Graebel Van Lines

Usually, the kind of questions keeping me awake at night when I typically get movers to move my house from one coast to another would be «Would they do this on time without damaging my furniture?» /​«Do these guys know what they’re doing?» so and so forth. However, with these guys, it’s hilarious that I had to call them through the week to have my dedicated «onsite consultant» [ Yes they dedicate a guy who’d give you a quote for moving and he apparently never shows up ] call me back while I was turning down calls from half a dozen movers in the area. We shuffled through two of these «consultants» who didn’t turn up making it one of the simpler decisions I’ve had to make in sometime to not pursue them going ahead. I’m just glad that I wasn’t chasing them after I’d paid them to move my house !!!

You snooze, you loose. Now I understand why other Unilocalers gave this company such negative reviews. I used Graebel for 2 moves in Philly and they were excellent. Same for a move from Portland to Seattle. I guess the Seattle Graebel is much different.
I called on a Wednesday to request a quote and was told that I could probably get a move scheduled for the following Friday but I would first need to speak with Beau who does the estimating and he’s always «out in the field.» I was given his mobile in case he didn’t call me within the next day, which he didn’t. I called him, left a message. Never heard back. I called the office again because time is of the essence when you’re moving. The person I spoke to said that they never offer days for potential moves before making sure the customer has had an estimate. She said she would call Beau herself. Well, that was that. Never heard from them and I found other movers with over eighty 5 star reviews.
Graebel lost a good, loyal customer.

Graebel moved our family from Cincinnati to Seattle in August 2014.
Both ends if the move were disasters. The driver in Cincinnati did not shower or change his clothes for the 5 days they were at our house. He had ketchup and mustard stains all over his shirt. He had his phone playing music the entire move, even when he was speaking to me, making it impossible to understand what he was saying.
He destroyed our yard and a tree when pulling the truck into and out of our driveway.
The unloading in Seattle was even worse. The driver took 14 attempts and more than an hour to back up our steep driveway. Damaging our driveway in numerous areas. Graebel has yet to take responsibility for the damage.
While unpacking we discovered that thousands of dollars of our personal goods had been stolen. My entire collection of Denver Broncos memorabilia was stolen. Five plungers were stolen. Why someone would steal a plunger is beyond me.
Our entire collection of legos was in a million pieces despite assurances that it would be treated with kid gloves during packing.
We were put in contact with a Graebel VP who was just as incompetent as the drivers. She visited our house to view the damage and promised to follow-​up on the theft of our items. Never received feedback.

Moved to Seattle from NY a few weeks ago and our experience with Graebel was amazing. They took care of packing all our apt with great care and Martin (portland coordinator) was always in contact with us through email until we got our furniture/​boxes in our new apt. Everything arrived perfectly. Will definitely use them for our next move.

BUYER BEWARE! Possibly the rudest moving company ever! They illegally blocked the alley behind my building, when asked to leave they refused and were aggressive to the point I had to call the police! Given the above reviews it looks like hit or miss — I can tell you one thing if they disregard the community this way I can’t imagine they’d treat your furniture with care.

In stark contrast to the San Jose, CA location (which packed and moved my items from California to Washington), I am giving «props» to Graebel of Seattle. In reading the other reviews, I noticed most of the complaints were from the Graebel at the shipping origin, but somehow people are blaming the Seattle-​area location. I decided to write two separate reviews; one for my horrid experience with the Graebel of San Jose, CA, and one for the Seattle Graebel folks who showed empathy and really tried to rectify my situation as best they could.
I wish I could remember the name of the nice gentleman of Seattle Graebel who seemed both empathetic of my situation and fearful that I would blame him and his crew for everything that went wrong. He went WAY out of his way to remediate the issues caused by the other movers! He even offered to help me, on his own time, after-​hours! I didn’t have to take him up on his offer, though, because when his boss heard of my predicament, he asked for «all hands on deck» at the last minute, to help me the morning of my second move. Now THAT is GREAT customer service! They even called to check up on me a few days after the move to see if everything went okay.
Unfortunately, communication and process was certainly lacking for Graebel corporate — I had quite a few claims on the move-​in sheet that were never processed. None of the damages were «officially» resolved, even after six months! This had more to do with the San Jose, CA team and corporate headquarters, than it did the Seattle team, so I am not faulting them.
I was impressed with the professionalism, courtesy, efficiency and kindness of the Seattle Graebel team; I just wish the experience was more consistent between locations.
Thank you for trying to right such a grievous wrong, even though it wasn’t the result of anything your team did wrong. I’m sorry you have to ride the reputation coat-​tails of locations that don’t operate as well as you do.

