1st Choice Movers review: Moving and packing

Because you can’t (or don’t want to), and 3.) to professionally pack your goods and belongings because you can’t, don’t want to, or don’t know how best to approach the task. In exchange, you pay these moving companies very large sums of money, with the expectation that you receive the professional services above with good and properties intact, but also including timely communication and knowledgeable, kind, customer service. As far as I know, all of our things did get from point a to point b in the hands of 1st choice movers, but not all in one piece, not without significant time delays without communication, and not without making the process more stressful than it would have been if i’d managed it myself. Let’s dig in, shall we?

1st Choice Movers is actually Old Baymeadows Moving (NOT Baymeadows Moving) dba 1st Choice Movers, and Old Baymeadows doesn’t seem to be listed on Google. On mymovingreviews.com, they have a star rating of 2, which would have been nice to know. I’d also like to point out that 1st Choice is NOT BBB accredited as they say (at least, not this one. There is one in Minnesota that is)- you can verify that with their website: https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/jacksonville/profile/moving-companies/1st-choice-movers-0403-9000266. In fact they have a number of complaints (including mine) lodged against them with no resolution, or where the owner, Jawad (Dzawad) Hasanblogevic seems to throw his hands up because he refuses to make the situation right. I also did a little (a lot of) digging into the Google Reviews, which I should have done before I hired them. The reviews are pretty solidly divided into two camps: 5 stars and 1 star. A large number of the 5-star reviews are from the last two weeks, most of those from anonymous users with little/generic-no actual information included. At least one of those is a corporate customer of the company. In all time, about 29% of all of the five-star reviews are from individuals who have written only 1 review (compared to 19% of the 1-stars). This isn’t a crime, but the fact that I saw one five-star review written by the foreman of my crew (and responded to by the owner as if he was a customer!) does seem suspect. I also saw on another review aggregator that a reviewer said he was offered compensation for broken items on the condition that he not post any reviews.

I found 1st Choice like most people do, through Google. My boyfriend had already relocated to our new home in the Pensacola area, but I was in radiation treatment for my breast cancer diagnosis, and I couldn’t leave Jacksonville until that had finished. Because it was just me, and I was (and still am) dealing with treatment side effects, I really wanted to make sure that we hired a mover who would do an absolutely seamless and professional job both packing and moving. I did a little looking at reviews, with the expectation that unhappy people will be very loud, and their overall star rating looked good. I set up an estimate with Daniel, who came to my house to do an in-person estimate. He was extremely kind, and said we would need 2-3 trucks, whereas other companies had said 1-2. He told me not to ever give these companies money up front, that that was a scam, and I felt like he was generally a caring person who was concerned with my well-being. He told me that they never use sub-contractors or brokers, and that was a huge reason why I chose them. Their estimate was on the lower end (about $8,750), but that’s not why we chose them. I don’t like not knowing who is going to be responsible for my things, so I thought that 1st Choice was the best choice. Daniel seemed honest, and personable, and that was something I really needed given that I was coordinating the move alone. As you can probably guess from my star rating, I would regret that decision immensely very soon.

Once we had decided to go with 1st Choice, I texted Daniel to see what we needed to do next. He said he had us scheduled for the date on the estimate (Oct 22), and we were off! I texted a little later for some clarification, since he gave us only one date. Would they be packing on the 22nd or before that? He called, and said they would pack the 21st, and move us the 22nd. That actually wasn’t ideal, because my boyfriend couldn’t be there on the 21st, but we went with it.

The week of the move, I texted again to confirm times - what time would the packers be there on Friday the 21st and the movers on Saturday the 22nd. Daniel responded with about 9-10 am each time.

Friday the 21st comes, and nobody shows up. I left a voicemail for Daniel. He called me back about 5 minutes later, and said “There’s been a b - there’s been a mistake.” He said that instead of Friday/Saturday, we had been scheduled accidentally for Saturday/Sunday. This would have been a better schedule for us in the first place but because we had arranged around Friday/Saturday, it was pretty inconvenient. Someone had to be in Pensacola on Sunday to establish our internet (I work from home, and can’t be without it). I was also frustrated that this error hadn’t been discovered the two times I confirmed dates/times, but thought, whatever. There was nothing to be done but be flexible. We’d work it out.

