Chipman Relocations

I have worked with Chipman Relocations TWICE now — I meant to give them a review the 1^st time (7 months ago) when they moved me out of my home for an addition project (would have also given 5 Stars then). They just moved me from my rental back into my home. As a realtor I rely on many professionals for my clients needs — I have recommended Chipman Relocations each time to my clients and they have all been happy. This time, as a client, I am happy to say on both moves each part of the process was handled with great professionalism — I even had one of the same movers each time and he remembered where many items were from when he moved me out! It is always helpful to have direct experience when you recommend a company and I will gladly continue to recommend Chipman Relocations to my clients and friends.

They are the worst moving company I ever encounter. Brad the salesman came out and gave me a estimate and a price and a date for the truck and movers to arrive. However on the date there was no truck or movers. Brad wasn’t answering his cell phone. I had to get the main office to find him. He was on vacation and hadn’t put the info in the book. So I was holding my thumbs no movers. They suck.
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Frankly, one star is too much praise for this horrible, horrible company! I hired Chipman to move all of my belongings from the Bay Area to a suburb of Los Angeles. The sales guy was so nice and reassuring. All seemed well, right? Wrong! He failed to tell me that once my whole life was picked up under the watchful eye of my mother, they would not be delivering my belongings right away. They took all of my things to their warehouse and stored them there for several days before making the delivery to L.A. Had I known that, I would gotten a Uhaul and moved the shit myself!
While in their warehouse, their staff damaged my love seat, broke my entertainment center and damaged a couple more items, as well. To add insult to injury, their staff stole some very expensive handbags of mine and costly home furnishings! I am livid! When I asked about the missing box, they were completely nonchalant about my missing items. I had to follow up with them on multiple occasions to ask if the box had been located. Of course it hadn’t because one of the thieves that they have on staff took it home to his girlfriend and gifted her with Gucci and Louis Vuitton for the first time ever!
I filed a claim for the damaged and missing items; do you know what they offered me? $ 72.00! Seventy-​two dollars, people! WTF am I supposed to do with that? I can’t even replace my entertainment center for 72 bucks! It’s insulting. They said they will not be reimbursing me for the missing «totes» because I should have inventoried all of my items when they were delivered. Really? Was I? I was supposed to unpack 100 boxes while the driver sat his dirty, sweaty ass in a chair, dripping sweat all over the place? Oh and know that once you hire Chipman, they don’t even make the damn delivery. My things arrived in like a Ryder truck with some dude that doesn’t even work for Chipman; they outsource SMH!
As a small business owner, I usually wouldn’t say this, but DO NOT hire this company. Do you want to take a chance on your personal belongings? That they may or may not arrive to your final destination? That someone may or may not steal things that you worked hard to buy or were given under memorable circumstances? I will NEVER chance that ever again. I suggest you don’t either. Not with these thieves!

Do not, under any circumstances, hire this business!!! They will steal your money and damage your belongings.
This company gave me a quote, but then upped it substantially AFTER picking up my belongings. Essentially, they hold your personal treasures hostage so they can demand whatever they want.
The packing job was done so poorly. Many items damaged, including artwork and musical instruments. The movers stole some items that «never made it in to any boxes.»
Then, after receiving my belongings, they charged my card for an additional amount which was unauthorized without my consent.
Do yourself a favor and hire another company.

