What Do I Do?
I recall in my lifetime moving so far nine times. seven of those times were as an adult. Only two of those moves were a PCS move. If there is one thing to hate about moving it is the packing. Packing up your home is very time-consuming. When you get new orders to PCS you have a choice, move yourself or let DMO move you and possibly lose and damage your items.
I always dreaded the day when we would PCS, and it came October of 2017. We knew we couldn’t move everything ourselves. We definitely couldn’t pack our house up by ourselves so we opted for DMO to pack and move us. Well little did we know that 2 months later when we were at our new duty station boxes would be damaged and lost along with items lost and damaged inside them as well.
No one ever tells you there is a third option. An option that DMO is not obligated to tell you. But, if you ask they have to do it. Now you’re probably wondering what the secrets are.
First Secret
One word
Crate
Ask for your belongings to be put in a crate. If you ask for your items to be crated they will not be placed on a truck mixed around with 5 other families. Instead all your items will be together in one spot. Granted they can still lose a crate, but the likely hood of losing a crate versus a box is smaller chance. Your items also won’t get knocked around and moved constantly when they go to pick up the next families belongings to add to the truck.
Second Secret
Let me tell you about our items that arrived in California. Holes in mattresses, missing boxes, missing items that weren’t boxed, broken vacuums, shattered glass on tv stands…the list goes on. We had a lot of damage. At first TSP only offered us 4/27 items on our claim to be partially paid for. I didn’t accept, instead I contacted the Attorney General of the State and Insurance Commission of the State the company was from. I also let the moving and claim company know I contacted them and I then gave the claim company a rebuttal.
Little did they know I took photos of EVERYTHING. Literally before the move, during the move with the packers boxing items and all, then movers carrying items on to the truck. I even was able to get pictures on inside the truck as the driver gave us a tour of his truck and explained what he does.
The second secret
Pictures
Take picture of everything and save them onto a computer, or USB, or even a CD. Once I mentioned to the claim adjuster that I had pictures and video of the movers packing, and pictures of all the items before they packed everything, I had no problems after that. The claim adjuster than offered 23/27 items. I wasn’t going to complain about the last 4 items, I just transferred them over to MCO. The pictures are what saved my claim, without them we would have received nothing for the items the movers damaged.
Of course as always you can follow my lifestyle on instagram
