Asleep at the Wheel: The Department of Transportation's Failure to Enforce Its Consumer Protection Rules for Truckers and Brokers Licensed to Provide Household Goods Moving Services

Since the early 20th century, commercial trucking carriers have provided services to consumers moving household goods (HHG) from one home to another. With that development, some unscrupulous carriers, for whom integrity is not a business practice, have scammed and defrauded HHG moving consumers by fictitious weight charges (weight-bumping), fictitious volume charges (fluffing), and many other fraud practices. The Interstate Commerce Commission was responsible for economic regulation of carriers, including moving fraud, until the ICC was terminated in 1995. Congress then assigned responsibility to the Secretary of Transportation, who placed anti-fraud oversight in the agency responsible for commercial motor vehicle (CMV) truck safety and crash avoidance, currently the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). With this transition, the American public lost the benefit of much moving fraud prevention expertise, institutional memory, and fraud enforcement motivation.

According to FMCSA, there are now about 340,000 domestic motor carriers with active authority to transport property. These include approximately 4,600 carriers with special FMCSA authority to transport the household goods, servicing about 4 million Americans who move across state lines each year. Additionally, over 25,000 brokers are licensed by FMCSA to arrange for the transportation of property. A subset of about 900 brokers are licensed by FMCSA with special HHG authority. In 2025, consumers made 4,484 complaints on FMCSA's complaint database against moving companies for moving fraud, deceptive practices, weight-bumping, hostage goods, other regulatory violations, logistical failures and property loss.

The moving fraud problem has been repeatedly addressed by Congress since the Household Goods Transportation Act of 1980, purporting to improve consumer protection by the ICC or its successor, the DOT's FMCSA. New laws sometimes proved toothless in their statutory content or (more frequently) by FMCSA's unwillingness to apply the enforcement tools Congress provided.

Several reports by the GAO (2001, 2009 and 2023), and in Congressional hearings since ICC termination, have concluded that FMCSA has failed to effectively oversee and enforce moving fraud because the agency views consumer protection as very low priority compared to safety and truck crash avoidance. The 2001 GAO report stated: 'The Department of Transportation has provided limited oversight of and taken little enforcement action in consumer protection issues because this responsibility is a relatively low priority compared with promoting motor carrier safety.' This is still true 25 years later.

A 2012 Senate Committee report, 'Internet Moving Brokers: A New Consumer Protection Problem in the Household Goods Industry,' was followed by a Senate Transportation Committee hearing, 'Taking Consumers for a Ride: Business Practices in the Household Goods Moving Industry.' Newsweek helped refocus national attention to the moving fraud problem by articles in 2016 ('Why the Moving Industry is Filled With Fraudsters and Scam Artists') and in 2023 ('Feds Accused of Issuing Licenses to Steal as Moving Company Scams Rise'). And the Better Business Bureau published a comprehensive study in 2020 entitled 'KNOW YOUR MOVER BBB study reveals scammers price gouge, take belongings hostage and destroy goods.'

FMCSA followed these reports with self-congratulatory 'Operation Protect Your Move' enforcement investigations in 2023 and 2024, limited to unidentified worst offenders over a short period, that produced little apparent or transparent result. But in the past two years, FMCSA's moving fraud enforcement has again moved from merely drowsy to full REM sleep.

Examination of FMCSA investigation and enforcement data reported in its Analysis and Information ('A&I') system reveals part of the story. A&I provides analysis and data on FMCSA's truck safety programs, including Safety Measurement System (SMS) grading of carriers.

FMCSA-licensed carriers, along with their trucks and drivers, are inspected periodically. Carriers are graded based on compliance with three main categories of FMCSA regulations: 1) safety regulations, 2) hazardous cargo regulations, and 3) economic or commercial regulations, such as HHG consumer protection. Violations of safety or hazardous cargo regulations are ranked 'acute' (immediate attention) and 'critical' (plan to fix the problem), with severity grades from 1 to 10. For example, texting while driving, 10; broken brake light or headlamp, 6; Cargo not properly secured, 3; False log, 7; alcohol possession while driving, 3, and driver failure to use seatbelt, 7.

Failure to immediately correct an acute problem, or to effectively address critical problems, can lead to revocation or suspension of FMCSA carrier license authority. But violations of economic or commercial regulations, i.e. non-acute and non-critical, do not result in an adverse score for authority suspension or revocation purposes. Repeated and uncorrected failure of drivers to use seatbelts, a simple traffic violation or misdemeanor in many states, can lead to FMCSA carrier revocation of CMV authority with or without HHG authority. But repeated tariff violations, hostage goods violations, or weight bumping, federal felony crimes, do not automatically trigger special HHG authority revocation.