Do not use Graebel!!! I had a terrible experience moving from TN to NE. We would have been overcharged on the initial quote if I had not found a mistake and brought it to their attention. We were also charged for services that were not provided such as crating for our glass table top. The packers did not pack our items well and many items were broken including our 50 inch TV, a hole in the bottom of our couch, broken vacuum, the top of our dining room table ripped from the base of the table, and our wedding sand vase that was smashed and is irreplaceable. The packers are supposed to write their names on the boxes for accountablity, but one of thh packers wrote her name on the tape so that when you rip the tape off, her information is no longer on the box. She was the one who packed the vase. There was miscommunication between the packers and movers, the truck got stuck on a hill to our house and we were delayed about an hour. The packers failed to tell them about the hill and the alternate road that we told them to use. A make-​shift box was made for our tv which obviously was not sufficient as the screen on our tv was shattered. The claims department was slow and unresponsive and I had to follow-​up on everything several times in order to move the process forward. We were paid out the bare minimum for the items that were damaged and were told that sentimental value of our wedding vase would not considered. WARNING: do not trust anyone to pack and move your valuables– especially Graebel! Lesson learned, but I will never use Graebel again!

This review is for Graebel’s in town moving. When we relocated from Texas to Seattle, my husband’s employer used Graebel relo. They were great, we had no issues.
A few years later when we needed to move in town my first call was to the Graebel in town moving team. It took several weeks for Beau Jess to come out to give me an estimate. He was very courteous and polite. But then it took a very long time for him to email me the estimate. I even had to call & email several times to remind him to send it to the estimate. Then his estimate was a $ 1000 more than other estimates. I tried to reach him to understand pricing and find out if there was room to negotiate. Again it took repeated tries to get him to return my calls. If you are in the customer service business you should return calls from customers.
Overall my impression is that Graebel doesn’t care about in town customers and they will charge the maximum price possible. I am sure they have lots of folks who used them for relo and think they will do a good job for in town moves as well. Well beware of their pricing and poor responsiveness.
I ended up going with On the Go Moving. They were great and came in about $ 1000 cheaper.

Customer service was horrible. Person wouldn’t provide any rates, or guidance as to the costs. Said that they would have to come out to our house to quote us, instead of a standard estimated hourly rate. Next appointment was 2 weeks out, then from there it would be another 2 weeks to have them move us.
Surprised how poor the experience was with their sales & customer support. This company is not well equipped to handle new customers, and ended up being a big waste of time.

They deserve zero stars. This was a Microsoft corporate relocation. The guy who came to give us an estimate in CA was late, and smelled like booze at 11am. After they packed our things, the driver paid the day labors in cash. They do not use liscenced insured employees. They told me to put our valuables in a carry on bag. I went upstairs and saw the mover sitting on my floor with the carry on bad unzipped going through our personal items! They made him sit in front of my house, and the other guys were so upset they did not place items in the rooms they belonged. The driver was shocked at how many boxes were missing when they were done. We paid $ 3000 to store our goods for a few months. At first they told me a crate was missing. I waited for the inventory of missing items, and now they say they lost one box. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! We are missing a lot of things, plus they damaged a lot of our furniture. They gave us a new baby wash cloths that were not ours. I tried to give them back, and they said throw them away. They said sometimes people who get the wrong stuff will give it back. I think it’s an inside job. I think the employees go through your boxes in the storage unit and throw out the stuff that is not of value to them.

