Reviews of Shea Moving Corp. (New York City)

[Diane]

MovingScam.com has decided to endorse Shea Moving Corp. because of its excellent performance for customers posting here. Below is Shea's entry listed under Queens in the "New York City" section of the Superlist linked to below my name. I am posting this as a placeholder while we wait for more reviews to come in.

Note that Shea focuses on moves within and around New York City. It routinely goes to and from New Jersey and Connecticut and sometimes goes to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, but rarely any further because it is small and has a limited number of trucks. It can also assist people doing self-moves by sending workers to load or unload ABF U-Pack trucks or containers and Broadway Express trailers.

I called Julie Shea recently to find out more about how Shea operates and to get a general idea of what it charges for various services. The following information is from her directly. It refers to local moves and short interstate moves within an approximately 30-mile radius of Shea's office in Queens. Longer interstate moves may be handled and billed somewhat differently.

The basic charge is $35/hour/worker plus $42/hour for the truck if a truck is needed. (It would not be needed to load or unload a Broadway Express trailer, for example, since BE provides moving pads and dollies and the workers would normally get to and from the customer's residence on their own. However, a truck might be needed to load or unload an ABF trailer since the truck would be needed to carry dollies and possibly other things such as packing supplies.)

Shea normally has a 3.5-hour, three-person minimum. In Manhattan and close-in areas of Brooklyn and Queens, 1/2 hour of travel time is normally added. Therefore to hire three people plus a vehicle is $147/hr with a four-hour minimum of $588 and four people plus a vehicle would cost $182/hr with a four-hour minimum of $728. There is no extra charge for gas, but depending on the situation, Shea sometimes charges for tolls. The time charged for is rounded to the nearest 15 minutes.

Travel time is charged for on a case-to-case basis. If the job is within 10 miles of Shea's HQ in Queens, normally they charge for 1/2 hour, if it is within 20 miles they charge for 3/4 hour, and if it is within 30 miles they charge for 1 hour. They do charge for waiting time if they are there to load or unload a Broadway Express or ABF trailer (for example) and the driver is late in arriving. [NOTE: BE customers should keep careful records if this happens because BE will refund the extra labor charges if their driver arrives late.] They don't charge extra for stairs or long carries/long pushes.

Shea always gives people a Guaranteed Not to Exceed estimate if they can do an on-site estimate in the residence, i.e. if they can see the goods to be moved. The way they do it is to give the customer a sheet pre-printed with the heading "Probable Cost of Services" and then they cross out the word "Probable." Shea also offers guaranteed email estimates based on client photos/inventories. Julie said that Shea always prefers to do an on-site or email estimate but sometimes it isn't possible. If it isn't, Shea tells customers its hourly rate and give them a phone estimate of the time it will take to do the move.

Regarding tips, Julie said she advises customers up front that it is customary to give movers a 15%-20% tip in the New York City area but it is up to them. She tells them that any tip given should be paid to the foreman at the end of the move and he will divide it equally among all the workers, including himself.

Shea does not charge customers for parking tickets. On larger jobs, a man is often working in the back of the truck, which usually prevents tickets because he can move the truck if asked to do so. On smaller jobs, customers are always welcome to help watch the truck.

Regarding form of payment, Julie said that she takes cash, Mastercard or Visa, and personal checks. She is keeping her fingers crossed but up to now, she has never been stiffed. She said that customers have been amazingly good about paying, sometimes even voluntarily paying more than the GNTE quote if the move goes overtime.

:thumbsup:--Shea Moving Corp. (independent) in Long Island City.
A VERY GOOD PERFORMER with at least 5 good reviews and no significant bad reviews on this website. This small company with website www.sheamoving.com is run by Brian and Julie Shea at 718-932-1204. It is fully insured and licensed for local, intrastate, and interstate moves. Its license numbers are NY DOT #35907, MC #573141, and US DOT #1387726.
The owners are delightful people to speak with. Here is a post giving some additional details about the company:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 9065#59065
"Ray" moving with Broadway Express posted that he was extremely happy with the company's loading help:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... =6041#6041 (loading)
"RRoe72" posted that they "did an unbelievable job" loading a BE truck:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 2555#62555 (loading)
One of the MovingScam moderators chose Shea to move her own son locally in NYC in 6/06 (local).
"TimNYC" gave Shea an excellent review for a fall 2006 move from DC to NYC - they sent 2 guys to DC in a rental truck and moved about 3000 pounds for the unbelievably low price of $1500:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10703 (interstate)
"Heather L" gave Shea a rave review for an apartment move in Queens in 2/07, praising Julie Shea as well as the actual movers. Shea's quote was less expensive than Dahill's and more expensive than All Star's:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 4280#84280 (local)
"canydavid" gave Shea a 4 out of 5 rating for a move from Queens to NJ in 3/07. The workers moved so fast that he paid about $500 less than the estimate but he was put off when the foreman asked for a generous tip:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 5010#85010 (local)
"NYCChris" posted a rave review of a local move from two locations in Queens to the UWS in 4/07--Shea accommodated him at the last minute and charged him very little:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13564 (local)
"Veronykah" (real name Gwen) posted an excellent report on Shea for loading an ABF ReloCube in Queens in 4/07:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13587 (loading help)
In 6/07 "galadriel30" posted a rave review of a move to Boston which I'm quoting in its entirety because it gives a good sense of what the people associated with Shea are like:
While other companies were quoting us in the $3000 range for a 1-bedroom apartment move from NYC to Boston on May 31st - June 1st 2007, Shea gave us an in-home estimate and quoted us a GNTE price of $1900. We liked what we saw on MovingScam.com, so we booked them right away.

