Moving is a great thing for your state of mind and sense of adventure, but it can be a dreadful thing for your wallet. Hiring a moving company doesn’t come cheap and, while some try to find a cheap moving company that delivers valuable service, not many succeed. Because, it’s only natural, to pay a higher amount of money if you want to benefit from premium services.

According to Moving Authority’s study, moving companies charge between $75 and $135 per hour, depending on factors, such as the number of men and trucks needed, distance, time interval and even season. However, some manage to find moving companies willing to provide services for less than $69 per hour. Are these moving companies to be trusted or it’s all just a gamble? Here are 3 things that will help you decide whether to trust a moving company or not:

1. Is the moving company professional and reputable?

The answer to this question is quite easy to find. All you have to do is to research the name of the moving company you’re planning to hire and see what the World Wide Web has to say about it. If you can find many results that include articles, reviews and comments related to the respective moving company, and these are mostly positive, you can go ahead and take one more step toward hiring the company’s service. Read all reviews, good and bad, and decide which one you trust. You can easily notice if the reviews are fake due to the tone of the comment and lack of specific details. In order to establish its professionalism and reputation, you should also take into consideration their prices. If the prices are too low to be believed, it’s best to continue your research. You can use an online moving calculator to estimate the real costs that you would have to cover for moving, considering all the necessary criteria.

2. What exactly does the moving company offer?

Not all moving companies offer the same services. Small companies provide customers only with basic moving services, like a team of two men and a truck to move things from one place to another, while other companies convince customers to trust them due to their full moving services. What exactly does this mean? Basically, you won’t have to lift a finger to transport your stuff from one house or office to another. They have men who will take care of everything, starting with packing, taking and loading your stuff from your old home or office to unloading and delivering them to your new home, followed by unpacking them. As expected, such service costs a lot more than the basic one, but we believe it’s totally worth it, especially if you have a generous budget. Full service moving companies rely on years of experience and a professional staff, so you can definitely trust them with your belongings.

3. Does the moving company have all its papers in order?

Don’t sign a contract with a moving company without first checking a few legal aspects that any serious and professional moving company needs to comply with. You need to see if the moving company has an USDOT (United States Department of Transportation) number. This is the first step toward working with a legally assembled moving company, aspect that will guarantee you legal protection in case you find their service unsatisfactory. You should also check and see if they have a license, as well as an insurance. If you work with moving companies that don’t provide insurance for their staff, any accident that might happen to a mover during the moving process will eventually end up in a law suit for you, which means you will have to cover the hospital costs and other expenses incurred by the accident. Moreover, any reputable and respectable moving company should have an arbitration program available, as an amicable way to settle any differences that may appear between them and the customers.