PODS® Reviews
I've used PODS before--and had a positive experience. This time...not so positive. Things were damaged in the move--the communication was very poor--they were late.....they didn't show up one day.....I was very surprised. I thought if I could depend on anything going smoothly--it would be PODS. Not so.....
Storage pod truck drivers was great- punctual and helpful. Customer service phone center for pods not very nice and didn't let us know eta until 12 hours prior. Thankfully anytime movers were so flexible and showed up to help with very little notice. Still a better option then getting a moving truck!
The PODS service and containers were a more economical method of moving our belongings from Chicago to Southern California. The service was timely and efficient. The most important lesson learned was to tightly secure the belongings at the door with rope or straps as the shifting caused difficulty opening the door at the destination.
The Albuquerque PODS is very professional and really tried to take care of us. They were on time and called ahead. When I needed to visit the POD, they were very accommodating. Corporate PODS was not as good and gave us conflicting info and were late delivering our POD and did not have a clue as to where it was. We choose PODS because they have a good reputation and even with the problems, they were the best economical choice.
I decided to use PODS because I needed schedule flexibility in my move, both in the packing and unpacking. I got an 8x8x16 container, which comfortably fit my two-bedroom quantity of stuff. The POD arrived clean and on schedule. Packing the pod was straight-forward. During the move, there was some slippage within the container. The slippage would probably have been prevented if straps were laid across each 4 ft space, rather than just at the end. When delivering the POD for delivery, the driver had some difficulty navigating the apartment complex (other large trucks were blocking traffic), but he called me and we navigated the turns. If I needed another large container, I would likely go with PODS again.
Horrible customer service. Corporate office does not communicate with local offices efficiently. Local office was so completely unprofessional. I was schedule 6 yes, 6 times and finally I had to hire a truck and empty the POD myself and drive it to my new home. When I initially mentioned this idea to "Tom" the manager of the Hartford, CT office - HE HAD THE AUDACITY TO SAY THATS A GOOD IDEA and proceeded to hang up on me. I'm disgusted by the mistreatment of myself and my family. When it came time to retrieve the empty container, it was scheduled for one day and then ONE WEEK later after repeated phone calls and frustration that the container was finally picked up. I will NEVER EVER recommend PODS to anyone I know and I will continue to bad mouth them for as long as it takes to get some compensation for my aggravation.
Confirmation emails do not parse the POD pickup/drop off times correctly so both confirmation emails did not list ANY times. I had to either call in or wait for the IVR to call me. PODS tried to pickup my POD 4 hours earlier than what was quoted the day before, leading to some frantic last minute packing which resulted in improperly packed items that were damaged.
We have PODS in NJ so we checked on-line. The person we booked with was extremely pleasant and helpful, answering all of our many questions as we had no clue what we needed. The gentlemen who dropped it off was very pleasant. We felt the on- line advertisement was helpful as it also included companies to call for help with the packing and loading of the POD. Of the three companies listed Hired Helpers was the most pleasant and helpful on the phone, that is why we chose them. All and all the experience was made much easier because of POD,HIRED HELPERS & INCREDIBLE GIANTS
All went well until the guy picking up the empty PODS backed over my sprinkler head(despite me have a fairly large rock next to it; his front passenger tire just climbed up the rock and crumpled the head). That would not have been so bad but, the driver may have been at a party the night before that lasted into the night. I would probably recommend PODS because 95% of the move went well.
