I will start from the beginning. I called three companies from Homestars for estimates on my move scheduled for August 20, 2020. Aaron from New Era was the only one to come to my home because of Covid. He came with a mask, very professional and quoted me the middle price of the three. I decided to go with him because he assured us of his quality of work, the homestars reviews and his seemingly excellent reputation. It was a fairly big move, but relatively uncomplicated. We were moving from one 4 bedroom house into another, about 4.2km apart.
The crew showed up on time and with one large truck, as promised. The move began without incident. The crew wrapped most items in protective blankets, again, as promised. Prior to the move (when Aaron and I did a room by room walk through of my house), I made a point of showing Aaron my sectional in the basement, telling him it was a really expensive Canadian made product that was assembled in the basement. Aaron measured the sectional and assured me it could be removed without a problem. This piece was one of my biggest concerns but Aaron said it was an uncomplicated piece.
As the day went on, I started to notice his crew getting angry with one another, arguing about things and trying to take short cuts with the move to speed up their day.
A few examples... they refused to disassemble my Kamado Joe Grill and damaged the ceramic coat quite noticeably, which cannot be fixed. Instead of taking it apart, the chose to dragthe Kamado (which is a 200lb piece when fully assembled) up the deck and in doing so, they damaged the stairs quite badly. This was just pure laziness. I showed them how easy it was to disassemble and if they had done what I said, it would have reduced the weight by half and there would be NO damage to the Kamado or the deck.
They dragged furniture along the floor (as seen in photos - white scratch marks on new hardwood), they damaged the front door (pictured) and they also damaged a dresser (also pictured). This was just at the NEW HOUSE. The old house was a disaster with walls damaged, scratched and it pretty beaten up. I sent Aaron all of the pics of the old house as well as the new. Lucky for us, the new owners were going to paint the old house anyway, so they forgave us for the damage. I even let Aaron know that the damages at the old home were being forgiven by the new buyer, so all he had to "make right" was our new house and furniture.
The sectional came in and the crew told us they had a really hard time taking it apart. When they put it back together... well, there is not much I can say, other than it was like putting a square peg into a round hole. I knew we were in big trouble, when they took out a hammer and nails to "fix" it. We learned later that they discarded specific "fasteners" which keep the sectional together and had broken portions of the solid wood frame during disassembly. We knew none of this until we had our own repair guy come in (this is after months of waiting for Aaron "to make things right" as he likes to say).
So, I really do not like to overreact to these things and I called Aaron and he was great. He said... "send me some pics and just give me a chance to make things right". I said, "sure". After about a month, nothing back from Aaron, so I sent him a follow up email. I got the usual "we've been so busy, sorry sorry sorry, but I am going to make things right". I believe I tried one last time and still nothing from Aaron.
So, we are now almost 4 months after the move and Aaron has gone missing in action. I suppose he will read this review and give some sort of response, which I will address if he does so, but I can tell you my sectional pretty much fell apart and I had to call Rawhide Leather, the manufacturer of the product and they sent their service guy to my house who fixed it for $300.00 ($100 for fastener clips, $200 for labour). He said that there were some "fastener clips" that were removed and replaced with nails. He also said some of the frame had been broken and he said the sectional will never be 100% again, but that he could make it usuable. The initial cost of the sectional was just under $8,000, so you can understand our frustration. It is a piece of furniture we plan to have for a very long time.
I use Homestars all the time. I told Aaron one of the reasons we chose his company was the stellar reviews on here. I am not tempted to believe the reviews are carefully monitored to ensure New Ear Moving does not get a review like this one.
As an aside, we never asked Aaron for a price decrease because of the damage (and one was never given), we only agreed with his suggestion that he make things right. When we agreed to the job, he represented himself as a professional who stood behind his company. That was not accurate nor has that been our experience with Aaron.
I would be very leary of all the 10/10 reviews here. I am sure some people have had great moves with this company but that was not our experience at all. I will bet there are a lot of bad reviews that Aaron ensures don't see the light of day. I am writing this review simply as a last resort because he clearly never had any intention of making this right.
Lastly, I will attach photos of some of the damage. Frankly there were too many to take so I have just picked a few and I also have a couple of "make things right" emails from Aaron as well. I will post those, in the event he disputes same.