The packers came on the 22nd, right on time. They absolutely reeked of smoke, as in the smell lingered in the house long after they were gone. Normally I would forgive this (and I’m a former smoker), but given the rest of the events, I’m not going to. The couple that did the packing were actually very nice to me, and said they would take care of me and everything would work out. They specifically said that they DON’T work for 1st Choice and were sub-contractors. I’m not sure why they told me, because I didn’t ask. I wasn’t pleased, but they seemed nice enough, so I let it go. After 4 hours on Day 1, they left because they had to “return a rental car.” However, they said they had most of the work done (e.g., they had packed the kitchen and basically nothing else), and they’d return in the morning. I thought - okay, that’s not too bad. We’re still on track, and everything would be fine. They returned on Sunday in the same car they were driving the day before, and packed for a couple of hours. At around 10:00, I said “Where are the trucks?” That’s truckS. Plural. Remember that for later. Timmy (not his real name) said he’d call and find out. He said they were on their way, which was good, because they had to load, get to Pensacola, and unload. It was going to be a long day.

About an hour and a half later, the truck shows up. That’s truck. No plural. I asked where the second one was, and was told there wasn’t one. Zane, the driver, also said, “This estimate is a mess,” presumably because there was more than what they had though. I was upset, but they said they could probably fit the whole house in one load. Now here is an important detail. We were living in a 3-bedroom house, but my boyfriend had previously moved from a larger house, so the garage was literally floor-to-ceiling packed with boxes and outdoor furniture. I was very transparent about this with EVERY moving company I called. More importantly, Daniel saw that garage in person. There were no surprises about the amount of things to move. The packers had said that they would stay while the movers were loading the trucks so that they could pack anything that needed to be packed in the garage. Of course, they did not. And of course, the contents of the house did not fit on one truck.

Now here’s where I really messed up. As the first truck was ready to leave, Zane (the driver of Truck #1), handed me a contract to sign. I said I didn’t want to sign, but he assured me this was just to give them permission to leave with the first truck, and I was frustrated, exhausted (cancer treatment, remember?), and ready to get our things moving. As I’m sure you can guess, that document I signed was the official contract (with nothing else but my name and the price from the estimate filled in). This is problematic for a couple reasons: 1.) It had not been given to me or my boyfriend beforehand; 2.) None of the value of our belongings was included; and 3.) my name was the only name on the contract. The latter point is important, because I was merely arranging this for my boyfriend and I. He makes more money than me by a long shot, we were relocating for HIS work, and I have not, and did not, have nearly $10,000 sitting in the bank at the time. Zane even said it might be more on the other end, to which I said, “It’s going to be less.” Anyway, I signed it, and Zane drove off once I had given him my boyfriend’s phone number to arrange delivery. He also said the second truck might come in a couple of hours, or it might be the next day, which absolutely lit me up.

I was pissed. I called Daniel, who said that Zane had misspoken, and that the second truck was coming, but didn’t have a time set for me. During this time, I called every number for 1st Choice I could find. I had already waited a day, and I was livid at the possibility that our things wouldn’t all be there on Sunday. Nobody was answering the phones, but I kept calling. I called Daniel again, and that’s when he told me that he “doesn’t really do the moving side.” He was more the ”sales side.” So, I waited alone in a house with no furniture, no internet, and limited cell service and kept trying to call. I did end up reaching one customer service agent on their sales line, who did seem to care about my issues, but couldn’t connect me with anyone who knew anything. He then went on a rant about how I was collecting good karma because I was going through this, and everything would turn out great for me. It was weird, I’m not sure what that was.

The second truck finally got there at 5:30 pm, with a crew of two. There was still a LOT of stuff in the house, but they did eventually get it loaded up. I then drove with them over to our storage unit to load the last bit. From there, I asked, “Do you need the address?” “We’re just going to the warehouse,” he said. I was again, super upset, but figured I can’t make someone drive to Pensacola at what was now 8:00 at night. I got in my car and drove, and hoped that at least the first truck’s delivery would go smoothly.

During my drive, I tried to call a few times to get in touch with somebody who could talk to me about the price. At this point, my boyfriend and I were both upset, behind on work, and were NOT willing to pay what we were quoted. Then, the time that the first truck was supposed to be there came and went. I called and called some more. I finally got the owner to call me back, and he said that he would reimburse me for hotel, but nothing more - his driver had already worked the max amount, and couldn’t do the trip to Pensacola that day. I was already on the road, so I declined the hotel. He said that was all he could do at that moment and I said, “we can speak about making this right tomorrow.”

