An aggrieved victim of a moving company scam practice was telling his story on the bulletin board of a major anti-scam web site. He complained that he had entered into a “binding agreement,” with the moving company, and he was subsequently forced to pay an additional $1100 for extra packing and tape. The company told him that the binding move cost estimate only applied to the weight.
The truth is that the “binding estimate,” applies to all the quantities and services shown on the estimate. However, what is significant about this story is that it illustrates the actual belief this victim had in the estimate, and how easily the moving company was able to manipulate his belief.
The fact that the binding estimate is dependent on the services detailed on the contract, leaves a lot of room for movers who like to manipulate fine print, to find ways of tricking the consumer. The average naïve consumer likes to hear the words “binding,” and doesn’t like to search through all the fine print in the contract to find out where he might be obligated to pay more money. When the movers told him the binding only referred to the weight, it may signify that this company specifically put down a tiny stipulation that the estimate would not cover additional packing services required on the day of the move. Unfortunately, for this victim, movers are usually able to manipulate events on the day of the move, and force the homeowner to allow them to do more packing and taping than was described in the contract. They usually do this by telling the homeowner they can’t insure his belongings unless he allows them to repack certain items.
Movers can manipulate yet another technicality in the contract to totally void the agreement on the actual day of the move.
In fact, contract laws in most states, has stipulations that any change to a contract that is not initialed by all parties to the agreement voids any prior agreement. Unscrupulous moving
companies have been known to encourage homeowners to
ascent to a slight change in the contract, and then they fail to initial it. Once this occurs, this in effect allows the movers to raise the price, and at the same time gives them a technicality they can use in court if the homeowner should later contest the agreement.
You can protect yourselves from the tricks movers use to void the binding agreement, by contracting with a packing company to do your packing and loading. Packing Service Inc. is an honest packing company that is dedicated to protecting consumers from moving scam .. They will give you a flat guaranteed estimate for the cost of packing and loading all your items. If you will be transporting your goods with a moving company they will also provide you a complete packing list detailing the weight of all your items.
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