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subject: Moving? How To Avoid Payment Hassles [print this page]


Imagine that your moving day has finally arrived. All the boxes are packed, taped and carefully inventoried. You've notified everyone from your allergist to your local zookeeper of your upcoming address change. You carefully screened multiple moving companies, got in-home estimates from all of them, and then made your choice. All of your furniture and treasures make it successfully onto the moving truck, and they arrived safely at your new address. What could go wrong?

Then you notice that the movers are all staring at their foreman, waiting for her to give them the go-ahead to unpack all your items and begin moving them into your new place. The foreman confidently walks up to you and asks for payment in full, prior to even opening the doors of your moving truck. You pull at your credit card to pay the bill, and the foreman insists on payment by cash or cashier's check. You mumble something about not having that much cash on hand. Your mind races. It's late Saturday afternoon and your bank is closed. What are you going to do now?

Well here's a critical tip I wish I'd known about for my last move- make sure you know the forms of payment your mover will take BEFORE the movers show up on Moving Day. This is especially important to making sure that the end of your move doesn't go sour at the last possible moment.

Let me explain a bit. Moving companies don't work like other companies when it comes to accepting payment. You don't get to wait to pay them when they're finished. In fact, in almost every case, they will insist on payment in full when they arrive your location- BEFORE they have unloaded a single box from the truck.

The reason for this is pretty simple. If the movers unload everything before they receive payment, dishonest customers could simply not pay, and with all their possessions in place, the moving company could be "stuck."

In my case, I already knew about this quirk in the world of moving. What I didn't know is that my movers didn't take credit or debit cards. So when I presented my American Express card as payment, I was out of luck. I had to scramble to get the cash for the movers or they would hold all my stuff and charge me for storage!

So be sure to check with your movers on exactly what they will accept as payment and when it's due so you can avoid these issues.

Good luck on your move!

by: Timothy Clendaniel




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