The questions worth asking a mover before you book

Before booking a mover, ask who actually shows up on the day, what license they hold, how the estimate was built, what happens if something breaks, and what would change the price. A company that answers all five plainly and in writing is one you can plan around. One that goes vague on any of them is telling you something.

Start with who is coming

Ask whether the people on the phone own the truck and employ the crew. It sounds like a strange question until you know how much of the moving industry is brokers: a company that takes your booking and sells the job on to whoever has a truck free that morning. You do not find out until a truck with a different name on it pulls up.

The tell is simple. If they cannot tell you whose truck it will be and where it is parked tonight, they are a broker. That is not always a disaster, but you are then trusting a company you have never spoken to, on the recommendation of one that has never seen your house.

Ask what license they hold, and check it

In New York, a company moving household goods within the state needs operating authority from the New York State Department of Transportation. A company crossing state lines registers with the federal Department of Transportation and carries a USDOT number. A mover should be able to give you the number without looking it up, and the name on the registration should match the name on the truck.

Look it up. Both databases are public and searchable by number. What you are checking is not whether the number exists but whether it belongs to the company you are talking to, because a borrowed number on a website is one of the older tricks in this trade.

Ask how the estimate was built

A number with nothing behind it is a guess, and a guess tends to grow. Ask what the estimate is based on. Around Albany the honest answer names three things: how much there is, how hard it is to get to, and when. The middle one decides most quotes here. A third-floor walk-up in Center Square with permit parking out front is a different job from a ranch in Colonie with a driveway, even with identical furniture.

Then ask what would make the final number different from the estimate. A good answer is a short list: more than was described, an access problem nobody mentioned, an elevator that was not reserved. If the answer is a shrug or a long paragraph, the estimate is not the price.

Ask, too, whether anyone is going to look at the house before the day. A walk-through, or at least a video call from room to room, is how a company finds the piano in the basement before it becomes a surprise.

Ask what happens when something breaks

Things break. Rarely, but they do, and how a company handles it is the whole difference between a bad hour and a bad month. The basic coverage that comes with every move is calculated by weight, and it pays very little on a broken television. Ask what the fuller option is, what it adds, and whether anything is excluded from it.

Ask how a claim gets filed and how long it takes to resolve. A company that has a process will describe it in a sentence. A company that has never thought about it will describe it in several.

The questions about the day itself

• What is the arrival window, and who calls whom if it slips?
• Is the deposit refundable, and what is the rule for changing the date?
• What do you need from me before you arrive: parking, a certificate of insurance for the building, a reserved elevator?
• What do you not move? Every company has a list, and it is better to hear it now than on the morning.
• How do you want to be paid, and when? A company that only takes cash on the day is worth a second look.
• What happens if a storm lands on the date? In this region that is not a hypothetical.

The things that should make you hang up

A quote with no walk-through, no video and no inventory. A deposit that is most of the total. No physical address anywhere on the website. A business name that differs between the website, the contract and the truck. Reviews that all arrived in the same month. None of these is proof of anything, and any two of them together is enough.

The people worth hiring answer every question above without being defensive, because they get asked them constantly and they like the customers who ask.

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