Has anyone had a horrific PCS move?

CPT Joseph K Murdock — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 15:36:50 -0400

Teen age daughter's bird cage unbeknown to us had lots of roaches. Trucking company said they would not ship our stuff. It turned out to be a full blown DITY move. Our hired cleaning woman stole 12 oz. of solid gold jewelry. WTU at Riley said I had enough time to move while a lot of my stuff was still at Leavenworth. So we drove at night to move some of the stuff. Instead of helping me the COC was made it worse.

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 17 at 2016 3:39 PM

PO1 Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 15:39:43 -0400

Did you get reimbursed?

Response by Cpl Justin Goolsby made Jun 17 at 2016 4:29 PM

Cpl Justin Goolsby — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 16:29:49 -0400

Your move literally sounds just like my move. Flew my wife up north to meet with the movers. They saw a single bug and said they were forbidden to touch any of my stuff because it would contaminate their trucks. Then I had to write a letter to my command requesting the cancellation of my government move so I could request a dity move. Once that was approved, they would only give me 1/2 the money up front to rent a truck which wasn't enough to rent a truck so I ended up putting all my stuff in storage and then filling up my pov with what it could carry. Biggest waste of my time ever.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Jun 17 at 2016 6:11 PM

CAPT Kevin B. — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:11:00 -0400

Mine were OK. However my neighbor lost his fairly new SUV when it was in a MILVAN and transferred from ship to barge in Kodiak. Cable slipped and it went 600 feet down into Davy Jones' Locker. Claims were denied for some time because a claims agent couldn't inspect the loss. Then denied again because Admiralty Law somehow gave them an out. You needed to spend your own money to take them to Admiralty Court. Took a Senator to get the Service to reimburse and it was the Service's job to get it out of the mover if they wanted. Funny thing, back in the day, this stuff happened all the time with the Move Office repetitively unable to get a grip.

Response by MSG Pat Colby made Jun 18 at 2016 12:57 PM

MSG Pat Colby — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 12:57:04 -0400

When departing Hawaii, they had our stuff packed away in eight 6'x8'x10' wooden crates. Somehow it got separated and ended up on two different boats. Had to wait an extra month because the trucking company wouldn't ship a partial load. When we finally received the stuff several months later, one crate had a hole on top the size of a rucksack. Everything in that crate was soaking wet (still dripping). That happened to be the crate with photo albums, all of our towels and bedding, uniforms and clothes. I immediately contacted the Transportation Office and they sent out a Rep that day. She was blown away when she saw the mold on everything. We had to pretty much throw away everything in that crate. Got a settlement check that didn't even cover half of the damage. Got something like $20 per photo album.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 18 at 2016 1:31 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 13:31:28 -0400

I'm in the process now of doing my retirement move. I opted for the DITY move. Whenever possible I have done that. Then I know my stuff will not come up missing, damaged, and will arrive on time. Yes it's a little more work on my end, but IMO better for me in long run. Only down side to this move(which I did not know) was that no company has either a car dolly or car hauler for my truck that is big enough. Easy enough fix though. Going to leave it parked at a buddy's house. Fly back down ($150.00 plane ticket) pick my truck up and drive it back home. As far as helping loading/unloading family and friends, some good BBQ and adult beverages is all they ask for.

Response by SFC(P) Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 21 at 2016 6:35 AM

SFC(P) Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 06:35:19 -0400

I always hand carried my jewlery. I lost a piggy bank, flat screen tv and alot of broken furnitures with military move. Dont leave your stuff in storage, moles will take some of those items. These are cheap labor guys, so they will come in your home and pack everything if you dont monitor. If I have a choice, dity move is the best. Than again its time consuming to drive with all your stuff and worried about a break down.

Response by PO1 David McFarland made Jun 21 at 2016 2:28 PM

PO1 David McFarland — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 14:28:53 -0400

My relatively recent PCS was plagued with issues; my ship was performing a Change of Homeport at the same time, and most of the ship's crew wasn't PCSing, so we were getting crews from other ships - this included all of Admin, so you can guess how much the original and intermediate groups of sailors wanted to do paperwork for a sailor (me) who wasn't transferring with their own group. Long story short - I'm still fighting to try to get $10k in BAH backpay (for Dependent's Location because my wife had a good solid 6 months of not knowing where we were getting transferred to, and that I was only going to be in the new homeport for about a month before PCSing) because they simply dated a form wrong, the one time they actually submitted it - it had even gotten approval from Pers. The PS's in Admin just didn't read.
The Japanese packers who packed up my stuff did an excellent job, but when my household goods arrived in America, they were stored in a humid place, so my mattress was quite moldy, and it took a while to clean it properly. For being in storage for 8 months, it was actually impressive how good of a condition everything was in.
Only one thing was broken - unfortunately it was also one of two things that was irreplaceable and invaluable - a 2 foot Japanese ceramic figure of a geisha that had belonged to my wife's former-boss's grandmother, which meant it was likely made in the late 1800's.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 22 at 2016 12:14 AM

SSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:14:38 -0400

****ing Fort Polk, I have been in the Air Force but at the time my unit was out of England Air Force Base by Alexandria, LA and we were assigned to a spot at that muddy godforsaken muck mosquito and cockroach fest.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 22 at 2016 10:10 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 10:10:20 -0400

I always carry renter's insurance. Many items the Army did not pay, I got full fair market value from Armed Forces Insurance out of Kansas, based on Amazon researched similar items pricing. No wo

Response by Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 27 at 2016 5:17 PM

Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 17:17:40 -0400

An EXTREMELY long story can be summarized thusly: I had to CALL THE POLICE to my house because the mover was threatening to take all of my HHG to New Jersey (grand theft) and lock it up until I paid $500 more than was agreed to in the contract (i.e. extortion).

Response by Maj Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 1 at 2016 12:23 PM

Maj Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:23:46 -0400

That's pretty horrible! I am actually trying to tackle some of these problems with movers by letting military families grade moving companies on PCSgrades.com. Hopefully people can see in advance if the company is a notorious bad actor (or good company) and be able to make the DITY/non-DITY/blended move decision accordingly. Right now we let any military family download a "Movers Notice" to let the company know that they will be graded publicly, and the ability to review a company comes out in a couple weeks.