Summary: Graebel really did a good job for us.
Recently, due to changes in our lives, Blushing Bride and I re-​evaluated our living conditions and decided to undertake a move to another area. One of the main sources of anxiety was the fear of being ripped off by moving companies — compounded by tales of horror from various web sites, the television show 60 Minutes, and other urban lore. With dozens of hours of research and considerable trepidation, I finally selected Graebel Van Lines as our moving company and crossed my fingers.
My first call to Graebel yielded an appointment with Beau — the guy who comes out, looks at your house and stuff, and gives an estimate. When the appointment date arrived, I was out of town on business, so Blushing Bride had to deal with the estimator. She told me that Beau was friendly, helpful, and provided good information. Before he left, Beau gave us a booklet that explained the process, who our contact points were, and what to expect — a guide that really helped us. Later the same evening, we received a quote via e-​mail and, when I returned from my trip, Beau was very patient with my follow-​up questions. We expanded the scope of «stuff to be moved» a bit, and Beau quickly responded with an updated quote that included these items. We gave Graebel a 20% deposit, and arranged a pick up date.
Before the pick up date, we received a call from our driver Gary, letting us know the time and date he would be arriving — the same as agreed upon with Beau above. True to his word, Gary showed up about 10 minutes early, along with two really nice guys that were going to load our stuff onto the truck. They protected our house with pads and walk strips and immediately got to work. I was amazed, but our stuff only occupied a small portion of the front half of the trailer, winding up looking like a Tetris game! Yes, we had about 8,000 pounds worth of stuff, but when it’s tightly packed, takes up a pretty small space. Before he left, Gary let us know his best estimate of when he would be arriving at our new home, and had us sign a load inventory sheet which would be used to keep track of what they moved.
Gary called again two days later and let us know his arrival date and time. True to his word, he was at the promised destination 30 minutes early, and his unload helper showed up right on time. The unload process was a reverse mirror of the load process (as you’d expect), with the same home protection (wall pads and floor protectors), and was accomplished quickly and efficiently. The driver and mover asked us occasionally where a particular box or piece of furniture should be deposited, and cranked through the unload and furniture re-​assembly process much faster than I could have done myself.
During the whole process, our move coordinator Elizabeth kept in constant contact, and really went the extra mile to make sure all of our questions were answered. After everything was finished, we signed paperwork (inventory, proof of delivery, etc.), and started on the process of unpacking boxes. Nothing in our move was lost or damaged, and the final price came in exactly as quoted. Selecting Graebel was a good and/​or lucky decision on our part — the entire experience was positive, with nothing unexpected or unplanned. The people we encountered were helpful and responsive, the quoted price was met, and nothing was lost or damaged. What more can you ask for?

Graebel moved my family’s things over a year ago. They damaged our property, and then tried to argue that they weren’t liable, and this is after we had taken out the no-​deductible issuance policy. In the end we had to go to arbitration. At every opportunity Graebel sought to delay the proceedings. They always took the maximum amount of time to reply to complaints, and even «forgot» to sign a form causing more delay. When the arbitrator ruled for us, Graebel forced further proceedings to try to lower the amount awarded, even though the terms of the arbitration agreement are very specific about which conditions might trigger such a reconsideration. Their request was flatly denied, but not before adding two more months of delay. They were given 45 days to make payment, and they have still not done so. I’ve now had to file an additional complaint to get them to comply with the order.
This mover clearly has not sense of ethics or service. They are a large corporation who seeks to roll over the consumer when they do wrong. Stay away… what ever you do, stay away!

They still suck but I thought I would let Steve from Graebel and anyone reading this that they actually lost the arbitration, but we have still yet to get paid. They delay and again live up the horrible experience that I have had with them. Horrible all around. stay away if you want your belongings to make it in one piece.

We moved from CA to WA a few months ago and Graebel moved our stuff. They seemed great at first, but then we got settled, got all our stuff, and found that a thousand dollars worth of bedding was missing. Also missing was a quilt that my husband’s grandmother had made.
We put our claim in, thinking at the very least we’d get reimbursed and could buy new bedding. We’d JUST bought the bedding that was lost and it was a treat for us. The heirloom quilt, obviously, was lost forever. (And thank you to the jerk who probably got this box and never returned it.)
Well, turns out we aren’t going to be reimbursed because when they dropped off the stuff we needed immediately at our temp corporate housing, we didn’t sign off on an itemized list. Um. We weren’t told to or given one. The guys pushed the drop off date up a couple days because they wanted to get back & finished all their deliveries before Christmas. So they shoved a piece of paper at us, said «sign this,» and off they went. We’d never done this before & assumed we could trust a professional organization to guide us through these details.