They showed up on time at 9:00am on May 31st with four movers, were extraordinarily careful in packing our items, and were extremely efficient at their job. The only snafu occurred when one of the movers accidentally dropped a wooden shelf on our microwave, slightly denting it. Upon prompt delivery of our items (all of which, excepting the microwave, were perfectly intact and undamaged) at 9:00am on June 1st in Boston (they actually arrived at our apartment an hour and a half before we did), the two movers who arrived negotiated with us a refund of the $75 insurance fee to cover the cost of the damage to our microwave. Our final price was around $1800 - happily less than anticipated. When the foreman called Julie Shea to tell her what had happened to the microwave and to tell them what the final price was, she was very concerned that we hadn't taken out enough money to cover the microwave and insisted that we be asked again if the discount they had given us was acceptable! When the movers departed, we realized that we had left in their truck the plastic ring which holds the turntable in our microwave. We called Julie, who called the movers, who turned around and came back to our apartment to deliver the missing piece! We were very impressed with their concern for our satisfaction at every step of the way.

After such a horrendous experience last year, I can't even express how delighted I was with my experience with Shea. The customer service was absolutely top-notch, and the entire moving experience was pleasant and efficient. - http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13911 (interstate)
"ymbd" gave two workers from Shea an excellent review in 6/07 for their help loading an ABF trailer--they charged $70/hour for 3 hours and got 5000 pounds into 11 feet. With a generous tip, the total cost was $300 as compared with Albert Moving's estimate of $645, but the customer's husband and friend pitched in prior to the arrival of the Shea workers:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13876 (loading help)
"dsampayo" said that Shea did a great job on a move to NJ in 4/07 and stuck with its initial quote, which was the lowest received:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 0453#90453 (short-distance interstate)
"alg70" posted in 7/07 that his large move from West Orange NJ to NYC "could have gone better" in the sense that there was minor damage to a bed frame and Brian Shea didn't seem too concerned. However, the price was excellent [$1600 vs. other companies' quotes of around $3000] and it later came out that Brian and Julie were in the middle of a family emergency at the time, hence preoccupied. In addition, it turned out that the damage to the bed frame was pre-existing:
http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14429 (short-distance interstate)

[cornelljordo]

I completed my move with Shea last weekend.

Some Background: I did a lot of research on this site to find movers. My move was only 3 blocks within NYC. I got estimates from FlatRate, All Star, Scanio and Shea. Shea was the cheapest and I liked the do not exceed rate which none of the others had. Based on the good reviews here, we hired them.

The Move: I called Julie the day before the move to confirm everything. She said they would be there between 8:30 and 9. Later that day, my new super called to tell me that there was another move going on the same day so try and get there as soon as possible. I called Shea back, spoke to Brad and asked if they can try to get there closer to 8:30. They said no problem. The next day, the driver/foreman showed up around 9:15. The rest of the crew did not show up until around 10ish. This started the day out on a bad note b/c I was nervous that we would not finish in time and would hit problems at the new building.

Once the crew showed up, everything was smooth riding from there. There were 4 guys, they were calm and professional and loaded everything up quickly and efficiently. They wrapped up the furniture in blankets and handled everything carefully. As stated, they loaned us wardrobe boxes for our hanging clothes. The foreman (i can't remember his name) was very good and obviously had a lots of experience. We were well packed, but all the random things, they threw in wardrobe boxes for us. I was still a bit nervous about being late, so i was helping them out a bit to try and move things along.

