Zippy Shell

This is simply the single worst company in existence. They stole my stuff.

Do not use them. They should not be in business anymore.

In April 2020, I called Zippy Shell to book a date for a long-distance move from AZ to TX. I did not have a definite ending point in TX, so chose an approximate half-way point between Austin and San Antonio since that was the area we were looking at.

In May, I called to let Zippy Shell know that the destination was Austin and the customer service person said she would enter that information. Apparently she did not do so, or at least didn't enter it in the correct place.

June 24, my first of two containers arrived and they were 1-800-PackRats containers. I asked the driver about it and he said the two companies had combined, so they would sometime use whichever container was available. We filled that container and they picked it up June 26 and brought a second container- also a PackRat.

On June 29, that container was picked up and, as the driver told me, would be on it's way to Austin ASAP.- with a 10-14 day window for delivery.

By July 15, I had not had any contact from ZippyShell, so I called to inquire about where my containers were. I was told they had both JUST arrived at the warehouse and she took my request for delivery dates and said I would get an email confirmation. WIthin 2 minutes of that, I get the email saying that Zippy had charged my credit card for the second half of my moving bill. Just a few minutes after that, I get an email that says my containers are at the San Antonio warehouse and that they cannot deliver since Austin is out of their delivery area!

Their solution was for me to come to San Antonio and unload them myself to take back to Austin. If I had the ability to bring everything myself, I would have done so. I don't happen to have a semi-truck just sitting around to casually drive.

I called Zippy immediately to find out what was going on since the containers were supposed to go to the Austin Warehouse. The customer service person said she would contact the warehouses and find out when they would be able to correct that, and they would get back to me.

I was contacted 2 days later by a "Task Desk Specialist" named Erin Holdaway who said that she was told that there was an error by someone in the company and that my containers were taken to the wrong warehouse. She said she was trying to coordinate between the San Antonio and Austin warehouses to figure it out and that it looked like San Antonio would deliver and Austin would get the empties, but she didn't have an exact date and would get back to me. On July 21, I finally got through using the PackRat phone number since that is what Erin called from. I was told by that customer service agent that, even though the containers were PackRat, I would have to talk to the Zippy Shell people since she was unable to access my "notes." She transferred me to someone at Zippy and I told my story all over again to someone new.

He said the notes showed that Erin was working on it, but she was unavailable. He invited me to call back and I told him that, unless he had a special phone number other than 888-947-****, she needed to call me back since I truly did not want to sit on hold with that phone number for another 20 minutes before getting a human response. About a half hour later, Erin called me and said both warehouses are totally overbooked with completely full calendars, so the soonest date she could give me was August 3 from the San Antonio warehouse- another almost 2 weeks wait. I told her that was simply not acceptable and asked for someone higher up to talk to, a corporate number or anything that I could reach someone who has the power to correct this company error.

She said that she was the management for customer service and that they have to go with whatever the warehouse supervisors say, so there was no one who could do anything other than August 3rd.

She then suggested that I could find movers to go to the San Antonio warehouse to unpack my items onto a truck and bring it to me. I asked is Zippy would pay for that since I already paid them to transport and deliver my items. She said my total delivery fee was $400 and she could refund me that. Again, not acceptable.

$400 is not going to buy me any moving company for the labor, time, and travel involved. She said that was all she could do, so maybe I could call an get some quotes from overs, but in the meantime she would put me for August 3 delivery from San Antonio.

In this nightmare of a transaction, I have called Zippy Shell 11 times, mind you after being on hold for at least 15-20 minutes each time and there were a couple of times that, after that 20 minutes, I had to give up since I had other things to attend to. Shortly after that call, Erin sent me an email with the address of the San Antonio warehouse so that I'd have it if I wanted to go get the shells myself.

I am beyond outraged and frustrated with Zippy Shell. I used them in 2017 for an IL to AZ move and had no issues whatsoever.

This time has been a complete nightmare.

It is myself and my 2 kids (and my pet bearded dragon) who have been basically camping out in our new house with zero furniture. We've been using camping chairs and air mattresses- and our bearded dragon has now been living in a plastic container tote instead of his 60-gallon glass tank for over three weeks which is not healthy for him.