The next day, in Pensacola, I started calling at about 8am Jacksonville time. Nobody answered, initially, but once their front desk staffer (Nancy, not her real name) got there at 9:30, I was able to talk to her. I was told they would be leaving “shortly” and there was no way to speak to dispatch directly because they don’t have phones, but she gave me the number for my driver. Maybe their dispatch exclusively uses CB, I don’t know. The truck supposedly left around 9:30/10:00, and I tried calling the driver several times with no luck. Nancy was able to reach them, and each time told me they were on their way with no ETA. So this is another day wasted where I was waiting for my things to arrive.

They finally got there at 5:30, and started unloading right away. There were two guys from the previous day (1 from the first crew, one from the second), with both drivers being new. I spoke with Jeremy, the foreman, who brought me into the kitchen to pay. I said, “We are not paying this amoung.” That’s when things REALLY popped off. Jeremy threw his hands in the air and started yelling to his crew to go back to Jacksonville. I, very upset (and alone, with the exception of one of our painters who was there to tape), went outside to try to reason with him. There was a lot of back and forth, but they fired up the trucks, so I drove my car to block the driveway to save time. I tried calling the owner, but he wouldn’t answer. He DID answer for Jeremy, but that’s not entirely unexpected. I called the 1st Choice number and got the weird customer service agent, who didn’t have a solution, but was very sympathetic. At one point, Jeremy said to me something about needing to get home for his two year-old son, and I said VERY sarcastically, “Oh, spare me.” He absolutely lost it, and kept yelling about how I was NOT to talk about his son (I didn’t; he literally brought it up). The owner finally called me, and offered a $500 discount. My boyfriend and I refused, because that’s barely 5% off, for an insane amount of trouble. Then, Jeremy called the sheriff. That’s an important point, because the owner has said in my BBB complaint that I called the cops on them. That’s patently untrue. Anyway, I did call once I started to feel unsafe, and they said they were already en route.

When they got there, there wasn’t much they could do, because they had the signed contract (I didn’t have a copy of this either). It was a civil issue, blah blah blah, but they advised me to record everything. Jeremy said “I don’t care if you record me, my name is Jeremy Hehn!” At one point, we had three deputies and their vehicles at our house trying to negotiate something between us, and each of the three officers said that the situation was wrong, but the contract had the moving company in the right (the commanding officer for the night shift at one point looked over at the truck and wrote down the name and said, “I just want to make sure I never use these guys.”). At this point, my boyfriend had arrived, and agreed to pay.

Well, they wouldn’t let us pay either. The contract said that credit card payments had to be arranged in advance, and they could only be in the name of the person on the contract. The other options were a cashier’s check or a USPS money order. Now, remember, I couldn’t have arranged this in advance, because I didn’t see the contract until our first truck was already loaded. It was also after 5, so the other payment options were out. I would have also told them that the contract needed to be in my boyfriends’ name for tax purposes. I gave them a card to see if it would go through, but forgot to include the last four digits on the document I emailed (at this point, I was crying and upset). This caused Jeremy to throw another temper tantrum about how I was wasting his time. The officers told me to move my car, and to record everything the next day, but Jeremy yelled about how they were going back to Jacksonville. I blew up everybody’s phones who was involved a bit more, but nobody would answer. On their way out, the trucks scratched the driveway and made marks in the grass.

The next morning, I was able to get a hold of Nancy, who was very rude, and would not entertain the idea of my boyfriend’s credit card (they must have been worried about a chargeback, which they absolutely should have been). We agreed to get the USPS money order, and I kept in touch with the owner and Nancy on the status. It took a while, but we got it figured out, and they dispatched the crew back to our house (they had stayed in Pensacola, not Jacksonville). The post office was about 25 minutes away, so the truck beat me to the house. They apparently started banging on the door and yelling at 8:30 am (I’m sure our new neighbors loved that), according to my painters that were there. By the time I got there, they were unloading, and I was recording.

