Alpha Moving and Storage

I would rate Alpha Moving & Storage a B and not an A because 1) the cost was ~ 20% higher than the original estimate and 2) the length of time it took me to receive my goods was longer than originally estimated. I received conflicting communications from company representatives at to when I would receive my goods. I was promised return phone calls which I never received. The pickup and delivery representatives were excellent. Scheduling and estimating could have been better.

Someone had recommended them to me. I check them on Angie's List & someone mentioned that the final price was higher than what was quoted on the phone. I mentioned that when I talked to them & they offered to come out & look at my home to give me a more accurate estimate. This was really good because I didn't know what would factor into the price. My sister was in town for the move & she really knows about moving. She thought they were fantastic - She noticed that they were paying attention to my items & making sure they were packed correctly. They were also really quick about it. For the stuff they packed on the day of the move they provided the boxes, including wardrobe boxes. When we got to the destination, my sister took out her measuring tape to made sure all the furniture was centered & they were really great about moving anything when asked. The foreman even started noticing when something was off-center before she did! The people I talked to on the phone initially were great. Everything was just great - The price was great for what I got. I've had to do corporate moves in the past & they were just as good as the bigger companies. I would use them again if I was in the area. They were very detail oriented & even remembered to bring freshly cleaned padding, a clean truck & runners to make sure they didn't soil my carpet - all on my request. They really paid attention to what I needed. They were polite, professional, & courteous.

They were punctual when they moved my stuff. They took good care of it. They put the stuff back in the new apartment where it should go. The boxes were not piled up in the living room; they were put in the respective rooms. They were polite. It was slightly over my budget; I was looking to spend between $7-800. They put all the big pieces where they should have gone. They removed some big things that the previous tenants should have moved, such as a shelf and a microwave. It was a good experience. It was expensive. They came 15 minutes early.

I was skeptical of the reviews, however, a friend did recommend them. I had them come in for an estimate - and they were one of the most reasonable quotes. Their estimates (in terms of number of men, time) were on par with others. I did like the fact that they offered me a ceiling - meaning that it would not go over 15% of their stated price. No one else was willing to do that. I spoke to the sales manager, and told her I had concerns that I had read about, and she assured me they would take care of it. They showed up on time, were very efficient and professional. They finished the job in an hour less than estimated. Everything was moved without any issues. I did have a small tear on the sofa, and some scratches on the furniture, so I would advise you to make sure corners are not getting missed in the packing. But overall, I was extremely happy with the move, and would highly recommend them.

Alpha Moving & Storage were very nice people and they were courteous.

As I said, it went great. My only suggestion is that the consumer should plan the move in better than we did, in fact, they did help us with organization for the move in. All my wife and I did was watch. Major do: start packing early and label and record every box, it helps the movers and eventually you. Second, don't underestimate the amount of work in moving...last minute packing is really difficult.

I called Alpha about two weeks before my move and received an estimate over the phone based on a minimum of 4 hours of labor + 1 hour driving (mid-month, mid-week move). Everything was promptly confirmed via email. On the day of the move, the 3-man moving team showed up on time (I actually think they showed up early) and started moving my belongings right away. They were very efficient in disassembling and wrapping up my large furniture pieces. They also helped with packing a few remaining items such as TV, etc. We arrived at the new apartment about an hour later. Unpacking was a breeze, and the team helped me rebuild some of my furniture such as my bed. The final cost came in very close to the estimate, and I was also charged a bit additional because the movers had to use some of their own tape during the packing (I thought I had plenty of tape already, but I definitely underestimated!) Everything was very quick and easy, and I would definitely use Alpha if I need to move again in the future.

