Viking Moving Services Inc

Highly disappointing, unethical & disrespectful - I would strongly recommend to others to look elsewhere for moving services after our horrible experience with Paul & Taran. The crew that packed & cleaned out our home left huge holes in walls, broke furniture, & left a significant amount of furniture & belongings behind. Taran (the supervisor) was informed by the lead for the crew & did nothing to pro active correct the issues - instead choosing to ignore it & be annoyed when we discovered it. Move in day was slightly better however even after personally speaking with the owner, Paul, about our experience, they knowingly delivered furniture broken beyond repair & simply said nothing. Picture frames were broken, scratches left in things. The owner Paul displayed severely unethical practices when he literally delivered an unusable desk to me & acknowledged to us that he was aware it was beyond repair. Yet chose to have his crew wrap it up & deliver it without a word. A pack of true Vikings would have done a better job.

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Viking moving and storage first moved me out of my first post college apartment around 8 years ago. Though I can't remember the specifics, I loved them enough to remember and call on them again when by husband and I bought our first home. We had a team of guys to move our stuff from a second floor apartment our new house in a neighboring town. They were awesome from start to finish, took great care of my things and used some great ingenuity to take apart and reassemble a very difficult bed. They also helped me get tons of stuff into hanging size boxes and didn't charge me extra despite going above and beyond (helping me pack AND letting me use the boxes without charging extra). My team was three guys who where all very professional and friendly. My stuff was unpacked in no time and my husband came home from work shocked that everything was perfect and in place in just a few hours time. And then we had the privilege of working with them again when I had some family members in town move and disperse furniture into my house. The first time was a large and VERY delicate china cabinet which they delivered NO charge as our house was practically on the way home for their truck. The second time was an antique farm table. They had to take the side door off to get it my house in and did a great job as it is very fragile, extremely heavy and had to be lifted by its tressel. And finally they dropped a piano off from a friend who used them to move across state. Too bad we're not moving soon, I wave at Viking whenever I see them driving around town. Great experience.