We coordinate our move from WA to CA using Graebel. The movers where nice, but some stuff got dented, and scratched. Since we stored our stuff it wasn’t covered. Also, I’m still waiting for a receipt 4 months later! Give me a break, they are all talk at first and very little follow up after the move with issues that came up. I wouldn’t use them again.

If I could give zero stars, I would.
Microsoft paid a shit-​ton of money to move me, my wife, and all of our stuff out to Seattle. Graebel screwed up nearly every step of the process:
– The people sent to pack out items were hours late, and rushed through things — they damaged tons and tons of our stuff (including throwing a wet shower curtain and soiled toilet brush in a cardboard box with all of my wife’s cosmetics and toiletries — disgusting), ignored instructions, and left without completing packing. They also didn’t note what items were in which box, which they’re supposed to do.
– The people who arrived to load the truck had to finish packing, which they claim happens all the time.
– When our stuff was delivered to our new place, they ignored our instructions on what to put where and rushed the job horribly
– Oh, and they stole all of my cameras.
Thankfully, MS managed to get them to cough up several thousand dollars to replace and fix all my damaged and stolen shit.
I surveyed other employees and Graebel is well known for damaging/​destroying priceless furniture. It would appear that, in the States anyway, their packing and delivery crews are always deliberately understaffed, and they fill in by hiring incompetent day laborers.

Overall: An excellent and faultless international mover
My word, Graebel don’t do things by halves — I would highly recommend them.
The Microsoft relocation package included moving all of our household goods from the UK to Issaquah, which was a relief. The organization of this company is amazing and they also have excellent customer service.
Graebel hired a company known as Michael Gerson for people in the UK. First they sent a guy around who did the estimation — we needed a twenty foot sea-​container. He was exceptionally helpful and was immensely accurate (yeah, I know he does that for a living).
The three packers/​movers arrived promptly in mid October 2006 at 07:00 in a small-​ish white van. Inside the van was all the packing equipment — rolls of tapes, various types of boxes, packing filler and carpet protector etc. They fitted carpet protector throughout the house and then proceeded to pack each and every room. Some pieces of furniture such as the bed/​futon etc were taken apart, others such as book cases were kept whole. They even had special boxes for bikes and mattresses. They wrote an itinerary and in total we had 127 boxes for the sea-​container and 2 largish boxes for the air shipment.
The sea-​container arrived on an articulated lorry at 12:00 and once again they efficiently packed it like a well fitted jigsaw puzzle. I thought I was a good packer, but these guys were spectacular. When they’d finished there was about 2 – 3 foot of space left at the end of the container. The sea-​container left our house at 15:00 and headed towards Southampton.
Throughout the process we were informed where our air/​sea shipment was and when it was going to arrive, how long it would take to get from Oakland to Seattle, how long it would take through customs and when they could unpack.
Our air shipment arrived two weeks after it was packed. It was all in the same condition as they had packed it.
We’ve no idea the route that the sea-​container took from Southampton to Oakland, but it took six weeks (I’d love to have put a tracking device on it to see where it went). It then took another 8 days for the train ride up to Seattle where it underwent a customs examination. We finally got all of our household goods back in our new house on the 22^nd December 2006.
The four Graebel unpackers arrived promptly at 10:30 and immediately put down carpet protectors. They then proceeded to move everything in, unpack, put back together the things that were in bits and placed things where we wanted. They also got rid of ALL of the packaging material. During the transit nothing was broken except the handle of one coffee mug. However on unpacking, a Chinese soup spoon and a glass broke — but that’s not bad going for 5000+ miles.
They definitely take the work out of packing and the stress of moving abroad to another level. I’ve no idea how much they cost — but I’m sure it was a fair amount. I’d definitely use them again for international moving, even if we had to pay.