We used Alpha Moving to move our Glen Ridge home to a new home in Middletown. It was a unique situation as we had to be out of our house on a Thursday and could not move into our new house until that Friday. In the beginning of June, we had Andrew come and give us a quote. We were specifically using Alpha due to a groupon we found online. He quoted us $1300 after doing a walk through of our home. I thought that was low due to the fact that we lived in a 2000 square foot home. Because it was raining, we did not go in the garage but I specifically told him 8-10 boxes in garage in addition to lawn furniture. We scheduled our move out for 6/29 and our move in for 6/30. The quote was $1300 including a $150 charge for storing our things overnight in a truck. About a week before our move, we found out that the woman buying our home needed to do the walk through by noon that day as our close was at 1pm. I called Alpha and told them it was a time sensitive situation and could they be there at 7am instead of 8am as originally scheduled? I was told no problem. Moving day arrives and they do not arrive at 7 as promised...7:40. When I speak to Umberto about the time sensitive situation, his response was "well we were coming from Jersey City...". I tell him they now have 4 hours to get everything out and in the truck. About halfway through the move, we find out that Andrew grossly underestimated the items in our house and that not only will our price be higher but they will need another truck!! It is now noon and the new owner is there ready to do the walk through. Luckily she was understanding because they weren't close to done. When I call to talk to Tomas, the whole situation is basically blamed on me. That I was apparently "hiding" things in the garage and I didn't tell him we had patio furniture though it was clearly visible from where we sat for 30 minutes going over the quote. We have to wait an additional two hours for another truck to come. While I am on the phone with Tomas, I tell him that our closing on our new home has been delayed and could the truck possibly come tomorrow after 12pm. You would think that this had never been requested as he gave me a hard time and while I realize it was last minute, they have to have some flexibility. Apparently not. They are finally done at 4pm and what was quoted to us for an entire move is actually one day of moving. I arrange with the seller of our new home (though it was not a friendly sale) that we are able to move our stuff in at 9am as originally scheduled as our closing is at 8am. They arrive promptly at 9am and within minutes, I am getting calls at our closing that they need to be paid before they start moving things in. My Stepfather is there and we are one hour away at a very tense closing. I tell them to use the credit card information I gave them the day before but he says he needs me to sign a release. They refuse to start until they have a credit card (even though they still had info from yesterday). Because my Stepfather does not have a credit card, I arrange for my mother to leave work in Freehold and drive to Middletown to give them a credit card so they can start moving things in. Meanwhile, I am spending more time on the phone trying to arrange payment on a card they already have rather than actually closing on the house. Final total = $2700. Twice the estimate of $1300 including $300 for an extra truck. I did tip moving guys as it was 100 degrees that day and they went as fast as they could but if I had to do it all over again, I would not use Alpha Moving simply for the fact that every problem seemed to be blamed on the customer rather than trying to be resolved. What was already a stressful move became a nightmare.

The movers arrived exactly on time. They had everything done at the first location within an hour, with all the furniture carefully wrapped. They arrived at the first detination in good time and had everthing in place within 45 minutes. The two remaining drop offs went very smoothly. All the work was done in the alloted time. The guys were courteous and efficient. They solved all problems easily. I'd use them again.

Alpha Moving is by far the best!!! I have moved 3 times and have had horrible experiences. I spoke with Heather and she assured me that everything would be okay with her company. She sent a guy to provide me an estimate within a few days of speaking with her. They were very honest with their quote and we discussed the breakdown of where most of the charges were coming from. My budget was very tight at the time and Heather worked with me to figure out how to decrease the cost. The moving team arrived on time (actually early). They were fast, professional, and extremely nice! This has never happened to me before. I truly appreciated Alpha Moving helping make a hectic day go very smooth!! I would highly recommend them to anyone I know.

They were professional and polite. They did everything quickly and made sure they handled our items with care.

An estimator came to the house and gave an estimate for the move of $1012 based on 1 van 4 men and 6.5 hours with one hour travel time. He wanted a deposit so I wrote a check for $150. On the day of the move the movers called to say their van broke down and they would be late. They were about 2 hours late. When they arrived it appeared to me that the men did not know what to do. There was alot of standing around. I told the head mover that since I was paying by the hour I would pay for experienced movers not movers who were standing around. At lunch time another truck appeared with a replacement for one of the workers that had been standing around. The move took 9 hours plus 1 hour travel time but they only charged us for 8 hours plus 1 hour travel time because my husband had to leave work to meet them at our new home and he was not happy that they were initially 2 hours late and then took longer than the estimate so they arrived at our new home 4 and 1/2 hours late. The reason it took so much longer was they spent way too much time packing our furnishings. For example, We had a CD tower filled with CDs. Instead of shrink wrapping the entire carousel, they wrapped each individual CD. I had 3 file cabinets. Prior to this I have had them moved 3 times, I never emptied all the files out. This time these movers told me they would not move the files if I did not remove all files and put them in a box. Another example is they wrapped each dining room chair in padding. All the legs and arms were wrapped separately and taped. This is probably necessary for expensive furniture but totally too much time and supplies for our dining room chairs. Well, of course their was no damage done to any of our furnishings with this level of packing.But we paid for it because it took longer and took more packing supplies which we paid for too. And then when they presented the bill at the end. They did not credit out the deposit. My husband did not notice this at the time. I noticed it days later and had to call and request it.