Jeremy absolutely lost it, and kept yelling about how he wouldn’t be recorded (but wouldn’t address me directly). I said “Do you want me to stop recording?” and he said that he did, so I stopped (against the advice of the sheriff’s office). Miles, one of the crew, got the contract (now filled out, and with my boyfriend’s name added) and gathered payment from me. The rest of the day was a nightmare. Jeremy wouldn’t speak to me, but would yell passive aggressively near me (e.g., why would a GROWN WOMAN act like that, etc.). Anytime I took out my phone to take photos of my belongings or anything else, Jeremy would throw a fit (once he literally slammed his Red Bull on the fender of the truck, and Red Bull exploded into the air), and threaten to go back to Jacksonville. The owner called me to tell me I could only take photos of my things, but not his crew moving my things, as that was an invasion of privacy (that’s also not true, but I just wanted our things at this point). I felt like I was taken hostage, and I was grateful for the painters who were there, making sure I was okay.

Because we had painters there, I had told them that a good deal of our things should be set in the garages. I sent a list to Miles (remember, the foreman isn’t talking to me), of what should go where. Some things did make it to the right place. I will say, for a group of people who didn’t want to be there, they sure didn’t hurry. I bought the guys lunch (good pizza, wings, cheese bread, powerade, soda), and about midday Miles approached me again to see if they could back their truck into the driveway. I said that would be fine, as long as I could record it happening, and Miles asked me to text that to Jeremy. I did, but as soon as he saw me recording, he flipped out AGAIN.

They loaded the rest of the things in the second truck into our detached garage, literally throwing some things on top of other things. I asked them to move some things to the OTHER garage, and was told that they would (they did not). I asked them to assemble the bed, which was listed as something they provided. They were almost finished at this point, so Jeremy started pulling the truck out of the driveway. Right as the front tires were at the front of the driveway, partially on the grass, the wheel twisted quickly to the right and back to straight. I can’t know what Jeremy’s intentions were with that maneuver, but it wasn’t necessary, and it left a huge gash in our yard. I started taking pictures of it and Jeremy, you guessed it, flipped out. He pulled the whole crew out, mid bed-assembly, mid-throwing things in our garage, and they left. Honestly, I was relieved. They left behind two expensive movers blankets that were wrapped around our dining table, which I informed the owner of.

In the aftermath, we have found a number of broken things. A piece of glass that goes on top of a dresser (an antique from the 1940s) had books stacked on top of it and shattered, things literally thrown into the garage all cattywhompus, the bed was broken because the person putting it together didn’t realize there were already holes drilled for the screws, a dresser was scratched, and I’m sure we’ll find more. I was told on moving day that we only had the minimum level of liability insurance unless we wanted to pay $1300 dollars immediately. You can imagine my response.

We’ve also found that the packing job can only be described as “done by a drunk toddler.” Can you guess what our air fryer was packed with? If you guessed books, congrats! What about cake flour? If you guess literally anything except bleach-based bathroom cleaners, congratulations, you’re not stupid or a psychopath. There are TVs in mirror boxes, mirrors in regular boxes, and things are just randomly thrown into boxes without tape (like our salt dish, why would you wrap that up and not tape it?). We paid $2,700 dollars for “professional” packing, but I could have done a better job sleepwalking. I’m sure we’ll find more broken things in the coming days as well, due to the packers, the movers, or both. Oh, I finally got a copy of the contract a couple of days later.

All the owner has done is reiterate the $500 offer, which is laughable and insulting. I can’t say this was the worst experience of my life, because I have cancer, but it’s a close second. Companies like this can get away with this kind of behavior because they have your things, and you need them back. They don’t care about repeat customers from long-distance moves, because why would they?

I’m not sure about what happened with the logistics, but I suspect that we were never scheduled in the first place, and they scrambled to fit us in. That would explain a.) why there was a “mistake” in scheduling the date; b.) why the packers were subcontractors; c.) why there were no drivers to get to Pensacola after loading; d.) why there weren’t enough trucks to begin with; e.) why the foreman turned out to be listed as the CEO of a different moving company on Facebook (i.e., they subcontracted to get us our things rather than admit the mistake); f.) why the foreman said on the first attempted delivery, “I get paid the same whether you get your things or not.” The owner has said a couple of times that we were never promised to get our things loaded and driven to Pensacola on the same day. I guess that’s true, but the idea of multiple days literally NEVER came up. That response reeks of a schoolkid saying, “Well you didn’t triple-supreme-double dog-pinky promise, so it doesn’t count.” I guess I didn’t promise NOT to write a 7-page review, but here we are.

The other option is that 1st Choice is absolutely unprepared to handle the logistical challenges of long-term moves unless they’re handled by a broker. Or maybe it’s something else. I’ll let you decide. If you made it this far, good for you! Now run, don’t walk, away from this company.