I wish I could give this company a NO STAR review as it doesn’t deserve to have even one star. It has been a nightmare from beginning to today and it isn’t over yet.
July 3: Movers came with a small truck. I had asked for a direct ship; they said they were going to move the items to Hayward where they would be off-​loaded and stored until the truck could come and pick them up.
I contacted Chipman and complained that I did not get what the sales consultant and I agreed to. Mr. John Chipman’s response was that a direct send was not written in the contract; further he said the salesman told him something different. I then called the sales consultant who said yes, he did say it would be a direct send and that «95% of the time there is no problem». I insisted on a direct send… the sales consultant said he would contact dispatch and see when it could be arranged.
July 8: The driver was 90 minutes late and had one helper. His truck already had a partial load in the middle which was not walled off; rather it had straps holding the boxes and items together. I asked about that and the driver said that was how he did things and that nothing would be mixed together. The driver was supposed to bring two queen mattress cartons, one king mattress carton and two flat screen TV containers with special packing. (The sales consultant said that the fee for packing TVs was $ 300 as each required special packaging and handling to ensure they were not damaged.) The driver did not bring any of these items and they had to be brought to my house from Hayward, arriving in the middle of the afternoon. There was one TV box with no special packing. The driver simply put a moving blanket around the TVs and dropped both of them into one box.
The driver and his assistant rolled boxes up the ramp… boxes that were clearly labeled «fragile» and «this side up» were pushed into the truck, often on their side or upside down. Boxes that were labeled «HEAVY» were placed on top of boxes labeled «FRAGILE». The king mattress was improperly packed; the result was damage to one of the intake valves on the mattress which necessitated replacing that air chamber.
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The driver has a considerable amount of garbage, old packing boxes, papers, etc. on his truck which he unloaded in the driveway of the house. When he finally finished about 7:45 p.m., he said he had contacted dispatch and the pile of garbage in the driveway would be picked up the following day. In spite of repeated calls to the sales consultant and to the Chipman offices over the next two days, the debris remained. It cost me $ 100 to reimburse a neighbor who got a junk company to remove the debris and a fine of $ 300 from the HOA for blocking the street for three days. I sent Mr. Chipman the emails containing all the information and a request for reimbursement. I have not received any payment.
July 16: The driver was 2 hours late arriving to unload. Once again, boxes that were marked «fragile» and «this side up» were rolled down the truck ramp. Some were dropped in the process, causing damage to the contents. I told the helper to be careful of the «fragile boxes» and asked that he not roll them. I asked if he could see the «fragile» and «this side up» stickers; he said yes. I then said «What’s the point of marking them if you don’t treat them accordingly?» and his response was «I don’t know».
Nearly every box was damaged, punctured or broken. Items marked «heavy» were stacked on items marked «fragile». In spite of the driver’s assurance that the loads would not be mixed up, he gave me a box containing shoes that were not mine. Additionally, when I looked inside the box containing the TV sets, there were three shoes that did not belong to me. (I am at a loss to know how two little girl shoes and one adult shoe got into a supposed sealed box containing two television sets.)

A bed was incorrectly assembled and four bolts were missing. I pointed out the missing bolts and the driver said «I know». When he left, the bolts were still missing. I called him about three days later asking about the bolts… he said he had found them and would mail them to me. I have not yet received them.
This has been the worst possible move with a significant amount of unnecessary damage. Many of the broken items cannot be replaced. I am extremely unhappy with Chipman Relocation as a mover and with the response I have gotten from Mr. Chipman pursuant to the trash left in the driveway. The «catch 22» is you have to pay the moving bill before they will consider a claim. And this leaves me with no «leverage» against them. If you are planning a move, I would encourage you to look elsewhere as this company is not to be trusted.

My husband was dropping something off to there warehouse and one of the workers reached in his truck and stole his iPhone

Do not use this company… they were awful. Used Chipman through Mayflower for a move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Southern Louisiana. So the one star goes to the Mayflower Drivers as they were great though themselves appalled by the Chipman packers. They were late. We were supposed to have 3 packers, there were 2 and they forgot mattress boxes so one went back to get them and was gone for 3 hours so we had 1 packer for most of the day. Garbage cans were packed filled with trash, garment boxes which we paid extra for had breakable lamps in them with no protection and clothes thrown over them. A laptop was thrown in with breakable things all with no packing. Clothes were wrinkled and the aftermath of dealing with Chipman was ridiculous. Though Liz was nice, in the end after months we were offered a couple hundred bucks to cover our dry-cleaning…which didn’t begin to cover it. This is our first ever Unilocal review, just wanted to save someone else the pain. Don’t be fooled by the nice salesman like we were. Horrible.

Worked with United who partnered with Chipman. The men who can to deliver my furniture were great.
Delivery was supposed to come July 10^th. I reserved a loading dock and took a day off work (first week at a new job) to accommodate this date. I was notified at approximately 4/​5p that I would not be getting my stuff that day. And that was only after repeated calls to my United Coordinator. Cannot believe they weren’t going to tell me.
Stuff came — great. I paid for debris removal and have yet to get in touch with someone to schedule that. Have not even received a call back. My United coordinator apparently cannot reach them either. They will refund the cost — but I paid for the service for a reason. I didn’t want to lug 50 boxes downstairs.
Had I known I wouldn’t get the services I paid for, I would have started taking boxes down 4 days ago. Not happy!