We were extremely disappointed with how our belongings were handled and the amount of damage that was sustained. After receiving estimates from 4 different moving companies we selected Viking based on a recommendation from our realtor and the price break they offered us for storage of our belongings (3 months free). We sold our duplex and were moving temporarily to an apartment before closing on our next home and planned to store roughly two-thirds of our belongings while in the apartment. A crew of 4 movers arrived promptly on the first morning. They were very friendly, though after a couple of hours it was clear that only two of the men were doing the majority of the work. The items for storage were packed well with blankets and plastic wrap. The temperature was very hot and we continued to provide the crew with ice water and had our central a/c running as cold as possible. We also got the crew breakfast and lunch and tipped generously at the end of the day (as we did for all 4 days) hoping they'd be happy to return the next day to move the rest of our belongings into the apartment. On the second day a crew of 3 men arrived and we were disappointed to see that the hardest working and most experienced man from the previous day was not there. At the start the crew appeared very tired. They carried our furniture out of the house without any moving blankets and rested items such as our wooden desk on the cement driveway en route to the truck. While I wasn't thrilled about this most of the items were being placed down on their feet, however, the desk hutch was left face side down on the driveway ultimately leading to multiple scratches on the surface. I was shocked to see this as I would expect a professional moving company to take more care with the placement of our furniture. My understanding from the initial consultation with Taran at Viking, though perhaps incorrect, was that our furniture would be wrapped in blankets for moving. However, we learned that furniture was only wrapped once inside the truck (we assume) and then unwrapped prior to moving to its destination leaving it vulnerable to damage. When we arrived at the apartment the move seemed to go downhill even further. One man had to stay with the truck the entire time so only two movers were bringing all of our things to our second story apartment. One of the movers came up with a dresser on a dolly completely unwrapped with a shoe rack and lamp directly on top. When he got into the apartment he dragged the shoe rack off the dresser causing a large scrape over the surface. When we looked over at him his response was to the effect of and quot;oh, that wasn't goodand quot;. The same mover banged an empty dolly into the wall causing a large chip in the corner of the wall. As it happened he simply said oops, and then kept on going. The list of damage from the first move was extensive: broken shoe rack, large scratch across the surface of an antique mahogany dresser, multiple scrapes to the surface of children's cabinets, scratches on a desk hutch, scrapes and dents on both of my daughter's dressers, dents in the walls. When the move was finished our TV was still sitting in the middle of the living room floor and we had to ask the movers to take it out of the of the box they packed it in. The head of the crew indicated that this should have been done when it was brought up and that it was clear the other two men were not interested in working (they were sitting on the truck at that point). Additionally, though our estimate had included the cost for bags to protect all of our mattresses and box springs, they were not used. Two mattresses were bagged and the ones that were not (a split king box spring, full size box spring and full size mattress) all ended up with small tares/holes on a corner which had been scraped along the ground when moved (one box spring had been covered in a sheet and there was a tare in the sheet as well as the box spring). I found this extremely frustrating as we had planned to pay for mattress bags, were told it was standard practice and were never given an explanation for why they had not been used. When they left for the day they didn't even bother to shut the doors they had propped open leaving the main apartment door propped open with a rock and two hallway doors tied open with bands. I contacted Taran at Viking who had come out for the original estimate and he sounded concerned and embarrassed at the amount of damage that had occurred and said that several of the mistakes were junior and should not have happened (eg stacking a shoe rack on top of an unwrapped dresser, not covering mattresses and box springs). He said that the weather had been extremely hot and the crew was tired. The head of the crew had said the same to us during the move indicating that two of the men were not very motivated to work. I agree that the weather was very hot however, Taran, knowing that as well as the amount of furniture and boxes we had to move should have sent a larger crew. The head of the crew at the end of the first move even said to us and quot;you had a crew of 3 including 2 gimpsand quot; (referring to leg injuries he and another one of the crew had) when he admitted the move had gone poorly. I give Viking credit for having a furniture repair man come out to fix most of the damage (nothing could be done for the shoe rack or mattresses and box springs). For the most part the items were restored (one dresser took 3 attempts and ultimately needed refinishing and we were without it for several days) however they will never be quite the same as products such as wood filler and stain pens were used in many cases. I told Taran that I was very concerned about our next move (taking our belongings from storage and the apartment to the new house) and that I had doubts about continuing to work with his company. He promised a different (top) crew for the next move and assured me that it would go more smoothly. I wish I had gone with my instincts as it still did not go properly. The crew was certainly a big improvement (6 men for the move out of storage and 5 men for the following move out of the apartment including the original driver) and the men were clearly more experienced, appeared much less winded and seemed to have a better attitude. Though we were disappointed to see one of the original crew return for the second day of the move into our new house. To Viking's credit, they billed us for 1 man less than was working for the storage portion of the move due to all the issues that arose from our original move. Unfortunately the outcome of this move was very similar to the first one with number of mistakes leading to damage to our property (both items moved and the home itself). During the move one of the movers gave me a handful of screws that had been in storage and had been separated from the furniture they had disassembled (which couldn't be identified). The most concerning to us of all though was the discovery that our custom made mahogany bed had been stored upside down on the finials (pointed ends of the headboard and foot board) causing them to all be misshapen. Again, Taran was apologetic about the damage and agreed to send someone to make some repairs. The repair work this time was extremely hasty and the quality was hit or miss. The finials were not properly fixed and were actually distorted further by the sanding work done to repair them and the stain used did not properly match the original. I discussed this with Taran but he was dismissive and made it clear that he was not willing to do any more to fix our furniture. Though I appreciate that Viking was mostly willing to try to repair the myriad of damage caused, the sheer number of errors and damage to our belongings as a result of this series of 4 moves was astounding. Prior to Viking we've worked with three other professional moving companies and never had anywhere near as much damage caused to our belongings. We would never use Viking again and have alerted our friends and neighbors as such.

They arrived on time, they were happy to do the job. definitely use them again

I chose them for a quote before I hire them because their rating online was impressive. I may use their services in future.

This company was great, would definitely recommend them and use them again. Right from the start they were very professional. They came to our apartment to do a walk through to put together an estimate rather than have you fill out a form where you are supposed to list how many boxes you might have - something I had no clue about! Their estimate was right on, and they gave us tips on how to keep costs down (ie moving lightweight but bulky items such as lampshades ourselves etc). They delivered all supplies we requested promptly and helped us to secure a permit for the street parking required for the move. On moving day they were on time and the 3 movers we had were great - they all worked very hard and fast, yet were careful. We did not have a single item that got broken or damaged. They were nice, professional, and fast, we couldn't have been more pleased. The hardwood floors had just been refinished in the house and when we let them know they were very careful to put down mats on the floors where possible and to move furniture carefully. Again, no damage whatsoever. We would highly recommend them based on our experience.