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Online competitors move in on shippers
A renter packs his things into a UHaul.
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TEXT OF STORY
KAI RYSSDAL: Moving can be a nightmare. The packing and unpacking. The changing of addresses. All of it just adds up to one big, fat bad experience. So nobody does it unless they have to. Throw in falling house prices and a still-weak job market and more people are simply staying put. That means moving companies have fewer customers nowadays. But it is not just the recession that's causing headaches for traditional movers.
Lenora Chu reports.
Lenora Chu: When Jerry Eldred had to relocate from New Hampshire to Texas, his new employer gave him a shoestring budget for the move.
Jerry Eldred: I definitely could not do one of the Cadillac moves, Mayflower, those kinds of companies.
The quotes he got from full-service movers came in at seven grand and up. So he hopped on uShip.com. That's the online site where movers bid for your business. Eldred listed the contents of his three-bedroom house and stated his price.
Eldred: So I put my lowball figure on there, the lowest I figured somebody might possibly be willing to take.
The bids started coming in. Eldred read the online reviews of companies who submitted quotes and eventually chose a local trucker. Eldred says he was nervous at first about trusting his belongings to someone he found on the Internet. But he met with the trucker first before signing on the dotted line. The final price? A touch over three grand. And his stuff arrived safe and sound.
Eldred: So for a lot less money I got a lot
faster delivery. That was kind of the amazing thing to me.
And it's been amazing for uShip.com. The company's revenues have doubled over the last year. That's despite Census data that shows fewer Americans moved in 2008 than at any time since 1962.
uShip CEO Matt Chasen.
Matt Chasen: So I think people are just changing their behavior and going to places like uShip where they can try to get better pricing and more competitive quotes.
Enter the new landscape for the moving industry, where buyers and sellers connect on the Internet. Steve Weitekamp is president of the California Moving and Storage Association.
Steve Weitekamp: Ten years ago the average consumer went to the Yellow Pages, opened up the section that said "Movers," and the traditional movers had the large ads. Now most people go onto the Internet, they type in movers and they get all kinds of options.
Traditional movers are having to get creative to find new customers and inspire loyalty. Especially when plummeting house prices mean people are staying put.
In Santa Monica, Anne Burkley is watching movers roll a BBQ grill into her new home. Her mover, Ram Katalan, is supervising a half-dozen workers on the job. He says his full-service company, Northstar Moving, has seen year-over-year growth screech to a halt.
Ram Katalan: These days we're about a 12 to 14 percent decrease from previous year.
So Katalan is going the extra mile on branding and service. He's greening up his moving trucks with biodiesel, slashing prices when customers ask for recycled boxes and putting pets in a luxury daycare free of charge during a move.
Katalan: We understand that being a moving company is not just about moving boxes from one place to another. It's about making sure we address all of our clients' needs.
Katalan's not worried about the online competition, he says, because he has loyal customers like Anne Burkley. Burkley has hired Northstar before, and she says she'd do it again.
Anne Burkley: Putting everything you own in the hands of some company that you don't really know is sort of, for me, uncomfortable.
Burkley says moving is too personal to trust to the Internet.
In Los Angeles, I'm Lenora Chu for Marketplace.
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have you tried shipyourcarnow? I don't know if they do furniture but they've moved my car for me. www.shipyourcarnow.com
What do you guys think about the other moving sites similar to uShip such as http://www.freightcenter.com or http://www.shiply.com/ are they any good?
It appears that UShip.Com has changed their wording from what I previously stated back on 12/02/2009
What once read:
GOOGLE THE FOLLOWING:
This profile belongs to someone who is no longer registered member (Account suspended) site:uship.com
NOW READS:
This member is currently suspended from the uShip site. Please contact Member Support if you have questions.
UShip.Com continues to change various things, so as to make it harder for the naive person to uncover the dirt, and/or in an attempt to discredit the 'truth'.
On vacation and seeing this and http://worldcargoinsurance.com/wordpress/?s=uship, I see that uship is NOT the place to be protected.
Everyone here mentions illegals but they are not mentioning the fact brought out on that other site the amount of taxes that these illegals have not been paying.
It would seem that the government will eventually bring down this site due to scams and if you have the FBI, DOT and IRS after you, are you really gonna get away clean? Matt Chasen and Mickey Millsap created this monster and it seems that knowing allowing these illegal actions will only place them in jail. There is enough proof online showing that they are aware of this illegal activity but did nothing.
There is a site that allows open communication between carrier and shipper. This is crucial to weeding through scams like on uship. IF you have no opportunity to talk openly with a carrier, they can hide and scam easily. www.shipalmostanything.com welcomes open contact to build trust prior to shipping. That is something uship will not do. It shows the integrity of the founders.
The dirt that Uship doesn't want you to see
Information you won't find any other way!
For a good sampling of what you may experience when using one of the 1000’s of illegally operating Carriers on Uship, just GOOGLE the entire phrase below. Click on the results and read through the feedback of the 100’s if not 1000’s of incidents of stolen money, property, property damages, extortion and abandoned property.
