* If there is something of high value, either handle it yourself separate of the movers, or package it yourself if it's too large. Make sure it's adequately insured and take photos.
* If it's a one day job, hiring a crew with a truck is fine. Keep an eye on the crew and the truck throughout the process.
* If it's a longer job, you can rent one or two trucks and hire a crew to load and another to unload at the destination. If everything is boxed, and you have good access to the front door, then a crew of 3 or 4 should be able to fill a large truck in 2 or 3 hours. Unloading goes quicker.
* I've always regretted using PODS. They are small, and I tend to keep them in the driveway way longer than you should. With a truck rental the time urgency helps me complete the project faster.
When the crew arrives, let the leader of the crew know you'll tip cash for good service.
When you do tip, give each guy their share directly.
Also buy a bunch of gatorade and water or other drinks and put it in a cooler with ice and tell them to help themselves to it, especially if it's at all warm where you are.
Finally, don't be a hard ass and don't let them walk over you either. Don't get on their case about stuff that actually doesn't matter, and be firm where it does matter. You're paying them to do a job, but they're more likely to respect you and your stuff more if you don't treat them like crap (like some people undoubtedly do - they've told me).
Yeah I'm going to be stealing this tip next time
I once hired a moving company that was a bit scammy. I lost a nice component stereo system that they secretly took.
I later learned that other people had trouble with that same company "forgetting things on the truck". It seemed to be one of their tactics to enforce scam pricing while they had you over a barrel. If you still didn't buckle on the spot, they'd secretly take away obvious valuables, and hold them hostage until they could extract more money.
(They were based in Providence, RI, shortly before "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plunder_Dome", when the FBI cleaned up some local government institutionalized corruption. Occasionally, talking with someone who'd also lived there in that period, I'll hear an anecdote about crossing paths with mob-lite connected people. My favorite was someone whose apartment was burglarized, and their nice landlord told them he'd take care of it, and that they should temporarily be away from the apartment at a specific time; they come back after, and their belongings had been returned. I say mob-lite, because it's not tommy-guns and broken kneecaps, but there did seem to be an alternative system of rules by which some played, distinct from the law, and there was just a faint background awareness of that. Other than that, Providence was a nice place, and presumably is even nicer after the FBI cleaned up some corruption.)
When I moved I just assumed there would be problems with the movers because it seems like that kind of industry. Turns out we got a great crew, no tricks or gimmicks, and no damage to anything. It actually felt weird seeing how "normal" something like that could be, when you almost expect something like what the OP got.
We then rented the U-Haul recommended for a 3 bedroom apartment, picked two random Mexican volunteers, and paid them more than they asked for, for a very long day. It worked well.
But this did require having been well-organized before they came, having already found fragile stuff, and having our plan for how to protect those things.
This is the reason people go with movers. A professional crew will do this in a morning.
The downside is that it’s a little slower than PODS or traditional moving because the unused space is separated and then resold to a local freight partner going to the same destination area. If you can live with that constraint, the process was very smooth and the U-Pack customer service was extremely good and responsive.
We hired local movers on both ends to just load and unload the container (did the packing of boxes ourselves, left furniture to the loaders) and paid a little under $6K to move a small 3BR house from the midwest to the east coast a couple years ago.
However it's quite possible that something else happened to it that they don't want to admit. Like maybe their driver was DUI and crashed it.
I didn't test airtags at all but they definitely stack them pretty high up in a warehouse so idk if an iPhone is always going to walk by yours.
It also came in really handy when the driver claimed his truck broke down and he wouldn't be able to drop it off on schedule. I told them I could physically see the container in the storage yard and would like it delivered on the agreed upon date. They dropped it off 20 minutes later.