Can’t say enough good about my recent move from the Bay Area to Southern Oregon with United Van Lines/​Chipman Relocations. Everyone I dealt with from scheduling my estimate with Brad through Doris to getting up to date info from Rena to Donnie & his moving crew was professional, friendly and courteous. I packed my own belongings so cannot speak to the packing part, but the movers were on time the day of my move and took very good care of my things. Delivery was a breeze, they reassembled everything and not a scratch to be seen. I would recommend these folks every time. Thank you, thank you for making this move so easy :)

Very impressed the Chipman crew. The estimator /​sales guy (Brad K.) was professional and did a good job estimating the work for our 3 bedroom apartment move from Berkeley to Dallas.
The packing crew was also outstanding. I have had very mixed experiences with movers in the past, but these guys were true professionals. They showed up exactly on time and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they sent 5 crew members, whereas other companies said they would only send 2 – 3. They were all very polite, efficient, and did an exceptionally careful job of packing our household items. Hopefully the unloading crew is just as good. A+ rating for Chipman.

My company recently moved me from NY to SF. The logistics of a move are never fun, even when someone else is fronting the bill.
It’s been awhile since I wrote a review but the guys that moved my boxes into the SF apt were wonderful. And I feel awful for not tipping them (is there a new way to tip besides cash??). Three movers came in to the small 2 bedroom apartment in downtown SF, they were efficient, concerned with the hardwood floors, etc, and overall just nice. They didn’t just dump my boxes, they made sure that they were where I wanted them to be, and even opened them up for me. Granted, I didn’t take them up on any of those offers, but the gesture was well appreciated.
The main guy was in contact with me from when they left to when they were downstairs at the loading dock. I liked that constant communication.
–1 star for giving me a 2 hour estimate but showing up over 1.5 hours later. He called to tell me the new estimate, but I was still informed at the END of the 2 hour time window.

Do NOT use this company, unless you enjoy an unethical shady moving company. This company engages in the classic shell-​game, contracting out from Mayflower and also contracting other agents if your belongings don’t fit in a huge truck. The reason why they often insist on «we will have an agent contact you», is so THEN THEY HAVE NO PAPER TRAIL FOR YOU TO USE, should they go back on their deal. WHICH, BEWARE, THEY MOST LIKELY WILL! I was initially told (verbally) that my belongings would arrive at their destination «Most likely the next week». I was rushed into signing the contract by the reps non-​stop talking and rushed attitude. I later saw that in VERY fine print that it actually was going to take up to 21 days to move my small amount of things only 500 miles! What the ??? Then the agent who verbally told me «next week» misquoted me, to cover his ass, once I emailed him and cc’ed the office. Every interaction with these people had them being vague and wanting «someone will call you» to be their modus operandi. If you choose to use ANY company associated with Mayflower Moving, please be aware you most likely will NEVER be able to pin them down on a date. I should have known better; when I was a child my parents used Mayflower, and it was a disaster. Back then, the truck had a mishap in the Rocky Mountains, and most of the belongings were strewn all over the mountain, some sustaining damage. AGAIN, STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE, if you value your belongings and any kind of respectful treatment!

We hired Chipman for our recent move from the Bay Area to Portland and are very happy with the services they provided. To be honest, a lot of the reviews on Unilocal made me very nervous about our decision, but we proceeded.
1) I took off one star because getting our quote could have been speedier. Our initial consult appointment was canceled at the last minute, so we ended up doing a personal inventory. That process made me very weary, since it seemed it would be impossible for them to determine the weight of our items without actually seeing them in person. In the end, it all worked out but it is something to be aware of.
2) Rena is a sweetheart. We enjoyed our phone interactions with her. She was always quick to respond to our voice mails and helped us on the morning of our move by arranging a last minute TV box. (If you can, box it yourself. It’s an extra $ 160, which we knew well ahead of time, but couldn’t find a box that would fit in our car at the last minute).
3) Vince and Ben, our movers, were awesome. They were a bit late on moving day, but they had let us know as soon as they could that they would be late. They were extremely careful with our belongings and took a thorough inventory. To our surprise, we learned that they would also be delivering the items to our new home.
4) They had given us a pretty long window of time for delivery, which again, made me nervous. My worrying was unnecessary, as our items were delivered five days after pick up. Perfect! **I think we got lucky with this quick turnaround, so don’t expect it, but we were pleasantly surprised**
5) Price. We compared prices between different moving companies (with some being double the price of Chipman) and POD do-​it-​yourself moves. Chipman was about $ 1000 more than the price of a large POD, but with the labor, it seems incredibly reasonable.
If we needed to, we would use Chipman again (requesting Vince and Ben) and recommend them to friends.