They took a 30 min lunch break- off the clock-- (we offered to buy them lunch, but they opted to just get their own). We went to the new building 3 blocks away and after a short wait (to let the other move finish), they started unloading. About 2.5 hrs later, everything was unpacked. The total estimate had been 6.5 hrs and that's exactly where we came in around. I ended up paying the Do not exceed rate and gave a nice 18% tip.

The only casualty of the day was a small dent in our coffee table. I'm not sure how it happened b/c it was wrapped up in blankets, but somehow it did. The foreman offered to come back and patch it up which I said was OK. Honestly, I don't remember if I told him that I would Shea to arrange it or if he would call me, but I haven't heard from them and I have been very busy so haven't had a chance to call them yet. It was such minor damage that I just may try and and fix it myself.

Overall, I was very happy with them. Besides being late and the small damage to the table, we had an extremely good move. I would definitely recommend Shea Moving and would use them again in a heartbeat.

[Diane]

This is a first for me, but I would like to add a personal note about the people who run this company. In February 2008 I had the opportunity to meet Brian and Julie Shea as well as Brad Hubbard, the operations person who answers their phones. It was an extraordinary experience. Julie is a warm, creative, delightful person. Brian is quieter but equally impressive for his sincerity and idealism. Brad is also terrific. He is an excellent saxophone player and was getting ready to go to Washington to perform with the Navy Band. All three are people that I trust completely. Here are some photos:

<--- Julie and Brian

<--- a truck owned by Shea

This is a small company run with small profit margins. The moving business in New York City is extremely competitive, especially right now with everything so slow and certain companies giving very low estimates because they are paying their employees very little. I hope that anybody reading this will treat Julie and their workers with the respect that they deserve. They are young and still learning, and there may be small glitches, but I would like to see them prosper. In my experience, it is rare to find people of this caliber running a moving company.

[Diane]

Re-posting an excellent review of Shea for a local move in NYC:

9/4/08 - I had an extremely positive experience with SHEA this week,
moving my one bedroom apartment within NYC. Brian gave me a very competitive "not to exceed" quote and Dave and his crew were so fast, efficient and skillful that the overall cost of the move was nearly 1/4 less than the estimate. That calls for an Emoticon . . .
The move was a somewhat large-ish NYC one bedroom btw two elevator buildings in about 3 1/2 hours. The move distance was about 2.5-3.0 miles in toto. - http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17250

[dumbusername]

My experience with Shea was mixed.

Their price came in a bit higher than some other companies, but after looking at the forums here, those same companies had terrible reviews, so I decided to go with Shea.

After making this decision, I called, spoke to Brian, and scheduled my move.

The big problem occurred on the day of my move when they did not show up. I called the office repeatedly during the day, and was unable to reach anybody until about 4pm when Brad answered. He did have a copy of my quote, but no scheduled move. He was extremely apologetic, and was able to get a truck and crew to my place the next morning. The guys were great, nothing was damaged, and it was all done in the time estimated.

This could have also been avoided if I had called up a few days in advance to the move to verify, so I will take some responsibility on this, and they were able to recover and get my move done the next day.

For me, this ultimately worked out, but it could have been a disaster if I didn't have a flexible schedule.

[ArchieWhite]

In case the Shea folks are reading this, I'll suggest something to them that will catch and prevent these glitchs......call every customer 2-3 days prior to a move and re-confirm, 99.9% of the time its redundant, but will catch mixups before they become critical.

[Mangala]

We moved with Shea about a month ago from New York to Washington D.C.

For the most part we were impressed

Pros:

- The foreman that came to inspect the house was extremely friendly and nice.

- He explained all of his prices very methodically and transparently

- Bottom line is, among the different reputable companies, Shea gave us the lowest price. (~$4,500 for a two story house (w/ tip)) And no funny business with the price once we got down there.

- The moving guys worked for about 10 hours straight for loading, and worked just as hard during unloading. It was crazy how much weight they were carrying, and they never seemed to take any breaks!

Cons:

- On moving day, they were actually a few hours late, but I believe them when they say there was a problem with one of the men who was supposed to come.

- There was a confusion with Julie Shea where we had agreed before the move that they would bill our company since they were paying for the move. When the day actually came, and when they had already loaded up all our stuff - Julie called me in a huff to tell me they would never agree to charging our company and we must have misunderstood. I was aghast at having to suddenly try to work out some way to pay them personally the day of when we had already made an agreement beforehand. Very unprofessional. Although Julie practically threatened me over the phone about payment, she eventually was able to reach someone at our company (lucky because it was a Saturday), and agreed to charge them instead of us. After that, the rest of the move went swimmingly.

