Blackhawk Moving and Storage

Only getting one star because they showed up. As for the packing, well let’s just say they only packed what they felt like and left the rest for me and the guys loading the van. I didn’t have time to call and complain as I was moving across country. So here I am a year later after unpacking my things that have been sitting in storage. I can’t even get into the details of how awful this move was. Company paid relocation which usually isn’t this bad. I would never recommend this company to anyone you should just use 2 men and a truck it’s probably cheaper and better!

Blackhawk Moving (via United Van Lines) coordinated the pickup and delivery of everything from my 2 bedroom apartment during my recent move from Chicago to Los Angeles. Brian Weiner and Debra Copeland were extremely responsive to calls and emails and gave me confidence they could get the job done on time and at a good price from the first day I met Brian and got a quote. Debra was on top of all logistics and ensured everything arrived on time and in the same condition as at pickup. I definitely recommend Blackhawk for your next move!

I was looking for a «short-​haul» mover (Chicago to Indianapolis) that would be full service b/​c I am pregnant and with a toddler, and the less physical labor I did, the better. Blackhawk was recommended to me by Stevenson Transfer, who I had originally contacted and who was already booked for our move one month out.
The salesperson, Mark Dobrow, who came to our home to give us our estimate seemed very thorough and competent, and he told me everything I wanted to hear including «we are not done with the job until everything is where you want it in your new home and we’ve taken all the boxes». great, sign me up.
The salesperson LIED. He omitted unpacking services altogether from my quote and didn’t mention the omission to me. Granted, I could have noticed that the quote said unpacking of mattress boxes but didn’t state «all boxes» or something to that effect, but I have never booked a big move before and I guess you live and learn. I feel like the salesguy took total advantage of the fact that I didn’t know what to look for. He certainly knew he’d verbally sold me on the total package and then left it off of his estimate. I didn’t realize that we were up a creek with the unpacking until we were in our new home on move-​in day. Very very frustrating.
Other facets of the move — the packers from Blackhawk were great. They sent 5 guys the day before we left Chicago to pack up all of our belongings. They were done with our 3 bedroom place in about 5 hours and were all super courteous. We were impressed. Moving day, it was a totally new crew and one of the guys who was supposed to show up apparently had a sick day or something so we had only 3 guys instead of 4. It took them from 9 am until 7pm (!!!) to finish loading our things onto their truck. We don’t have that much stuff — these guys were moving slooooww. We still had to clean the place one last time and drive to Indy after the guys left. Super annoying. Move-​in day we had the same crew leader, who was a nice guy, and three new guys to move us into our new home. They worked quicker than the Chicago crew, but again they didn’t have to do all that much since they weren’t unpacking anything.
The condition of our belongings post-​move: My biggest complaint is that they didn’t wrap any of our upholstered furniture in clear plastic wrap, even though it says in Blackhawk’s marketing materials that they will. Because of that I am going through a claims process to try to get compensated for a chair that has dirt scuffs on the side, another chair where the upholstery itself is scuffed in multiple places, and a white shelf that has the paint scraped off of it at the top. Could have all been avoided if they’d used plastic wrap like they said they would.
Bottom line, we got here with all of our things, but Blackhawk’s salespeople are dishonest, and their movers, while nice enough guys, are slow and a little careless.

I paid Mayflower Moving, their moving «agent» Blackhawk Moving & Storage, and parent company Unigroupe Inc almost $ 5,000 to move my stuff from Chicago to North Carolina, and every part of the process was a wreck. DO NOT hire them, unless you hate yourself and your belongings. It’s been almost 2 months since the move, and I wanted to make sure that I waited some time before writing this review, so that it wouldn’t come across as too emotional.
What I was sold was an easy process by salesman Carl D. He told me that my stuff would be dealt with by reliable professionals who would get our goods from point A to point B in good order, and on time. I was led to believe that «the team» were all trained and competent, and was actually naïve enough to believe him.
What I GOT was a «bait and switch» feeling. The second the sales process ended and the actual performing of services started, we knew we had made a mistake.
I was actually LIED to by the 3^rd party moving coordinator Debra C. (Blackhawk Moving & Storage). Several times. The moving crew arrived to the pickup late, slacked on the job, lied on the furniture manifest and bill of lading (stating that literally ALL of my furniture was damaged in some way), and broke several pieces of furniture when they dropped it off. The drop off date was re-​scheduled twice, and even still — the final drop off occurred over a week past the re-​scheduled date. Because our stuff actually sat on a warehouse floor in Sycamore IL for 7 – 10 days longer than the outside drop off range of our contract, we lost out on professional opportunities and interviews in our new hometown. We were even more stressed out during the a major life transformation. We had to spend even more money on air mattresses, silverware and clothes so that we could actually start to live in the new house before any of our stuff arrived. Each time we tried to get an update so that we wouldn’t feel so helpless, customer service all but disappeared. Carl D never answered another email or voicemail. Debra C’s value to the entire experience was worthless. The end of every phone call with her left us with more questions and less concrete answers about where our belongings were, and how much longer they would take to arrive.
No matter who you hire, moving isn’t fun. I’ve moved almost every year for the last 20 years, and know first hand that the process is hard on the customer, and often even harder on the company’s employees doing the moving. However, this experience was by far THE ABSOLUTE WORST I have ever been a part of. The feeling of actually paying a company my hard earned money for an experience like the one we had is beyond sinking.

After getting 2 quotes for a 1BR move from Chicago to New York, decided to go with Blackhawk because a) they were slightly cheaper and b) got a better vibe from their salesman. They were extremely friendly, helpful, and flexible throughout the planning process, even though I changed the move dates and locations on them several times. Eventually I ended up cancelling the move because I found a furnished place to move into, but even then they were very courteous and polite. So, even though I can’t comment on their actual moving operations, I was very very impressed with their customer service, which is something that seems to be lacking in a lot of moving companies. Definitely worth calling them for a quote.

I chose Blackhawk Moving and Storage after three in-​home consultations from moving companies. The sales representative from Blackhawk was very friendly and followed-​up which was great and I chose the company based on his assurance that the company had great customer service. Their prices were much higher than the others but I wanted a stress-​free move.
The movers were great, but the administration of my move was an absolutely terrible experience. I was driving across country for a 10 day trip and planned to meet my belongings in California on our pre-​arranged delivery date. I received a call when I was in Nevada, days before the scheduled move date, that the mover was delivering my things the following morning! The move coordinator had not communicated my move date to the mover! This left me frantic to figure out the mess while I was trying to relax on vacation across the country.
As a resolution, my things had to be moved to a storage facility, then moved again to a truck and once more to my apartment on the correct date, leaving my items more vulnerable to being broken.
After that, the move coordinator calls to tell me there is an extra charge because they failed to check with my destination city to determine prices for street permits, even though the customer service rep said that his quote included those charges.
All in all the move was a headache and the company manager offered no restitution for the mistakes that had been made, simply stating that «they don’t make much money.» Then why are you priced so much higher than competitors?