It went very well, they arrived early, were very professional, took good care of all my furniture, helped pack the last few items. They were early bringing my possessions from storage to my new home, the truck was unpacked quickly and carefully, it all went very well.

I had booked the service for moving on 09/03. Got a visual estimate from someone who estimated 4.5 hrs + 0.5 hrs travel time for a 1 bedroom apt. The sales guy told me it should take less than that (around 3.5 hrs labor + 0.5 hr travel time) since its a 1 bedroom apt. Their minimum was supposed to be 4.5 hrs labor, but the sales guy gave me a written contract for minimum of 3.5 hrs labor. On the day of the move, the movers were supposed to arrive at 9 AM. But guess what they dint! I got a call from their dispatcher who said their truck broke down and so they cannot arrive on time. Dont know if that is a legitimate reason since it seems to be a very common excuse. Just to strenghen my judgement on this being not possible, the company is located in Jersey City and I was moving locally within Jersey City. What are the chances that a truck travelling from Jersey City to Jersey City would break down in the middle. I walked over to a neighbouring building and saw a truck of the same moving company doing the move for someone. Asked them if there was any truck being disabled and asked them why it was taking so long for them to come, they said its a busy day. So, if it really dint break down, then they were just juggling their trucks i guess, delaying the moves which costs less for later. (This can be a case of discrimination i would say). I called the dispatcher many times and they put me on a loooong on purpose hold to avoid speaking to me. Finally, the truck arrived after a grueling 4.5 hrs wait time. They sent someone who had done 1 move earlier. The workers look tired. The foreman was rude and unprofessional. They didnt even have the sense to park the truck correctly in the loading bay and took a long time to load the boxes since had to go around outside to the truck which was parked far away. They took around 4 hrs to load the truck. Just whiling away time. At the destination i just told them dump the boxes in my garage so that it would take lesser time. They also broke one of my bookcases, i dint care to even ask for the basic valuation for it since i just wanted to get done with it and dint want to deal with them.

Excellent. Professional, courteous and friendly. The secretary I talked to at Alpha had all the patience in the world.The guy that came to do the appraisal was wonderful. The Hungarian-Rumanian crew, lead by Thomas, was first rate: fast and they really knew what they were doing and they did it well. Everything went really smoothly. So much so that I called my friend that was moving 2 days later and told her to cancel her appointment with another company and use this one. She had the same experience I had. As to the budget; I bought a $200 insurance from them and tipped them 20% of the working rate and the boxes I bought in U-Haul were not enough and they put their own which are like 4 times more expensive than those I bought. All together, it came to around $2,000 or some $700 more than the original budget (which did not include insurance, which was optional or extra boxes and they had to work more hours than expected and also did not include the tip). Considering that all my books (which are in the thousand) were already boxed, the move was expensive but they did a first rate job. So far (as I said, I'm still unpacking) only a black ceramic (expensive) jar is broken beyond repair. My friend also got one ceramic object broken. That is a pittance compared to what was moved and the amount of fragile objects that were moved intact. When I am done unpacking I will claim whatever is broken (hopefully there will be no more things that are beyond repair) and I will contact them (so will my friend) and see if the insurance we bought from them really works. It is an insurance that reimburses replacement value up to (I think) $20,000. My black ceramic pot is irreplaceable but at least has a value. So does my friend's. We'll see what happens.

the goal to get the items from A to B safely and completely was accomplished. However, the professionalism and responsiveness decreased after the items were loaded on the truck. I have yet to receive a call back to discuss a minor discrepancy on the deposit (charged to my card) and was greeted by the drop off crew with "we want our money now, we dont unload until we get paid" statement. Also, I was told that using cubic feet as a means to determine the shipment's weight would be more beneficial than weighing at station. But I guess I'll never know.

The were excellent and I would say they are the best moving company ever!!

The estimate was based on $.43 per pound with an estimate of 5100 pounds. I was told that I was to pay one half of the estimate (total $3536.44. $1784.00 half) at pick up on 9/26, then the truck would be weighed and the balance would be adjusted to match the actual weight, instead after the truck was loaded, I was told they cleaned the final charge to be based on cubic feet of volume, costing an additional $247.00. I don't know why this was changed after packing. I was told by Danny that the same team of 5, 4 workers and leader would unpack in Florida. Instead only 2 different workers unpacked in Florida. Although the packing seemed to be carefully done in NJ and furniture taken out tied in quilts, when arrived in Florida, most furniture was taken out of truck uncovered. A valuable dining room table as well as valuable china piece and other items were broken.

