1-800-GOT-JUNK?

In nineteen eighty-nine, Brian Scudamore bought a beat up truck for seven hundred dollars and started hauling junk in Vancouver. The junk removal industry had no brands. Customers called whoever posted a flyer, paid cash, hoped their stuff actually disappeared. Pricing was arbitrary. Service was unreliable. Trust was nonexistent. The entire industry operated in the shadows. Scudamore did something no one in junk removal had considered. He put his workers in clean uniforms, painted trucks with a bright blue brand, built a centralized call center, and quoted fixed prices before arriving. The service itself was identical. Two people showed up, loaded a truck, drove away. Nothing changed about the actual work. Everything changed about how customers felt paying for it.