Think Outside the Moving Box

Our moving crates may be blue to the naked eye, but the color you will see when you use them for your next office move is clear green.

Plastic crates are the truly economically and ecologically friendly solution for packing desk contents and files for a commercial moving project. You protect the environment and you protect your wallet. It’s a “win-win.” for customers.

So why should you move outside the moving box with crates? Here are five good reasons:

More Capacity- Each crate has more space (cubic footage) than a typical moving box. This means you use less crates than you would moving boxes. Many industry estimates put the savings at 20%-30%, depending on the size of the moving job.

Better Truck Utilization- Crates can be stacked in a more efficient manner. That allows for better usage of the capacity within a truck.

Lower Labor Costs- You can stack crates 4 high vs. 3 high for traditional moving boxes. This means movers make 25% less trips with crates than with boxes.

Lower Post Move Costs- You eliminate the disposal costs and post-move clean up of cardboard boxes.

Protect the Environment- And finally, since our crates are re-usable, you’re reducing cardboard usage and doing your small part to protect the planet.

Liberty currently has over 500 brand new plastic crates for rental. Please ask us for a cost analysis on crates vs. boxes for your next office moving project.

Beware of the Valuation Trap

Blog Post # 2

The Valuation Trap


If you are moving with a major van line and are taking the company's full value protection, ask your sales rep if you need to declare any items as "high-value inventory," and if so, what the threshold level for that is.

For example, when moving with United or Mayflower, the full value protection you are offered covers you on individual items up to $100 per pound, per item, to the dollar amount limit of the valuation you have selected. What this means is that if you have, let's say, a set of 6 crystal goblets that weigh 2 lbs. in total, but they cost you or they are worth $750 ($125 each) then in order for them to be covered in full by the company, you must declare the set of goblets as high-value. If you do not declare the goblets as high-value, then should they become damaged or lost, the company would only reimburse you 2 lbs. x $100 per lb., or $200 - and you would be out for the additional $550.

Another example of high-value inventory would be a high-end, digital camera that weighs 3 ounces, but cost you $800. If you declare it as high-value, you will be covered for damage or loss; if you do not, you would only be covered for 1 lb. (minimum) x $100 per lb., or $100 - and you would be out for the other $700 that the camera cost.

Several basic rules of thumb are applicable here:

1) You (obviously) must be able to substantiate what these items are worth, either will original purchase receipts, recent appraisals or by being able to substantiate the value of the items by the price of comparable and commercially available items.

2) If you are packing your own things, leave the boxes containing any items you wish to declare as high-value open so that the packers or movers can verify that these items are indeed being packed into a particular box or boxes and that they are not damaged.

3) Your best bet for peace of mind is to have the movers pack and unpack any things that you want to declare as high-value, so there is no question as to the condition and/or presence of these items or confusion about who is liable, should a damage or loss occur.

4) Here's the painful part of this (I say that because it will cost you additional money for you to protect yourself properly) - United and Mayflower base their full value protection options on a minimum $6.00 per lb. x shipment weight, minimum. The minimum recommended amount of full value protection on a 5,000 lbs. shipment is $30,000. That $30,000 covers items only up to and including $100 per lb. If you have, let's say, $7,500 worth of high-value items, then you need to add the $7,500 to the base minimum of $30,000 (for the $6.00 per lb x 5,000 lbs.) and cover yourself for $37,500. United and Mayflower do not offer odd amounts of full value protection. Under their rules if you want to cover yourself for $30,000 + $7,500 of high-value, you would have to take the next highest level offered, which is $40,000. If you take the minimum level of full value protection and then declare some items as high value, that later on become damaged or lost, then the van line will not pay you the full amount that you are requesting; they will say that you failed to value your shipment properly and will reduce your settlement for that reason.

