Moving company charged with scamming over 900 customers
Posted August 9, 2018
Twelve individuals, charged with a nationwide moving company scam, were indicted by a federal grand on July 25, 2018. More than 900 customers have been identified as victims of the scheme so far.
The alleged racketeering enterprise defrauded the public using moving companies located throughout the United States. The moving companies were located in Florida, Ohio, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, California, Connecticut, Colorado, and Missouri. Over a five-year period, the defendants allegedly carried out their scheme using a number of affiliated moving companies, which principally operated out of Hollywood, Florida, and had a warehouse in West Chester, Ohio.
Details of the case
To attract clients, the defendants allegedly:
- Provided low binding estimates, and
- Promised to beat their competitors’ prices.
Customers learned — after their property was loaded onto the truck — that the rates had increased. The defendants would allegedly hold the household goods hostage until customers paid the inflated prices. Some customer loads were never delivered.
Whenever complaints about the operation began to surface, the defendants would shut down the latest iteration of the moving company and open a new one. In order to fraudulently gain operating authority from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the defendants would falsify information about the owners’ identities.
On July 31, 2018, five of the twelve defendants were arrested. Authorities secured seven warehouses in order to identify and protect victims’ property.
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