- I admire their work effort but their men never seemed to eat anything after 10 hours of work! They kept complaining, so I made them pb&j sandwiches and got them McDonalds, but going forward they need to figure out some way to take a lunch/dinner break.

Bottom Line:

This is a really friendly company compared to all of the horror stories I had heard on this site, but they're so small that they seem to be a little unprofessional at times. They need to work out a standard payment scheme and stick to it.

Final Score: 9/10

[onthelookout]

Update: Called both Shea and All Star for estimates. 1bed,(with less furniture than a normal 1bed) small move. Both companies were very nice to speak with, very amicable. Shea's estimate was 700, All Star's was 975. All Star told me that the price was actually higher, but they gave me a discount, their final total was 975. Shea said they normally don't come down to south jersey, and that the 3 hours of travel time (total) hiked the price up, which I think is totally justified.
Price wise Shea is the clear winner. I spoke with Brian who was really nice, calm, no pressure. Move is scheduled for Fri, I have a good feeling....will definitely post the result this weekend!

[onthelookout]

Update/Review: Thank god for moving scam!! my move with Shea was Friday and it couldn't have gone more smoothly. They really exceeded all my hopes & expectations. I had 2 guys, Melvin, and a quiet but funny japanese guy built like an ox, I forget his name. They were actually fun to hang out with and they seemed like they cared about bringing my stuff from A to B without losing or breaking anything. They even wrote numbers on every box. Julia called me the day before to confirm. There were really ZERO problems. I actually still can't believe how simple it was. Something I want to mention though, another review that I read mentioned that their crew took a very long time to drive to the new place. You have to remember that those trucks do not go very fast, especially when filled with a household full of stuff. Any travel time for the truck from point A to B should be approximated as slightly less than double the time it would take when driving a regular car. I left south jers earlier than the movers and probably had an extra hour in nyc to recharge, I got a sandwich and bought the guys some water, which they seemed to appreciate. when they got to my new place (4 flights of stairs), I watched in awe as they strapped at least 7 boxes at a time onto their backs and went up the stairs like it was nothing. And some of the boxes were loaded with books-HEAVY!! Anyway, bottom line is they are really great and I would recommend them to anyone. Also, I felt it proper to give them a nice tip, 28%- as we all know, good movers are hard to find. Shea is definitely a Best of NY.

[MirrorGirl]

To see a discussion regarding Movingscam.com's policy of receiving payments from those moving companies they endorse so that we'll chose them, please follow this link to another thread on this site: http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17978

Comments from others are welcome.

[Diane]

Posting a small update on Shea:- one of the owners sent me a notice that their office/mailing address has changed from Long Island City to 33-44 83rd Street, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.

[stricklandia]

I'm cross-posting my review of ABF here, because we used Shea Moving to do the loading of the ABF truck, and my review includes praise for Shea. Great company, great guys!

I'm overdue in posting my review of ABF and Shea Moving for our relocation from NYC (Brooklyn) to San Diego, CA. The short version: I give a glowing recommendation for both. My only complaint was the cost, but moving ain't cheap. Next time, I'll try harder to negotiate relocation costs into my job offer.

We lived in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill neighborhood, and my first concern with ABF was the congested streets and lack of parking. Needless to say, having them leave the trailer for 3 days was not an option. We had to do a "live load," where the ABF driver stays with the truck. ABF gave us 4 hours to load it up, and quoted us nearly $40 per 15-min. increment over the four hours (with that incentive, we finished within the 4 hours). I had NYPD post temporary no-parking signs to make room for the truck, but people totally ignored the signs. Double-parking the truck turned out to be fine, however; everyone double-parks in NYC all the time anyway.

We hired Shea Moving to do the loading, based on the favorable reviews on this site and their friendly and professional attitudes during the quote process. They quoted us about $1,000 for a 5-man team, and estimated it would take 4 hours. I had sticker shock, because I didn't think the loading would be so expensive. But they capped their estimate, and it ended up taking 5 hours, with no extra charge beyond their capped 4-hour estimate to me. In retrospect, I can't imagine what a nightmare it would have been with a 3-man team; it would have taken much longer. We had a slightly tricky loading situation, because Shea first had to go to our storage unit, load up their truck with the stuff there, and then bring it back to our apt. to load onto the ABF truck. But the Shea guys were champs, and handled that and the rest of the loading in a very fast, efficient and friendly manner. They also did a fantastic job of wrapping all of our furniture and fragile items (again, far exceeding the estimate cap for materials). I can't say enough good things about these guys.

ABF was professional at every stage, from initial estimate (by phone/email), to the loading (friendly driver), to the transit (tracking via their website), to the destination. At our destination, in fact, they held onto our trailer for about a week (with no extra charge) till we were ready for it to be delivered, and then they left it on a Thursday, so we had it till the following Monday. Made the unloading stress-free.