Usually, unless your furniture is super-expensive, the standard minimum valuation for the carrier will cover most damage or loss. For example, using the $100 per lb. figure above, if your shipment contains a $6,000 Bombay Chest that weighs 85 lbs. - you do not have to declare the piece as "high-value," because 85 lbs. x $100 per lb. = $8,500, so the piece would be covered. However, if you had a designer, one-of-a-kind signed coffee table that weighs 45 lbs. and costs $6,000, you would need to declare it as high-value, because at $100 per lb. it would only be covered to $4,500 lbs.

Van line companies other than United and Mayflower may have other threshold levels for what is considered "high-value" and may put the value of normal household goods to be something other than $6.00 per lb, so you have to get a clear picture about all of this from the company you are using before the pack or move gets underway.

On a (sorry about all of this -it's a lot to digest and somewhat confusing) less complicated note - the literature given to customers by the large van line companies might contain a worksheet designed to help you figure out the value of your belongings. If your brochure did not have one, ask your sales rep if he/she has one, or knows where you can get one. Most of the major van line companies provide these worksheets for the customer and if the domestic division of the company doesn't have one, their international division certainly would. Your rep should be able to lay their hands on one for you in relatively short order.

Good luck with your move!

Scam # 1-The Loose Packing Trick

If you’re planning a long distance move out of NY, beware! There is a popular scam being perpetrated by unethical NY moving companies on interstate moves that we like to term “the loose packing trick”. It typically plays out like this:

You call an estimator in to give a quote on your move from NY to Florida. The estimator gives you a so-called “binding estimate” (guaranteed price) for 400 cubic feet at $3.50 per cubic foot, or $1,400.00. The cubic footage represents the amount of truck space your goods will take up. The inside of the truck used for pickup is marked off at the ceiling for each 100 cu. ft. of space used. You have a guaranteed price so you feel safe.

On moving day, preoccupied with all of the chaos of the move, the moving crew packs your shipment loosely and inefficiently in the nose (front) of the truck, thereby wasting a lot of space. As they get to the last tier or two of your load, they pack your goods tightly and efficiently. At first glance by you, it looks like they have done a great job in packing your shipment into the truck because you can’t see through to the nose of the truck. The illusion has been set.

After the shipment is fully loaded, the foreman or driver calls you downstairs to show you that the load actually occupied 650 cubic feet; not at the 400 cubic feet quoted in the original "binding estimate". The driver/foreman then tells you that the additional 250 cubic feet will be charged at $6.00 per, for an additional $1,500.00 above the original "bound" price. Your new price is $2,900.00.

Naturally, you would get angry and want to know why the estimate was off by more than 50% in volume - and why the additional cubic footage is priced higher than what was agreed upon. The driver/foreman will then indicate, "you must not have shown everything to the salesperson" or "the salesperson made a mistake" or some other bogus line. They will justify the higher cubic footage rate of $6.00 by telling you that the additional space your shipment took up will affect another shipment that was supposed to go on the truck with your shipment. Therefore, you have to pay extra for that.

It gets worse. If you get upset and instruct them to take your goods off of the truck and bring it back into the house, they will refuse. They will either demand that:

a) you pay a 4 hour minimum at whatever their hourly rate for the number of guys there and then bring it back in (not so likely) or
b) they will lock up the truck with your belongings in it and tell you it's going into storage until you pay up, then drive off (more likely)

All of what is going on in this possible scenario is highly illegal, but it happens every day in the NY moving landscape. If unethical movers were worried about breaking the laws, they wouldn't be scammers in the first place. Unfortunately, these types of NY movers are not worried about damaging their name and the long term reputation of their brand. Once the heat catches up to them they will simply declare bankruptcy, open up shop under a new name and start the cycle all over again.

The way to protect yourself against this scam is to insist that long distance moving estimates be done on a weight basis. Reputable NY moving companies affiliated with large van line operators (ie- United Van Lines) in the U.S. quote long distance moving on a weight basis. They do this because the shipment weight can’t be manipulated. It can easily be verified by weighing the shipment and re-weighing a
2nd time if necessary. This takes the loose packing trick out of the equation since your actual weight determines price, not space on the truck (which can be manipulated). It’s the only fair way to charge customers.

Committed to Improving Your NY Moving Smarts!