They were okay. They did a good job. The estimate they give you does not include the materials that they use, so it was like an extra five hundred hundred dollars. The price may vary upon the job.

They helped me pack my stuff as well. They gave me an estimate before hand on how long they would take, and it took only that long. They were very quick and efficient, and charged what they said they would.

They arrived on time, they workers were all great. They moved all our things in less time than the quoted us for. All together including tip was about the price that they quoted me.

I received quotes from 6 different companies. Alpha's hourly rate was among the most reasonable, but what really swung me over to them was that they were willing to negotiate to get my business and their policies were the move flexible. My close date kept changing, but they were willing to reschedule with 24 hours notice. My second choice vendor had a 5 day rescheduling policy. That wouldn't have worked for me. They also had a 3 hour minimum where some of the other companies I looked at had a 5 hour minimum. They also charged by the 15 minute mark. Some companies charged by the hour. Alpha was the most fair in their approach and their price was competitive. When it came to the actual move, I did as much prep work as I could. I boxed as much as I could and I put it all in the garage. I took apart the swing set, the bed frames, etc. Since they get paid hourly, I did what I could to keep the process from getting slowed down. They estimated that the move out would take 7 hours, but it only took 5. They estimated that the move in would take 6 hours, but it only took 4. I thought I was saving money, but I had to pay $800 in materials fees. I knew that there would be some materials fees, but I never expected to pay more then $200 to $300. They used bubble wrap on a few of my items and they wrap everything in blankets and use tape to secure it. I paid over $250 for bubble wrap and over $250 for tape. What a mark up!!! The other $300 were for wardrobe boxes, a TV box and boxes for other things I wasn't able to box up. In the end, I paid what I expected to pay; $3500. Every dollar I saved on them moving quickly went toward the materials. The crew was very nice. They were quick. True professionals. Nothing of value or importance broke. Nothing was missing. They did put a few items into the wrong rooms. I labeled everything, but only 90% of the items made it into the correct location. Overall, I was satisfied and I would recommend them. I was weary that they have no documented policies. Everything was verbal. I confirmed it all in emails so that I sort of had it in writing. I'm used to contracts with tons of small print; they had none. Lastly, most companies I spoke to said tipping is optional and when pressed, most said that $25 per guy is fair and typical with a little more going to the crew chief. Alpha recommends 10% to 15% of your total in tips. In my case that would have been $525 at 15% which is $87.50 per guy. I found it strange that they recommend such a high amount. Five other companies were more in line with the $25 per person recommendation. Alpha was certainly on the high end there, but again, its a recommendation. I gave $50 per man which totaled $300.

The movers arrived on time and did their work quickly. Everything was packed within an hour. The entire move took 3 hours (20 minute driving time). I didn't have much to move, but I was shocked at how fast this move went, especially considering they took apart and reassembled several pieces of furniture. My major complaint with this company's payment system: They wanted to be paid cash before unloading my furniture. If I used a credit card, I would have been charged a surcharge (5%, I think). I don't like to carry several hundred dollars in cash and I can't imagine I'm alone in that. What's more, I didn't even know how much cash to have on hand because there were additional charges (boxes, tape) that were not included in the estimate.

The company returned our calls promptly and gave us an estimate almost immediately. Although we called them shortly before our moving date, they were able to accommodate us. When we decided we needed an extra day, they were able to give us the time. They suggested that we might want to buy our own packing material, since it would be more costly purchasing supplies from them. The day of the move, they said they would be at our home between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. and they were ringing our doorbell at 8:20 a.m. They sent five men and two trucks and took ten and a half hours to move us, an amount of time close to their original estimate of ten hours. They were efficient, hard-working and professional. Although we were pleased overall with the quality of the service, my husband was disappointed that they would not move our plants, something we did not find out until the day of the move itself.

Very good overall. Arrived 15 minutes earlier. Signed the documents and told about the miscellaneous charges for the tape, bubble wrap and cardboard that they may use to wrap on top of the blankets (no charge there). All in all, they charged an additional $50 in just packing tape and bubble wrap for minimal amount of furniture. I knew it would be less than the 3 hour minimum plus 1 hour travel time that they would charge. In actuality, the entire job took less than 3 hours. Supervisor was cordial professional and polite.