KEYBOARD X-PRESS LLC

unknown

In January of 2015, I hired Keyboard X-Press to move a load of furniture and miscellaneous items from my parent's old house. As we were making two stops and had a piano as part of the job, I had to work with the dispatcher on logistics. The dispatcher was very helpful. Piano moves are costed as fixed price of $350. Piano moves have travel time included in the cost. Ordinary moves are billed at an hourly rate, with travel time added to the hours worked. The company said it had to charge the $350 for the piano move. Since this job was a mix of piano and ordinary moves, the dispatcher agreed that the travel time would be covered in the piano charge. For the moving time, we would only pay the time spent at the origin and destination. The piano was a 1970's era player piano. The kind that uses paper rolls and vacuum. It still looked decent, and kind of worked. No chips, minimal surface wear. Appraisal before the move: $1500-$3000 without refurbishing, $7,500 with refurbishing the player mechanism. I wanted to take care of it. So I thought we needed a "piano mover", and was OK with paying more than regular movers (another firm had said they could handle pianos). The piano was going to my house. the rest going to my parent's new house, in the same town as me. Friday, January 16th - moving day: the crew was over an hour late. I had to call the company to find out what was going on. One of the three crew members appeared a bit haggard. We speculated the crew had to drag him out of bed. This was when the first confusion arose with the crew chief on the cost arrangements. The crew chief was unaware of the agreement. He had two calls with the dispatcher (time for which he would later include in the hourly accounting). We seemed to achieve clarity about travel time being covered by the piano charge. The started the move. Everything went OK with the pickup. The crew took about 45 minutes longer than we did to get to the first destination. Apparently, a lunch stop was made. Since we were supposedly not on the clock, it did not bother me. The first stop was my house to deliver the piano and a partial load of lumber I salvaged. The whole event took less than 15 minutes. The crew departed for the final stop, my parent's house, on a nearby street. That was when I noticed the chipped front feet on the piano. I took pictures of the feet. I headed over to my parent's to help finish the move. At the end of the job, the bill was presented. Again, confusion about the costing. Another phone call, this time including the owner. The crew chief was trying to charge the travel time; the piano drop-off time; he had even started the clock 15 minutes early. He had not taken detailed notes about start & end times at any of the stops, other than the early start time scratched on the bill. I politely held my ground. We finally settled on a duration that I felt was 30 minute generous (but let it go). Then I remembered to bring up the piano damage. I showed the pictures to the chief. The crew chief shook his head and looked very uncomfortable. He first meekly denied it. Then he started rolling his head, groaning, muttering. For about a minute, this continued, with him offering no next steps. By his physical reaction, I got the impression that this would be trouble for him, as well as a big headache of paperwork and time. It had already been a longer day than expected. We were all were tired and hungry. This is where I was foolish. I offered to let the company contact me later about reparations for the damage. I assumed, as "piano movers", that damage was somehow covered. Otherwise, why pay the premium fixed price for the piano move? The crew chief took me up on this. And he did call the owner to let him know about the damage. He also gave me the number of the owner, Robert Healey, asking me to send him the pictures. I messaged the pictures to the owner. I also had a brief call with the owner a bit later; he asked me to look for wood chips by my back door; not to be found. The owner promised to come by Monday morning to assess the damage and see what could be done to fix it. - So we paid the bill in full - with me trusting that compensation would be worked out on Monday, January 19th. Monday (Jan 19) came and went. No sign or word from the owner. Left voice mails over the next few days. No response. Two Mondays later (2/2), I texted him again, and left voice mails. No response. Eight days later (2/9), I emailed the company dispatcher, with a copy of the photos, and a recap of the communication history. The next morning, 2/10, Robert texted, asking to come over (with no forewarning) and he needed my address (?!). Not available, I called him, and we settled on him coming over the next morning, 2/11. I put that in another text message. Wed, Feb 11: no sign or word from the owner, or company again. I stopped trying to follow up. They should have taken care of the issue on moving day. They should not have demanded payment until this was taken care of. More concerning, I had to drive follow-up. And they reneged multiple times. I had paid $350 for a piano move. Had we simply costed the whole job at moving rates, it would only have been about $110 - the drive time plus about 10 minutes total of piano moving time. I paid extra because they offered no choice; I also thought the cost would be worth it to protect the family heirloom, now a fairly decent antique. What I got was a piano with a two inch chunk of wood removed up the front of the front right leg, the leading edge of the left leg scraped off, and a few piano keys went loose. What I really have is the feeling of being taken.

Arranged the move with Keyboard X-Press a few days beforehand and they were very flexible with their time. The booking agent on the phone asked a lot of questions about the piano and offered some very good advice on how to properly store the instrument. We were the last piano to be picked up and I believe the crew had appointments as far as Sussex county. I only note this because our move was scheduled for 4:00pm, but did not occur until about 6:00pm. This however was explained to me before the move and I knew going in that a delay was inevitable. Once they arrived, the crew worked efficiently and carefully with the piano and it was certainly a site to behold. The piano was carefully loaded onto their truck and re-assembled in the storage unit. With their reasonable prices and trustworthy crew, I would certainly use Keyboard X-Press for a move in the future.