TLDR: 2/5 review only because the NJ crew palletized it so well, otherwise terrible experience simply because of lack of communication on their end. Would not recommend...
So, I was recommended to use Beltmann here by basically everyone, to ship a machine from NJ to CA. Luckily for me, the machine was at a family members house prior to pickup, because communication was really poor on their end. Took almost 3-4 weeks just to establish the transport.
I began by contacting Michelle/Judy/anyone at Beltmann to begin. Many phone calls, no response or returns (basically over the first week). Looked at the forums, found michelles email. Emailed here with about 6 questions, quote, contact info, cost of insurance, cost of palletizing, estimated time of transport, and when we could get pickup scheduled. Not unreasonable right? Literally, the only response I received, was a number value for just the shipping cost. So I responded reiterating my other questions, and waited 4 days. Finally wrote her back again and asked wtf, and her response was simply what is the name of the machine. So I responded with the machine name, and no response for another 2 business days and a weekend. So emailed again simply stating I wanted to set this up. Her response was asking the machine name, the pickup/delivery option and a phone number (which they never used for me, only for the pickup). Replied back with everything, also stating i needed insurance and palletizing and would like an updated quote, and waited 3 more days, then got a response with that info, also asking me for the machine name again (third time). I was confused, but just went with it. I responded with machine name, and stating I wanted to proceed. She responded with the shipment order number only, no info on how to use it, where to track from, that you need to add "00" at the beginning of it to track accurately.
Received a call from shipment address 3 days later saying they called and left him a message to schedule pickup, he called back over a day and a half over multiple times, and never heard back. Had to email Michelle again, who responded only saying "I will contact them". I guess she called them and got them to call him back.
They picked up the machine 2 days later, palletizing was very good, lots of blankets and plastic wrap. And that was that, it was on the road. I figured out how tracking worked, no thanks to anyone from Beltmann and was watching it cross the country. Mind you, I still had no idea how payment would work, despite asking 4 times (online payment? Cod? Money order? Any info would be helpful). So about a week and a half to get to anaheim from NJ, and it sat there for 4 days saying shipment delayed. I finally called them up (CRST handled the tracking) and they transferred me to beltmann anaheim, where I talked to a woman (never gave a name) who then transferred me to Eddie. Eddie was super incompetent. He said they were waiting for me to call them back. I stated they never called me. His response, literally, was a chuckle and said "is that right?" I stated noone left a message and there was never a call from beltmann on caller id (i have a landline phone btw, so cant be blamed on cell service). He just responded saying "ok". So i was like what the frigg ever, lets just schedule the delivery. So we did for the next day and we hung up. He called back an hour later, to inform me I had to pay cash or cashiers vheck or money order. This was 4pm so couldnt get to the bank for cashiers check and wasnt going to pay for a money order, so I had to get cash that night, which would've been a lot easier if friggin Michelle answered me day one saying COD order, but alas, 4 weeks later, here we are.
So next day they show up, groaning and complaining about how far out from my town I live and if they had known they would've scheduled a different day, blah blah blah like I give two craps. Not to mention, no masks worn, no covering face when one of the guys started coughing, friggin disgusting (anaheim delivery guys, cant speak on other locations). Two guys came, one guy just stood there and made the other guy do all the work (fight about 4 huge boxes and 7 pallets in the truck just to get my package out from the back). Took literally 23min just to get it out of the truck, no exaggeration. Anyways, palletizing was good, no damage in transit, everything worked out, but geez, their communication was god awful. I dont appreciate being told they were waiting on me, when incompetent Eddie from Anaheim never bothered to do his job in the first place. Smh.
I do not recommend using Beltmann if you can help it for future shipments. They seemed super scattered and treated my shipment like it was s bother to them and when I am paying 500+ for this, I expect at least fake congeniality, this is your job for friggs sake. I dont always believe the customer is always right and I understand that there are logistical issues with shipping stuff across the country, especially in our covid world. But cmon, this was just terribly handled.
Anyways, thats my review, take it or leave it, but thats how it went down for me.