If I'm going to offer any word of caution with regard to ABF, it's to slightly over-estimate how much stuff you have. I described the size of our apt. and storage unit to them in detail, and they quoted 10 trailer-feet, with a charge of $130 per foot over the 10 feet. We went over the estimate by 4 feet, which made me wonder if they had intentionally underestimated the amount of trailer-feet we'd need. I concluded that they did not; it's hard to estimate such things precisely, and 4 extra trailer feet is not a huge difference. It also depends on how well your belongings are packed onto the truck (though Shea did a fantastic job of stuffing every inch, floor to ceiling).

Bottom line: we shelled out a lot of cash, but our dealings with ABF and Shea made it a lot less stressful than it could have been. And on the other end, after unpacking everything, we came through with one broken wine glass and one small scuff on one dining room chair. Everything else was good to go. We'll definitely be calling ABF if we relocate again.

[Diane]

Re-posting another good review of Shea (and ABF) posted elsewhere on the messageboard in 5/10:

Wow it has taken me so long to come back to the site to post this remark. Two years ago I took this sites advice. With a move from the Santa Cruz Mountains to Queens NY with a two month old daughter and my wife ahead of me I expected the worst. My goal, 1-No hassle and 2-Cheap.

I first hired ABF using the volume in a shared trailer method as this gave me the flexibility to use as much space as I needed and only pay for that. This was a particularly easy choice b/c our starting point in Ca. was too remote for ABF to drop anything off. So we hired a local moving company by the hour. I 'll have to loof for their name and post it later. The price was reasonable, the guys showed up when they were supposed to and did the whole job in about 4 hours. I was pleased.

At NY I hired Shea movers based on the rec's from this site. Their proximity to my new place in Queens made them an easy choice. They too showed up on time, did the job and had reasonable rates.

And that's about it. A week and a half after packing up in California, my family was and is comfortably in our new home.

I will likely not post again (except to name the Cali movers I used) but I wanted to report the great success of my move and also to thank this site and all the reputable companies that made this process minimally painful.

I reccommend this move'ology to all that I know who move. Only a little effort and serious $$ and headache can be avioded. Do your homework here. - http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19324

[icbib]

I hired Shea Movers to move me into my new apartment in Union Square (from Hoboken NJ). Before I go into my long winded review, let me start by saying that Shea Movers is simply AMAZING. They did an excellent job and I would hire them again without hesitation. I could not have been happier with the way my move went. Now that I've given an executive summary, I'll provide a bit more detail.

I originally hired INTENSE MOVERS, using Yelp.com. INTENSE MOVERS was supposed to move me on a Tuesday and never showed up as promised. So I was basically screwed. I was able to convince my new doorman building to let me move in on Thursday morning from 9 - 1, which meant that I needed to find new movers and start moving out of my Hoboken apartment by 6:00 AM.

I found Shea Movers on this site and decided to give them a call. They were incredibly responsive and gave me a very fair quote, (a little more expensive than Intense, but based on the quality of the work, they were a bargain).

I explained to Julie that I needed her movers there by 6:00 AM. She told me that they would do their best, but that was an early start and it they may be 30 - 60 minutes late. I really appreciated her honesty. Julie was also extremely friendly and she took care of the certificate of insurance right away. Julie promised me a three (3) person team in her quote. However, as it turns out, my new building was a bit more complicated then Julie had envisioned and as a result, she and Brian arranged for another mover to join the team at no extra cost to me. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. I couldn't have been happier about that. Julie and Brian went far and above the norm on that one.

The next morning, the movers were there at 5:55 AM. Yes, that's right, they were 5 minutes early!! It was incredible. From the moment they got there, they movers were excellent. They were hard working, efficient and moved everything fast and carefully.

As it turns out, Shea movers had me moved in by 12:00 Noon, which was 60 minutes before my elevator window ended. I couldn't have been happier with the entire process.

As such, I thoroughly recommend SHEA MOVERS. Hire them, they will do an excellent job.

[ddipas]

Shea handled our move last week in Manhattan (2BR apt.). We had estimates from several companies, including some more recognizable names from larger companies. We decided to take a chance on a smaller operation based on good reviews and a general vibe from Brian during his visit for our estimate. We could not be happier with how the day went! The crew was fast, strong, efficient and really really nice (all day!). Everything is now unpacked and not one thing was damaged. Our last move was an absolute nightmare and I had a lot of anxiety about going through it again. We made the right choice this time and I highly recommend Shea if you are planning a move in the NYC area.