Bangalore Packers & Movers: There doesnt seem to be one that is highly recommended

Bangalore Packers & Movers: Is there any that is clearly a recommended one?

There doesn’t seem to be a Packer that everyone recommends. I am talking about Bangalore, but my guess is that it must be true with many other cities as well. We had to recently move from one part of the city to the other. I started looking for a packer & mover (P&M). I started with yellow pages, and then collected a few more by calling JustDial Services (2333 3333).

I was given quotations on the phone and there was a total variance of about 2500 rupees. Lowest quote started from 4000 to the highest being 6500. I then started looking on the internet for reviews on the folks who had given the lowest quotations. To my surprise, I found that no matter which vendor I was evaluating there was someone on the net who had posted a negative review. A lot of these are there on mouthshut.com. Then I understood that there is no clear vendor that is a recommended Packer and Mover by most people. Some folks had mentioned to me about Agarwal Packers to be the best, and to my surprise found negative comments against them as well. Interestingly, I also discovered a few manipulations there where some vendors had posted positive comments (or may be negative comments to spoil competition’s reputation) posing as customers. So, watch out!

It had me confused as to which vendor I choose from the several quotations that I had. Finally, I realized that I had to just go by what my gut tells me and hope for the best. I selected a vendor called “Pragati Packers & Movers”.

So, How was my experience with these guys – Mixed; Good & Bad. It was good because these guys (4 workers) worked tirelessly throughout the day without even taking a lunch break. They kept assuring us that everything will be safe and they would take care of things as though it belonged to them. And they kept up this word to most part, and it was close to midnight when the entire unloading and re-arrangement was completed.

Now, the bad part. Their packing was not very professional. Towards the end of the day, as it was getting late; they skipped packing a few items and rushed into dumping them into the truck. As a result of this, a couple of our wooden furniture units had a few scratches. Another goof up was that they did not seal with adhesive tape on the Kitchen aata box, and the entire thing spilled over & created a mess. Another issue was that they came with an open truck and had forgotten to get the tarpaulin cover to protect things in case of a possible rain. It was later that someone from their office delivered it.

Summary: Pragati Packers & Movers – Go for them if you have lot of household items and want a competitive pricing. Avoid them or supervise properly, if you have a lot of expensive & glass furniture/items. I would rate them as average, 7 on a scale of 10.

Some things to note –

1. Always insist to have the Vendor come over to inspect the house & then give a final quotation. If you finalize on phone, it is likely that you will be asked for more money indicating that there more items than expected.
2. During quotation phase, ask if the pricing is inclusive of all taxes. Typically these quotations are given without Sales Tax included. And this is about 10.3% as of the date of posting this article.
3. During quotation phase, ask how many people will come and if there would be a Supervisor. If there is a supervisor, then the quality of the work is likely to be good. If you do hard bargaining and go after the guy who is giving you the lowest quote, it is likely that Supervisor is not going to be part of the team and quality is likely to suffer. Having 3 people is going to take you forever to shift the goods. There should atleast be 4 people, and one or two more would be even better.