A guy I know just moved in down the street from me. He got his Chinese friend to phone the movers and ask for a price from A to B. They told him 2-3 thousand. He agreed.
They come to his house put the stuff on the blue truck…and take him to his new home and then ask for 15,000nt. I come outside to help with the translating…
They tell me 3,000 is for a small vehicle. I ask what’s smaller than a blue truck and he points to a van.
So you quote him 3,000 on the phone and then drive a different vehicle than the one you quoted?
He says all of his stuff wouldn’t have fitted into the van…uhh yeah…but how’d you know that if without coming and looking first?
And if you assumed someone moving houses couldn’t fit everything into the van then why quote the price for it?
Well, the short of it was that’s their scam. You phone them ask for a price…they say about 3,000…then later they jack up the price astronomically and make up excuses.
They argued for about 20-30min the movers lowered their price from 15k to 10k then 8k and finally settled for 5k because that’s all the guy had on him.
F*&kers…they wanted 15,000nt for an hour’s worth of work? You’d think with all the money they make they could afford to buy shoes…or toothpaste for that matter.
3,000 is about the price but I moved for 3,000 and had 3 trucks well 1 truck drove back to the house and picked up the remaining stuff … 1,000 per truck good deal …
that did that to me once… went from 5,000 on the phone to 20,000 once all stuff was on truck… guy would not reduce price despite telling him there was no way i was going to pay… demanded 5,000 just to leave… finally had to call cops, who impressed me by showing up on motorbike within a few minutes and settling it in a few more with us having to pay $1,000, not unfair considering they had carried all stuff downstairs. downside was they knew our new address but nothing ever came of it.
moral of story, don’t choose a random mover from elevator stairs etc, use someone you know or a big one like Wei Li. “tsui ma ma” has a list of good ones. truly sucked having to deal with that in middle of moving, they do it because they know they have you at a weak point, for one thing all my stuff was on truck and i was afraid they would just drive off with it. at the time–good ten years ago now–i moved a lot of the most valuable stuff back off the truck and onto pavement which didn’t seem to bother them.
Quoted me NT7,500 including a piano from Taipei to Jiayi. My gf was the one who made the call.
Wow! That’s cheap was my comment. Too good to be true. She said that they guy repeated it to her and it was final.
The guys came. Put all of our stuff on the truck not including the piano. Then told us it would be NT40,000. I told them to take all of our stuff off the fucking truck now and go to hell and they said that would cost us NT7,000.
I told my gf to call the police but she refused. In the end we ended up paying NT25,000. If only she had called the police.
It was incredible the way they lied right to our faces. They said that the guy on the phone was wrong and that he quoted the price without the cost of the piano. I told them that I head the conversation and the guy said that he is the boss and it doesn’t matter what he said.
Oh. I almost forgot to mention. One of the guys dropped the smallest piece of the piano (it’s a grand) and broke it. We didn’t notice until it was in Jiayi when it was too late.
Friend of mine got a low quote that was upped to 70k once the truck was loaded up. This was years ago and I can’t remember what happened except that it involved a baseball bat, a mover with a smashed ankle and windshield, and police. I remember that no 70k was ever paid and no charges were ever leveled against my somewhat volatile friend.
I think the cops are pretty unsympathetic towards dodgy movers.
Last time I moved (2 years back) we had 4 large trucks, and a smaller truck (still twice as big as the blue trucks). From around WuLai to AnKang (around Green Villa), including the moving of a piano. Cost 14k overall.
World-something movers, based in Taipei. They’re awesome. Refused to jack up the price, even though the Lao Ban mentioned he’d quoted too little. AND one of the guys who tugged the piano up the stairs threw his back out. Didn’t complain, just swallowed a box of pain killers… was kind of loopy the rest of the day.
[quote=“sandman”]Friend of mine got a low quote that was upped to 70k once the truck was loaded up. This was years ago and I can’t remember what happened except that it involved a baseball bat, a mover with a smashed ankle and windshield, and police. I remember that no 70k was ever paid and no charges were ever leveled against my somewhat volatile friend.
I think the cops are pretty unsympathetic towards dodgy movers.[/quote]
The thing to do if you do get caught with a moving company holding you hostage in front of your new house is to get ALL the neighbors out into the street. The more people are around, the less likely they are to be really awful. It doesn’t cure all the problems but it’s better than one or two against four.
That being said, I’ve always used Stephen the Mover (since he was around, anyway) and he’s well worth it.
well 1 truck drove back to the house and picked up the remaining stuff … 1,000 per truck good deal …