We moved from San Francisco to Portland with very short notice — 10 days! Chipman Relocations was able to work with our crazy schedule. Mike and Rena were very helpful and answered all of our questions promptly. The three gentlemen who showed up to move our stuff was really nice and courteous. As we hadn’t found a new home in Portland, Chipman stored our stuff for two months. When we closed on our home, we scheduled the delivery easily. Pam and Billy were lovely and took great care with our freshly painted interior walls. We’ve had a few issues with the septic system and they were careful not to track any of the mud into the house — something I have trouble doing. I would definitely use Chipman again if we were back in San Francisco.

Ug. Where to begin. Avoiding them is the best place to start!
I picked Chipman for my cross country move since they are a United carrier and I had a good experience with United in the past. They seemed flexible as well, and would provide me with a personal move coordinator.
However, despite my efforts to tell the move coordinator we needed many packers and picture frame boxes, they ignored me and sent too few packers and too few boxes. The result? A hurried job so they packers could get done by 5 pm and several frames loosely wrapped and shoved in a single large box. Glass cracked and scratched, frames dented, Polk speaker shattered, mahogany ukulele cracked.
Very limited coordination before the move– I had to call to see what time they were showing up! The coordinator forgot to order packers for the second day, so after much negotiation, the driver agreed to crate an antique mirror and 2 mattress sets.
Multiple items were damaged during the move, over a thousand dollars worth of damaged and lost items. Chipman refused to cover them all, despite my «full value insurance.» It took them over a month to file the claim, and although they promised the tiems would be repaired, they did not follow through on that.
Also, be aware that you have to keep all boxes from the move that held damaged items until they do their damage inspection (for us, this covered a queen size bed, halfway to the ceiling) and you can only file one claim so you had better find all the damage before you file. Keeping the boxes rushes you to unpack and find all damage so that you can get the boxes out of your space. I found the crack on the $ 1000 ukulele the day after I filed the claim and Chipman refused to consider it. Chipman also refused to pay for items that were not boxed (such as a broom) because we did not note any open boxes on arrival. Well if the items were never in a box, then that is not the issue. Also, the claims adjustor, Sharon Pell, was slow to communicate, showed no flexibility or understanding for the situation, and was rude in how she addressed me repeatedly.
You have other options so I would suggest using them! Unless you want to play Russian Roulette with your belongings. That is one way to reduce…

I was referred to Chipman through Mayflower and what a disaster. We were moving from CA to UT.
Mayflower booked the agent to come around to our condo and do an assessment a the following week. My husband and I moved work meetings to be home late morning as that is the only time the agent could come — let just say we have jobs where our time is expensive and we cant afford to be jacked around. We put the dogs in boarding so they wouldn’t bark incessantly, the agent blew off the appointment and gave us a lame arse excuse about ‘booking conflict’. Bullsh! t.
He then called me the day after and asked me to send him a comprehensive list of the contents of our condo via email so he could issue us a written quote. By this time I’m stressing as the next day we were going overseas and this «should» have been sorted out already — over a week later, I get an email from the agent asking me to call him to discuss the quote (aka — he hadn’t done sh! t with the info I sent him) and as I was still overseas I emailed asking him to just send me the #(&ing written quote.
No response for another 4 days. So I called Mayflower and told them this company was a joke. Mayflower were just as indifferent as Chipman so I was totally done with both of them. I emailed the agent to let him know we weren’t happy — no response from him either. No surprises. The guy obviously doesnt give a crap about his job.
Thanks for wasting over 2 weeks of my time on a job they indicated would be in the $ 4500-​$ 5000 range. Your loss.
I called North Star Moving — had a realllly nice conversation with Lynn there, got a quote within 10 MINUTES and locked down a move date and a much cheaper quote right away. All up — it took North Star 20 minutes (and quoted $ 1500 less) than what stupid Chipman couldn’t do in over 2 week.
Avoid Chipman. Just a hot mess who cant give a rats about your move.

