Pauly’s Movers

READ THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU REVIEWS BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT EVEN RESPOND TO YOU WHEN THEY RUIN YOUR THINGS. I used this company 7/1/23. The movers showed up late smelling strongly of marijuana. Though I'd sent the requested PDF of how to disassemble a bed almost a month prior, not only had they not seen it, they didn't even have the right tools and had to call someone to bring them tools, around personal calls they took "on the clock." I hired movers because there were 2 items I was worried about: my daughter's bed and a desk and they broke both before leaving the house. Despite the drive being 5mi exactly and all back road, every large item they moved was damaged in some way. My walls and ceiling are dinged in both houses, and a railing is ripped away from the wall. Heirloom china is broken. I had to push them repeatedly to put her bed back together (I see now they were concealing the fact it was destroyed), then they put it in the wrong place twice and didn't assemble correctly despite having the instructions - this includes leaving out structural pieces that could've resulted in injury. Their attempt to "fix" the desk damage resulted in two screws being driven through the surface of it and cutting me when I was surprised by them later. They claimed bolts were at the old house, but I found them wrapped up in a piece of moving tape on top of the trash can in my garage. Despite color-coding boxes by floor and labeled in 2 places, no items were taken to correct rooms, so I keep finding damage as I dig out of the mess they left. When we arrived at the house, my invoice had grown from around $800 to almost $2,000 and I was told they're not unloading until I paid. I called the office and spoke with someone who tried to explain that the fuel charge alone going up almost $200 was part of the contract (it reads 18%) when all that extended was the time it took 3 incompetent men to do this move while complaining they had another after, not the 5mi distance. I e-mailed the office 7/1/23, 7/6/23, 7/7/23, and again 7/12/23 and have received no response. As I investigated further to determine why they won't hold their end of the "quality guarantee" they most recently advertised on their Facebook page on 6/20/23, I notice falsified Google Reviews (such as the one from Jefferson Barioto, who provided my estimate, pretending to be a consumer), non-compliance with required insurance by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an alert they are not even authorized to be transporting Household Goods by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and not in good standing with Maryland's Department of Assessments & Taxation, AND that it is illegal to hold consumer's goods for a move that took place entirely in Maryland! The following was distributed in a Consumer's Edge article entitled "Hiring a Mover? Protect Yourself!" by the Maryland Attorney General: "Movers CANNOT Take Away Your Goods: Once a mover has possession of your goods, they have to deliver them to you. NO EXCEPTIONS. That is true whether you pay on delivery or not. If a mover threatens not to deliver your goods, call the police." In regard to their excessive fake Google reviews: note many 5-star reviews are left 1 or 2 days after a negative, with a brand new account using cookie-cutter wording. Some accounts use the same e-mail and others use e-mails with employee names but the account is magically under a different name. Many trace back to the same IP address (public e-mails and usernames can be searched and compared to other instances where they were used. Cross-reference to pin down where they're from.). Find employee names in reviews on BBB/FB/etc: easy example is Jefferson Barioto, but there are more if you dig that can and should be reported. This business is so shady.