Reviews of Meathead Movers (Central and Southern California)

[Jeff.Walker]

MovingScam is pleased to announce that the mid-size independent company Meathead Movers in San Luis Obispo and Camarillo has joined its group of endorsed movers. (The unusual company name is explained on its website – http://www.meatheadmovers.com – but basically, it reflects the fact that all of its workers are clean-cut student athletes working their way through college.) The company, which was started by the brothers Aaron and Evan Steed in 1997, is run like a cross between a sports team and the military, with lots of camaraderie thrown in. Its two offices have “A+” BBB ratings with only 1 complaint (resolved) over the past 36 months – an outstanding record in view of the fact that Meathead does about 3,500 local and intra-California moves a year.

Emphasis is on service, dependability, and value for money. Meathead’s prices – up to $159/hour for 2 men and a truck on local moves, depending on location – are not cheap, but its many business awards for excellent service posted in the “Trophy Room” of the website speak for themselves. Also, Meathead not only asks customers to submit reviews after every move, it believes so much in transparency that it has a third-party company post ALL those reviews - good or bad - uncensored and unaltered on its website. (Reviews there and elsewhere on the Internet show that there are very few dissatisfied customers.)

Meathead offers long distance services throughout California as well as local moving services in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties. It doesn’t do any moves outside California, and all of its moving vans are straight trucks rather than tractor-trailers. Customers are given a fixed-price estimate for moves based on Meathead’s judgment of the amount of time that will be involved, relying on the customer’s phone description, an on-site visit, or the customer’s emailed inventory. If on moving day the scope of work exceeds what was initially described or shown to the estimator, the customer is asked to sign a change order to accommodate this. Alternately, if the move takes less time than estimated, the customer is charged less as well.

Importantly, Meathead does not combine loads. Every shipment gets its own exclusive truck. Even more important, all movers are Meathead employees – no casual labor is used – and the workers who pick up a shipment are the workers who deliver it. This, plus selective hiring, thorough training, and careful monitoring of employees, is the key to quality. The shipment is always under the custody and control of Meathead Movers rather than being handed over to anyone else for servicing. Bottom line: - in an industry where it’s not unusual for damage and loss claims to be filed on 25% of all moves, Meathead’s claims ratio is currently only about 3%, and the average claims amount is less than $100.

With its approximately 110 employees, Meathead is now the largest moving company in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. It has a 17,000-square-foot building in San Luis Obispo and owns and operates a large self-storage facility on the same property. Its Camarillo office will move to Thousand Oaks shortly to allow more convenient access to Los Angeles and Orange Counties. In both San Luis Obispo and Camarillo, the Meathead facilities are unique in that they include study space with computers, lockers, gym equipment, vending machines, and showers to accommodate the student athletes that the company employs.

Meathead also works hard to maintain good relationships with the community. For example, through its sister company Princess Packers, a newly-established packing service employing women, it donates $1 to children’s charities for every box that is packed (see http://www.princesspackers.com for details about this “Cinderella Fund”). It also provides free moving services to victims of domestic violence referred by women’s shelters. Finally, in keeping with its origin as a business founded by and employing student athletes, it sponsors several local sports teams. Meathead’s YouTube videos at http://www.youtube.com/meatheadmovers and its informative website at http://www.meatheadmovers.com explain the activities of this unusual company in more detail.

In 2015, Meathead Movers committed to helping victims of domestic violence by offering free moves to anyone determined to be suffering from Domestic abuse. You can read more about their efforts and how to help here:
http://www.meatheadmovers.com/blog/move ... s-249.aspx

Here are the company’s reviews on the Superlist at this time:

:thumbsup:--Meathead Movers (independent) in San Luis Obispo and Camarillo.
A VERY GOOD PERFORMER with at least 5 good reviews and no significant bad reviews on this website. This company has the website http://www.meatheadmovers.com and the phone 805-544-6328 (SLO) and 805-966-6328 (Camarillo). As of 10/19/10 it had an "A+" rating with the BBB, with 1 complaint over the past 36 months. Its website explains how it got its rather strange name. In 2008 it was selected as "Best Moving Company" by both the local paper in SLO (for the eighth year in a row) and the largest paper in Ventura County (the Ventura County Star). It has been licensed for interstate moves since 2001, but in practice it does only intra-CA moves. Here are some comments on this company:
viewtopic.php?t=9069
"BigLeeCalif" (used to work for Chipman United) is a fan, and so is an industry expert in a 5/08 post:
viewtopic.php?p=108831#108831
We have a review by someone who had Meathead workers load a Broadway Express truck and wasn't overly impressed:
viewtopic.php?p=31311#31311 (loading help)
However, another person chimed in with a positive review of an in-state move:
viewtopic.php?p=65205#65205 (in-state)
In 10/07, "Amalia" posted that her family had used Meathead several times over the past few years and the workers were always "friendly, professional, strong, and most importantly, competent":
viewtopic.php?t=14960 (several short-haul and local moves)
A person posting as "Barrick" claimed unconvincingly to have had items stolen during a move from SLO to Santa Barbara with Meathead in 4/08, but the company had no record of this move, and in the absence of any supporting evidence his complaint should definitely be disregarded:
viewtopic.php?t=16154
"klh" posted a rave review of Meathead for his local move in Thousand Oaks, CA in 5/08--"a class A outfit . . . professional, well-trained, friendly, and competent to a T":
viewtopic.php?t=16977 (local)
"jfriedman" (real name Jim Friedman), manager of Hollywood Storage Center in Thousand Oaks, praised Meathead highly for its services to him in a review posted in 8/08:
viewtopic.php?t=17047 (local)
"LaGeek" posted a rave review of Meathead (singling out Tyler and Richie) for a local move in 8/09: viewtopic.php?t=18481 (local)
"bonnwerl" praised Meathead to the skies for good communication and great performance on a complicated move in 3/11: viewtopic.php?t=20208 (local)

[Jeff.Walker]

This was one posted on the open community forum:

My company recently transferred me from Los Angeles to Seattle. Because of the nature of my job, I needed to work up until the day that we were to leave town, and my wife was too busy looking after our kids to be able to do a lot of packing herself. That meant we needed someone who could both pack us and load the Penske we had rented.

We wanted to go with the same movers who brought us down from Seattle, Apex (see here: http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewtop ... 329#146329), but due to our short timeframe we weren't able to make the dates work. After checking around with several different companies, we settled on Meathead Movers, one of Moving Scam's endorsed movers. They were easy to get things set up with, flexible on the times, and their prices were very good.

The movers, Seth and Karl (who went by Matt), were awesome. I guess Meathead's thing is that their guys are all supposed to be student-athletes. Maybe it helps calm the suburbia crowd who might be made nervous by a bunch of big muscular men. Whatever; they were good guys, friendly to me and my family, and they handled my stuff with care, so the theme could have been "rehabilitated axe murderers" and I would've been cool with it. In any case, it's clear that Meathead puts a lot of attention into being personable, and that was a plus in our book -- I had no qualms going out to take care of some errands and leaving my wife alone with them to help "supervise" things. Single women, take note. You'll feel safe with these guys.

Anyway, they worked quickly, and did an excellent job of loading up a truck that turned out to be smaller than what we should've got -- but they made it work. They also shuffled their schedule to have lunch at the end instead of in the middle so they wouldn't have to break their flow and take longer. I appreciated that. A two bedroom apartment was packed and loaded in four hours' time.

The packing was done well, although we did find some random things thrown together in some boxes -- say, a few clothing items along with a spice rack and the TV remote. I chalk that up to them trying to maximize space in a truck that was going to be 100% full. No damage whatsoever, and I think that's what counts most for nearly everyone in a move.

We ended up very, very pleased with Meathead. The price was good, the work was good, the movers were good. What else could you ask for? Props to Seth and Matt, the two moving coordinators we spoke with at the office whose names I didn't catch (Molly, maybe?), and to Moving Scam for endorsing an excellent company. A+ all around. Thanks everyone.