Were you told you would be contacted by "Dispatch" within 48 hours of your move date? Did you believe them?

Here is what you will be told, on the phone, and later via email, after you have put down a substantial deposit on your move:

• " Dispatch Will Be Contacting You 48 Hours Prior To Your Move Date To Coordinate Your Pick-Up."

You might be wondering why every word in the entire sentence is capitalized in the email you received.

This is because You Are Dealing With A Professional Moving Company, And They Take Customer Service Very Seriously. And That Is Why The Email They Send You Is A Form Letter, Which Notifies You That "Dispatch" Will Be Contacting You.

You might also be wondering: "Who is 'Dispatch'? Is he 'Mr. Dispatch'? Or is he 'Dispatch Jones'? ... And what happened to my good friend Priscilla?"

Well, the sad truth is that Priscilla, apparently, is AWOL. And, unfortunately, Priscilla will not be calling you again.

And, although you and Priscilla use to be very close -- you must keep in mind that that was before you forked over your credit card number.

Priscilla will also never email you again. And, should you decide to email her, as fast as you press Send, your emails will rocket into her inbox-of-death.

Perhaps you should call Priscilla, since it's always best to talk with a live person (haven't you been paying attention?). And when you do that, it might be a good idea to leave a message on her Voice Mail. In fact, you might want to leave five or six messages, just to be sure.

Eventually you might want to give up on Priscilla, and just wait for your call from Dispatch. This is always a good time.

You may remember that you were given a two-day "move window". This means, there are two days when the moving truck might actually arrive at your house. Here is how the "move window" works: you wait at your house during the first day of your "move window": if midnight arrives, and you are still waiting at your house, and Dispatch has not called you, and the moving truck has not shown up, this means that your moving day will be the second day of your "move window". Most likely.

Summary for your moving-company review of potential moving-company problems:

1. Assume you will not be contacted by the moving-van driver ahead of time to verify when he will pick up your furniture.
   
2. Before putting any money down, have your sales person send you an email, telling you who who will be contacting you with the furniture pick-up date and time, and when that person will be contacting you.
   
3. Get details on several people, phone numbers, and email addresses that you can contact if you don't here from anyone by the date she tells you.
4. Consider processing a chargeback on your credit card for the moving-company deposit, if the moving company fails to do what they told you they would do, by the date they told you they would do it.