My wife and are having a baby this year and hence we decided to hire movers. Based on the reviews we read online, we booked our move with Two Small Men with Big hearts. Little did we know we were in for a surprise and our worst move experiences ever. I guess the reviews we read online were fake (my apologies to anyone who has legit reviews).
They provide excellent client service to make you believe you are good hands. They pretend to be very personable, friendly and warm and make sure everything is good to go. We lived in a 1 bedroom + condo and don't have a lot of stuff, and they estimated our total move under 4 hours which is correct as this was done before by PROFESSIONAL MOVERS in our previous moves. The estimation and booking were done over the phone with no site visit and they charged by the hour and not weight (should have seen these red flags).
Day of the move, the movers show up an hour late with no regret or sense of urgency. Also, the movers that did show up were Maple Leaf Movers-Brampton who apparently work for Two Small Men with Big Hearts and we were never informed about this. From there on every single thing just went downhill as the movers tried to extort money from us by shutting the truck door after the truck was loaded. And that part of the story I have included in my review for the Maple Leaf Movers (yelp.ca/biz/maple-leaf-b…). Anyways, when this happened, my wife called Two Small Men with big hearts in tears and explained everything that had happened and the same friendly and helpful person who setup our move now turned on us, refused to help and hung up on us. Then ignored our calls when we tried calling back. We were left to the wolves. I then had to negotiate a new price with the other moving company because Two Small Men with NO hearts decided to wash their hands clean of us and the situation that they put us in. I had to calm myself throughout the move even though I was boiling with rage inside for what they put my pregnant wife through but in the end I was relieved that we got all our belongings back and that it was finally over.
After this incident I dug deeper and found this company has a reputation of fraud and extortion, taking advantage of an already stressful and vulnerable situation. There is an ongoing court case which was even reported on CBC news.
Link: youtu.be/s4yXTeLF6R8
Unfortunately, there is no proper regulations in place for moving companies and hence there are hundreds of them out there, most of which are unlicensed and fraudulent. Beware of these companies. Always get an official contract signed and save the receipts at the time of booking and payment as these documents are crucial if you ever get into a situation with these kind of movers. Charges can be filed against them and these companies will be officially listed on Better Business Bureau and Consumer Beware List.
Use below links to get tips and watch for alerts on these kind of movers.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/hiring-mover
- Approximate cost of services:
- $500.00
- Company Response
I have spoken to the office that booked your move. The truck that they were to use on your moving day had broken down and they had a choice to either cancel the move last minute, or find another mover that had availability to do your move for you. The only other office that had availability on that day was Maple Leaf Movers. In order to not leave you hanging, we passed the move on to Maple Leaf Movers.
Our office had originally quoted 4-6 hours for your move, not less than 4 hours as you stated. You also booked your elevator for move out and move in for the same time, 9 - 1, which gives the team only 4 hours to wrap, load, travel to the new location and unload your belongings. As you know this could not happen so they had to use the elevator at offload while it was also being used by tenants of the building, it was not on hold for the movers only. When we have to share the elevator with others it takes longer.
Your move took 6 hours to complete because of the issues with the elevator, but you were only charged for 4 hours plus the one hour of travel time for a total of 5 hours. The men must be paid for 6 hours that they worked, but you were only charged for 5 hours.I'm sorry you are disappointed in your move, but in this case we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. We could have phoned and said sorry, we cant do your move and left you hanging and looking for another movers on the day of your move, or we could find someone else that could do it.