akt'n up moving services

9/16/21 UPDATE - Short version: I'm raising my review to 3 stars which is an average of the 1-star initial experience with the 5-star effort that owner Matteo made to apologize, take responsiblity, and pay for damages. Long version: On the same day I e-mailed Up and Up's owner Matteo and posted this review--in fact, within an hour--he called and sent me a message. "I will make this right," he said. His actions over 2 weeks since then demonstrated his strong appetite to do as he promised. We discussed how this situation happened, and he took full responsibility for all of the elements of this that were preventable. In fact he took *personal* responsibility rather than throwing his crew under the bus, which was commendable. We talked about how he might more effectively communicate the fact that moving industry contracts fully protect moving companies from liability regardless of the cause--accidents or moving company negligence. My lesson: I should include full coverage insurance in my future moving budget. Matteo arranged for my damaged cabinet to be repaired, paid part of the costs of my unpacking crew (who had to play Jenga in order to carefully untangle the unsecured load), and promised to (re)train his crew. Despite the shifting load, we had very little breakage, and no breakage in the boxes they packed. For a cross-country move in a UPack truck (which is not known for gentle treatment of loads) this is a very good outcome. Matteo rightfully pointed out that I asked for help packing the kitchen the night before the move, which meant the crew moved quickly in the kitchen--hence the unlabeled boxes. I wish none of this had happened, but I'm very grateful for Matteo's integrity in committing to make it right. 8/31/ 21 - I called Up and Up because I wanted to hire a crew to pack our UPack cross-country moving truck. Matteo was great on the phone, and I was clear to say that while we needed muscle, the key areas where we needed help were wrapping and protecting our furniture, and expertly loading our stuff on the truck to secure and protect it. "All of our guys are fully trained. This is exactly what we do." The crew of 4 worked hard - no doubt about it. They asked to take lunch, which I appreciated. Around 20 minutes later I walked out to see how far along we were, and discovered several packed boxes on the sidewalk and street (parking area), along with a wide-open truck...and no one watching any of it. Our house is clearly not in a great neighborhood, and theft is very common. I sat outside and kept watch until the foreman got back, and had a direct conversation with him. Fast forward to a few days ago when the truck arrived in Maryland. When I opened the door I saw what looked like a tidal wave of boxes curling toward the back door. It took us *days* to pull boxes out without the load falling on us. It turns out they **hadn't strapped the load down anywhere in the 26 foot truck except the very end by the door**. No cross-ties, no strapping to prevent lateral movement, no bracing - nothing to stop the entire truck contents from bouncing and shifting. Hell, even I knew that wasn't the way to load a truck. It's Moving 101. What's more bizarre is that the Up and Up foreman told me "These trucks have leaf springs rather than air shocks, so we need to make sure everything is secure." As if that wasn't bad enough, Up and Up put many 25 lb boxes (books) near the ceiling, creating dangerous stacks that fell on us where we unloaded, in a few cases crushing Fragile / Top Load Only boxes underneath. But the final blow was still to come. Yesterday I carefully pulled the moving blanket off of the one piece I made sure to tell the movers I really wanted protected well: a beautiful $1,200 teak mid-century liquor cabinet I got for my birthday this year. Up and Up **secured the cabinet doors closed by taping them shut**! The tape was applied directly to the wood, and while I removed it as slowly as I could, the tape pulled the finish right off the cabinet.

A friend recommended Up & Up Moving based on her family's recent & great moving experience with them. I hired Up & Up for a move from Oakland to Long Beach. I really appreciated that their team could guarantee a delivery date while we spoke on the phone before the move. Several larger moving companies could only give me a 3-5 day delivery window. Brandon and team were prompt, friendly and all about efficiency. I appreciated the team's hard work and dedication to getting the job done fast and well. I am very happy that I went with Up and Up Moving and Storage! I highly recommend this moving company.

I’m so disappointed with the service, 8hrs to move 15min from oakland one bedroom apartment. All the packing was done and my friend & myself helped greatly moving items etc. besides having to pay 1k after being quoted 150hr for a couple hours job I quickly noticed that they were purposely taking their time to make the money stretch. Exactly at 3pm the movers were miraculously done from starting from 8am. I was okay with never using the moving service again until my bed collapsed after I sat on it. They didn’t properly put together my bed and I’m still awaiting a phone call to resolve this matter. You would be better off going to Home Depot & hiring the guys hanging outside then using this company & getting scammed out your $ for poor service.

I've had the absolute pleasure of using Up and Up twice in the last few years and the team of Alfonso and Robert is unbelievably good! So thorough and careful with all of your things. I did a quick walk thru of my old place with Robert, pointing out where each labelled box could go. I let Alfonso know which boxes were ACTUALLY for real fragile and which boxes not to bury. I was able to unpack 3/4s of my house after Alfonso amd Robert left due to their efficiency also solved a sofa arrangement for me because I couldn't figure it out! They assemble anything they take apart and set up your rugs, sofas, beds etc.They literally do it all. A one bedroom will take about 3-4 hrs from start to finish depending on stairs, etc. I will never use another mover besides Up and Up.

TL;DR - Warm, professional, and FAST. So good we doubled their tip! Wow, I'm really blown away by the level of customer service, professionalism, and warmth that Jesús and Alfonso showed us while moving our things! First, they showed up exactly when they said they would and while we'd planned to ask them only to move our big items, they told us it was no problem for them to take some of the luggage and bags that we'd packed. Jesús and Alfonso did a great job of wrapping items that needed it and were very careful when moving our things, which we deeply appreciated. Further, Jesús and Alfonso were very fast! They were able to get the truck packed (including the time it took to wrap some items) and unloaded at our new place just under the 3 hour mark, which was great. Yes, for our contract there was a 3 hour minimum, but honestly it was just about 3 hours anyway. In any case, I'd planned on tipping them each as I have with every moving company I've hired, but given that they were such warm, friendly people and did such a great job, my partner and I both agreed that we should double their tip. If I have to move again in East Bay, I'm definitely hiring Up and Up again, no question.