Fort Collins location with ease. We had contract movers through ABF from Longmont, CO to load the trailer. ABF is not a weight based mover and therefore if you have lots of stuff to move is more affordable. ABF charges by the amount of space used on the trailer. We had so much to load the Longmont guys had to break up the loading into two days. I thought the guys did well. They loaded the trailer to the trailer door. No bulkhead at all. The only thing that was not loaded from the house was tomato cages. I drove out to Tacoma and a few days later the trailer arrived. We had contract movers from Seattle to help unload the truck. They were shocked that there was no bulkhead and were a bit concerned about it. They picked through the trailer and did a great job unloading it. The three guys that showed up though said they would need more help or they would be here all night unloading. They called in two more guys and they got the truck unloaded in a good amount of time for what we had.
They were not happy with the Longmont movers because of the bulkhead and how it was packed. In the middle of the trailer a bunch of boxes looked like they avalanched or were about to. They used great strategy to avoid such a calamity and nothing fell at all. A number of boxes that were unloaded looked a little battered up which was subject to concern. Steven and I though went through all of the battered ones and were relieved that the contents inside were not subject to worry on getting broken.
In fact the only thing that seemed broken was a sideboard of Steven’s. One of the ornaments on the furniture piece seemed to have been chipped in the ride out. ABF does have a claims department where you can file such damages and they will try to get it repaired for you.
Despite the seemingly unorthodox way the Longmont movers loaded the truck I am glad they got everything on. Yes, it did cause a hassle for the Seattle movers and they took pictures (at one point and time one of the Seattle movers asked if I packed the truck myself, nope) to submit to ABF as to how the trailer was packed but I am glad that it could all be done with one load.
Even though there could have been mishaps from the procedural level as to how the truck was loaded I would not hesitate in using ABF again. They got everything out in one piece and we felt lucky we only had just a chip on that sideboard. We do not plan to move again soon but when we do it will be into Seattle and we will definitely plan to consider or use ABF again as well as continue to go through our stuff and continue to dispose unwanted items so there will be a bulkhead next time.