Worst experience ever! Paid $ 150 over quote, they showed up almost 7 hours late, broke my items without telling me and left a coat closet full. No discount and no return phone call!
They also go by the name AmWest Moving Systems. (1551 Buena Vista Ave in Alameda)
I called and got Richard Lee who came to my house to do an estimate. For a 2 br/​2ba apartment they charged $ 650. So far so good. Richard assured me that I would pay the flat rate of $ 650 and «not a penny more». I had to give them a non-​refundable $ 100 deposit on the spot and then pay $ 550 at the move.
So the day of the move comes, they said to expect them between 12 and 2:00pm. At 2:00pm they called me to tell me they were running late, now expect them at 4pm. At 4pm, they called again and said to expect them at 6pm. They showed up at 6:45pm. They never offered any kind of discount or explanation for being almost 7 hours late.
When they arrive, they tell me that they cannot fit their truck in the driveway so they have to park it out on the street. Since the location of the truck was now more than 75′ from my apartment, they had to add a distance fee. This was infuriating because Richard was at my house and saw the driveway, why didn’t he realize the truck wouldn’t fit then?
Apparently this was their 3^rd job of the day and they were exhausted and made us feel like they were doing us a big favor. They finally finished at midnight. I had already been up from the night before to make sure everything was packed and ready for them at noon so I was too exhausted to argue with them. Richard said the distance fee added an additional $ 280 to the price but they were going to give us a «break» and only charge us $ 150. So I paid $ 800 for this company to move me 7 hours behind schedule and $ 150 over budget!
Lastly, they broke an $ 80 planter and didn’t mention it once, they just threw the pieces in our trash. They also left our entire coat closet unpacked so we had to go back with a pick up truck and get the rest of our stuff ourselves. Since the move, I have tried to call Richard every day for 5 days straight without one return call. Everyday I left him a voicemail and the last 3 days left the company a voicemail. Never heard from anyone!
This was a terrible experience that added to the stress of moving. I feel bad giving a bad review because I actually think Richard is a nice guy and the movers did their job. But 7 hours late and no discount for my troubles, not cool. Save yourself the headache and use ANYONE ELSE!

I have used Chipman Relocations twice now — once when we moved from San Francisco to London and then 6 years later when we moved back. Both times my point of contact was Laura Saldal and I really loved working with her: she knows great customer service and was always super-​responsive to all my emails and phone calls… and believe me, I can get quite annoying!
I don’t want to tell long stories here, but for your next (international) move, make sure you talk to Laura at Chipman… she’ll take care of you! Just tell her that Uli sent you ;-)

I give them one star because I am forced to. Do not, under any circumstances hire this company!!!
They lost and damaged my belongings. The claims people are disgusting, and that is nicely stated.
The packers did not finish packing. Even though they were tipped generously, they called the loaders and told them they were not tipped. After staying up all night finishing what we paid them to do, we were faced the next morning with a loading crew that was pissed and thought we did not tip… seriously. We did not find this out until they told us after we tipped them — an unbelievable conversation.
Moreover, they did not bring packing material or have any inclination to help pack what the prior team failed to do the night before. After three holes in the wall and damaged furniture, they finally agreed the door needed removal — the first thing I told them needed to happen when they arrived — in order to get everything out.
Once items made it out, we later discovered, they piled all of my stuff on the sidewalk next to the truck and left it unattended… in the middle of San Francisco!
They loaded items into storage that were supposed to go with us and items out of storage that were supposed to go into storage. For example, I had over a year with NO SHOES because, well, the designated shoe box was in storage and they could not retrieve it. The best part of this is that their inventory never reflected these errors, thus there is no valid inventory.
Then after alerting them to these issues, when we returned, they sent the same crew. Who again, unloaded my belongings on the sidewalk and left it unattended in San Francisco.
It was clear the day of the move that we had damaged items from the move and storage. It was also clear that we were missing boxes and items that Chipman was responsible for packing, storing and moving. Poof GONE!!!
The claims department is unbelievable. My move was in December. It is May and I do not have anything, including kitchen supplies to cook a proper meal, among other issues associated with the damages and losses. I have had minimal contact with the claims woman who stated that «it is her job to be nice to me until all the facts are in.» Wow, I am a litigator and still taken back. That is saying a lot!
It is a shame because the staff at Chipman was much more reasonable to deal with — Stan, Sheryl, and Pat. They are not perfect, but are kind and more customer-​oriented than the devil’s den that insures them. You are only as good as the people you work with — way to set the bar really low.
The bottom line, shit happens and that is why you are fully insured. That said, they have no interest in honoring a valid claim. Games from day one and absolutely unprofessional to that end. Therefore, I would stay far far far away from them.
I will let you know the outcome, but expect to have to fight the matter one way or another — completely unnecessary.

I’ve got two comments to keep it simple:
1. Chipman will fight tooth and nail to not pay out any insurance claims for damaged items.
2. Without any confidence in their insurance claim process, DO NOT USE THEM! I had 3 items damaged and they ended up repairing 1 (and it wasn’t a good repair job).