Golden Bay Relocation — Local services in San Francisco

I spoke with Alec who was eager to get my business by stating that it was a lucrative deal for him. I paid $2500 which was the same amount I was going to pay a local mover who could move my belongings the same day. Alec assured me that they could also move my belongings in the same day. I told him I had about 25 boxes and two pieces of large furniture. I said I may have more, but he told me not to worry about it because they did not charge me per item but the space that I would be using and I had twice the amount of room I had spoke about. All of that turned out to be a lie. I also asked for the move on the 16th and they move me on the 15th between 7 PM and 9 PM. This forced me to sleep on the floor. And then there’s Jim! He likes to cuss and a degrade you. When AJ arrived, he was upset because he stated he was told I only had 5 boxes. Why would I pay $2500 to move to 5tell boxes? Anyways he threatened to not move my belongings, and as I became upset he stated that he was not the problem, the company was because they did not tell him the correct details. I was forced to leave a lot of my belongings behind because AJ stated he did not have room for everything. He also stated he was quitting. And asked for a review prior to the job being done which I gave him. However, AJ never quit. I was also informed AFTER I paid monies that my belongings would not be delivered for 16 days. Therefore, I lived with only three outfits. My belongings did not come in 16 days. They came in 23 days. Raj deliver them by himself he was not even knowledgeable that there was a delivery until the day before. When my belongings were delivered, my headboard was missing. And the screws hardware to my bedframe and couch are lost. Both of my brand new dressers are broken beyond repair. My make up organizer table, which is also Brand New was completely destroyed. My fireplace heater legs are broken. And somehow a baby gate was delivered to me that I did not notice until the other day and it is not mine. Raj did try to deliver a flag pole, and I recognize that that was not mine and immediately had returned it to him. Two pieces of my headboard that is missing was delivered so I know they moved it but it just vanished into thin air because they stated they do not have it. I am still waiting for Whitney to hire a handyman to come and put my bedframe and couch together. The reason I chose this company instead of the local Mover was because it was a flat fee and my local Mover charged by the hour. I was afraid it may cost more. There is a lot of lies in this company, and a lack of integrity. I also noticed that there was a lot of passing the buck. The reason I used the moving company at all is because my uncle is dying… My dad just died. Leaving my mom who was married for 65 years to try to cope with her life and I didn’t wanna involve my family under the stress they were in by renting a U-Haul. My load was very small, but I thought it would take stress off my life and the lives of my family. However, this experience has done the opposite. I do not recommend this company to anybody! The reason I’m upset about my headboard missing is because it’s irreplaceable. My husband and I bought that together in the 90s before he passed away. It was one of the last memories I have of him. How can it just vanish? And the only way that my belongings could’ve been broken that badly as if they were just tossed around with no regard. I have been given no explanation for any of this! I have been advised to make a claim. So I made a claim. I have to wait seven days for a response and a month for any results. When I told Whitney, that my screws &/hardware was missing to my bed frame and couch she stated that AJ, claimed he put them in a box. I was instructed to go through all my boxes to find them. Obviously, I never found them, because they were not kept safe, just like my headboard. I have been treated very poorly. I just want my bed and couch fixed so I can forget about...

Edit: I had to update my original review (see screenshot attached).

Long story short: the move was a catastrophe, almost all the furniture was damaged. However, their office was very understanding and forthcoming.

We worked with Golden Bay Relocation 3 years ago and their movers were amazing. They were fast, efficient and just did a great job overall. This year we worked with them again and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

The moving crew was inexperienced, rude and unprofessional. The day started wrong by them driving to the drop off location first. Apparently there was a mistake in the system. The confirmation email we received showed all addresses correctly. They started tracking time 25 minutes before they arrived. We later showed proof with the phone call history and didn’t pay for that.

At the pickup location they didn’t wear any slippers over their boots even after we asked them to do so. After that they started to become sarcastic and tried to make fun of us. One of the movers flirted with our nanny and asked her for her phone number, which was totally inappropriate. They didn’t pack their truck properly and left a lot of space empty. Because of that they didn’t take all the furniture and we had to drive multiple times the next day ourselves to move the remaining furniture. We even pointed out the empty space and had to ask them to rearrange furniture in order to load more on the truck. They forgot some furniture, which they agreed to load, at the pick up location and they had to come back. That did cost extra time, which we didn’t pay for in the end.

At the drop off location they had to assemble the furniture. We asked them to use a blanket, because we had a new wood floor installed before. They were careless, didn’t use a blanket all the time and caused at least one big scratch. After I pointed it out, he said that the scratch was there before, exactly at the spot where they assembled the furniture. After that they got sarcastic again and made fun of us in French assuming we wouldn’t understand. While unwrapping we noticed that almost every single piece of our furniture was medium to strongly damaged. That should not happen with a professional moving company. As you can see in the pictures, they only wrapped the furniture lightly and didn’t cover it properly in the truck.

We were very angry about the whole move and contacted their office several times. Their office was very understanding and they reimbursed a partial amount of the repair costs. They understood how poorly the move was done and how many unacceptable mistakes were made.

After the whole situation I strongly doubt Golden Bay Relocation employed the moving crew. I assume they were unprofessional subcontractors. One of them worked as a translator shortly before and lost his job during Covid. The other guy said he only helps out and didn’t even know how many hours he would get paid.

It was a terrible experience, we were very disappointed and I would not work with Golden Bay...

Edit: my previous review was from a 2019 move and I had rated them 5 stars. After recommending them to several friends, I used Golden Bay Movers again this year and the service quality was substantially lower, so I am amending the review to include this experience

2020: Crewed showed up with 2 movers instead of the 3 I hired. The change was supposedly because crew member had high temperature (covid times) but this was not communicated until they arrived which I found extremely unprofessional.

Crew was nice but not very experienced. They did not do a walk through as it's common, did not communicate start time, and did not protect at-risk walls and corners until I requested. Long story short, took 5 hours to load up (expected 3 max - all furniture was disassembled and everything packed), 2:30 travel time (I arrived in 45 min by car) and 2:15 to unload for a total of over 10 hours for a 2 bedroom move.

During the move, they ran out of blankets and attempted to load some furniture items without blankets. I called management throughout the day to intervene and no action was taken until many calls and threats to write a review about it. They promised an extra worker a few times during the day but he did not show up until 5pm. A manager also showed up and helped address the situation by bringing blankets and urging the crew to follow protocol.

They offered a fixed price of 3 hours load and 2 unload at the 2 man crew which was fair and showed they are willing to work with you to fix the issue. However, the offer wasn't didn't make it any cheaper than expected with an experienced crew, it only normalized for their inexperience. I also had to help them move the entire time and total was still about $1,200 +tip. Our move lasted almost 10 hours when it should have taken 5-6-max with an experienced crew and the original 3 person crew.

I would not use them again, but the company does have experienced movers. I guess it just depends the crew you get.

Ps: Vanessa called at the end of the day to follow up and said feedback was noted but no action was taken.

2019: Just finished a move in SF with these guys and it's by far the best moving service I have ever experienced. From the first contact with Vanessa, and later with Fernando, everyone was extremely knowledgeable and attentive.

They know the Bay area well, and they even knew relevant details about the building I was moving from (where trucks should park, etc).

During moving day, Milton and William showed up on time, and were ready to with a smile on their face. They worked hard to get us moved out and moved in within 6 hours.

They had all the right tools and got the job done with no hiccups. Lastly, they got my giant, super heavy, pull out couch up a tiny curved stairs, somehow.

I would 100% use them again and would recommend them to anyone looking for professional and experienced movers in...