These profiles were suspended, but the damage was already done. The suspensions are done to keep this information from damaging the site‘s reputation and not let the truth trump the propaganda that the site publishes all over the net.
GOOGLE THE FOLLOWING:
This profile belongs to someone who is no longer registered member (Account suspended) site:uship.com
OR GOOGLE THIS:
Negative site:UShip.Com
Put this entire issue to rest.
GOOGLE THE FOLLOWING:
This profile belongs to someone who is no longer registered member (Account suspended) site:uship.com
OR GOOGLE THIS:
Negative site:UShip.Com
Take note:
Results 1 - 100 of about 47,600 from uship.com for Negative. (0.17 seconds)
QUOTE*****from Matt Chasen’s (CEO of uShip) post above
…."Please decide for yourself by visiting stopillegaltrucking.com, where you will find the ramblings of a small group of disgruntled, suspended uShip members that are trying in vain to tarnish our excellent reputation."……..
RESPONSE*****
Mr. Chasen's choice of words to describe the membership of the “Stop Illegal Trucking†is very offensive and totally inaccurate. As a co founder of the "Stop Illegal Trucking" organization, I find it surprising and insulting that any astute individual would use such a broad brush to paint all "Stop Illegal Trucking" members as "a small group of disgruntled, suspended uShip members". I for one am not disgruntled, suspended, nor am I trying to tarnish anyone's reputation. I certainly do not agree with all the negative comments made in this column about uShip, however, simultaneously, I strongly disagree with Mr. Chasen's characterization of the "Stop Illegal Trucking" organization.
If Mr. Chasen’s company is receiving negative comments on the “Stop Illegal Trucking†website forum, he is very welcome to respond directly to any and every comment. He’ll find that our discussion forums are not edited or censored while the uShip forums are severely censored.
While we (Stop Illegal Trucking) do have members that are strongly opposed to many of uShip's policies and practices, for Mr. Chasen to condemn our organization based on the comments of a few members that are critical of uShip is totally inappropriate. The "Stop Illegal Trucking" organization's mission statement is very clear. Our mission is to improve the safety of our nation’s highways. We attempt to accomplish this in several ways. One prong of our offense is to cause illegal truckers and trucks to be removed from the highways. The fundamental reason for this is quite simple. If the trucks are registered carriers and compliant with US DOT requirements, in order to maintain their interstate transport authority, they are subject to regulation and inspection which helps keep our highways safer. Transporters that operate without the appropriate authority are not subject to those equipment inspections, driver’s physical exams, daily driving hours, minimum safety equipment, licensing, training, and record keeping, just to name a few. As pointed out above, one only has to sample the uShip carrier directory to find a high percentage of those listed are not operating in compliance with federal requirements for interstate transport of property.
Based on “Stop Illegal Trucking†member’s comments, the major gripe about uShip by “Stop Illegal Trucking†members is focused on this easily verified fact. UShip has become very attractive for illegal truckers to find shipments. Regardless of uShip’s stated policy, in actual practice there is no comprehensive verification of the legal status of their many so called “Transportation Service Providersâ€. This fact alone has allowed uShip to become a haven from which illegal truckers operate with impunity. I say without impunity because even if reported to uShip, uShip takes no apparent action to remove them from their directory of Transportation Service Providers.
Anyone who really wants to know the truth about the "Stop Illegal Trucking" organization should visit our website. There you'll find that we offer a lot more than simply a forum for discussion.
Our Mission Statement speaks for itself and accurately defines the objectives of our organization…………
The mission of Stop Illegal Trucking is to provide a method for elevating the awareness level of the general public, enforcement authorities, consumer advocacy groups, and elected officials about illegal trucking activities. Stop Illegal Trucking will provide a forum available to all for the purpose of sharing information on illegal trucking activities and other topics of mutual interest. Stop Illegal Trucking will work legally and ethically while protecting the privacy of the supporters of this cause.
……………
OK! Here's the real story behind this argument. This should fully support all claims made concerning Uship and clear up who's really telling the truth.
Google the phrase below:
Uship feedback negative rating
After initial results appear, scroll down to where is says:
Show more results from www.UShip.Com and click on that.
Then scroll down to where it says:
Show all results from www.UShip.Com and click on that.
We're a moving labor service in Cincinnati, and Uship unfortunately provides an easy pathway for illegal movers to flood the market. Any one in Ohio who accepts to transport goods without a PUCO number, regardless if its their truck or not, is illegal. There are a lot of companies promising to help who are more illegal than they let on.
I'm surprised to see this shallow depth of reporting on Marketplace, something I'd expect from a lesser news agency.
Amidst the countless moving horror stories of Internet brokerage companies, Marketplace offers a story of success. Furthermore, claiming the economy has brought this change to the moving industry, meanwhile, missing the point that by 2006 Congress had finally enacted greater consumer protection laws, largely due to unscrupulous Internet brokering of household goods shipments.
Knowing at least one of the sources quoted in this story, I would certainly believe information was omitted in order to shape this report. This type of report makes me wonder about the many other stories covered by Marketplace, stories that I knew less about, but thought informative.
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