A while back I hired a shifty outfit called Arrow Moving and Storage to haul some stuff (including my trusty Yamaha Majesty) from Wilton, Connecticut back to West Hollywood. I told them exactly what the items were and their size. (Arrow had moved many of the same items last summer.) There was no ambiguity about the load or their estimate — they said it would set me back $1350, give or take.

My total packed-box count was 14 instead of 10 so I knew there’d be an overage charge, but after the stuff (including a big TV and a wooden shoe rack) was loaded earlier today I was told by the local subcontracted movers that the total hit would be a hair under $2700 — $1350 paid today and another $1347 when the stuff arrives in WeHo. But add the $270 deposit I sent to Arrow a few weeks ago, and the tally is $2967.

In other words, I was charged more than double what had been estimated by an Arrow guy named “Thomas”.

In my humble judgment, Arrow’s way of doing business is, at the very least, sloppy and careless. We all understand that moving estimates can sometimes be a bit off, but when you wind up getting charged more than double the original estimate, something is seriously wrong.

I think it’s a scam — deliberately under-estimate in order to land a sale and a deposit, and then refuse to answer the phone when the movers charge much, much more due to a higher cubic-foot and weight count than originally estimated.