Moving fraud, extortion, and hostage goods behavior score no worse than incomplete bills of lading or mistaken inventory lists on SMS inspection. There is no integrity measurement system for carriers and brokers with special HHG authority like the safety measurement system for generic carrier authority. There is no policy that treats fraud events in consumer protection like crash events for safety protection. This is so even though Congress gave some indication of HHG fraud priorities, such as criminal penalties of up to two years' imprisonment for conviction of hostage goods, intentional tariff schedule pricing violations, and weight-bumping. Indeed, the Congress that terminated the ICC in 1995 retained tariff requirements for HHG moving because of the unique vulnerability of HHG consumers, and fixed the highest HHG civil penalty for intentional tariff violations (currently up to $205,375 per violation), yet it would be hard to find FMCSA enforcement personnel or even carriers who understand the significance of tariffs for HHG consumer protection. 'Tariffs' are to HHG transportation what menus are to restaurants. A consumer should be able to tell the 'exact price' of the service or food by looking at the menu. A price increase after a service is provided (or after meal service) is likely fraud.

When SMS inspections are done, carrier HHG rule violations discovered along the way are reported along with safety rule violations. In 2025, there were 7,737 HHG carriers. Of these, 167 carriers were investigated. 1,057 violations were reported (about 6 violations per inspection). Almost all violations were economic rule violations, i.e., non-acute or non-critical, including tariff and other violations in the criminal felony category. During this same period, there were 3,226 NCCDB consumer complaints against HHG carriers.

FMCSA is devoted to reducing truck crashes in order to reduce personal injury from crashes. The SMS safety review system does this, if applied. But FMCSA's enforcement policies overlook personal injury predictably resulting from moving, one of life's most stressful events if all goes well. Moving stress is greatly aggravated by economic fraud or loss of all precious possessions to carrier negligence, criminal bait and switch, and hostage behavior. Intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress has long been recognized in law as 'personal injury.' Medical literature and human experience document the personal injury risks and consequences of extreme stress: anxiety, depression, hypertension, heart disease, heart attack, stroke, aggravation of many pre-existing conditions, loss of quality of life, and premature death.

Review of A&I data demonstrate that FMCSA does virtually nothing in its SMS reviews to prevent moving fraud, and is trending to doing far less to enforce basic safety violations.

There is no SMS or equivalent measure of regulatory compliance whatsoever for HHG brokers. Yet FMCSA-authorized HHG brokers are at the top of the list of all movers (brokers and carriers) for which consumers file complaints on the agency's National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB). Broker violations frequently reveal noncompliance with (or disregard of) carrier tariffs, which brokers are obligated to use for moving estimates. The top three movers on FMCSA's NCCDB list are brokers in Florida, the nation's epicenter of moving fraud. Nevertheless, FMCSA's A&I data show that for two years there have been zero closed enforcement cases for brokers: during FY 2025 and through the first three quarters of FY 2026. There were only 16 closed broker cases during FY 2020 through 2024 (most, predictably, in Florida).

Safety-focused enforcement cases for carriers, alarmingly, are also down in the past two years. FY 2025 closed enforcement (1,312 cases) for all carriers nationwide were only 35% of FY 2024 cases. And at the rate reported into the fourth quarter of FY 2026 (606 cases through 6/26), FMCSA closed enforcement for FY 2026 will be only 19% of FY 2024. As observed in the 2001 GAO report, regulated brokers and carriers can observe and exploit these trends: 'unscrupulous carriers are taking advantage of the lack of oversight and are operating without concern for the regulations or the rights of consumers.' This remains true in 2026, a quarter century later.

For readers that assume the few 'enforcement cases' in FMCSA jargon involve effective deterrents and sanctions, a reality check may be required. As described in FMCSA's much-touted Operation Protect Your Move reports from 2023 and 2024, enforcement results are often limited to an administrative scolding: NOVs (notice of violations), and LOPVs (letters of probable violations). Some may have included safety violation notices of claims (with proposed civil penalties) or section 13905 operating authority suspension or revocation. But if this occurred at all for HHG violations, no example was given and no targeted carrier or broker was identified.

The Secretary of Transportation was required in 2005 to establish a system for filing and logging consumer complaints related to motor carriers that transport household goods, as well as a database for such complaints. This led to the National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB), which has since been expanded by FMCSA to include many non-HHG complaints but has also been criticized for lack of transparency in a 2023 GAO report. Complaint numbers for each HHG carrier and broker are reported on FMCSA's 'Protect Your Move' webpage. NCCDB data, however, is not aggregated by FMCSA in a way useful to moving fraud victims or policy makers. Aggregation was finally accomplished by a private HHG watchdog in July 2026, Trunk (trunk.lorea.ai). This private aggregation revealed, for example, the leading category of bait-and-switch pricing as the most frequent problem in all FMCSA regions, and the extraordinary dominance of FMCSA-authorized Florida brokers (not carriers) in national moving fraud NCCDB complaint categories. Consumer complaints against brokers have outnumbered complaints against carriers since 2024, and the spread is enlarging. Yet there have been zero FMCSA enforcement cases against brokers since 2024.

In 2012, Congress required FMCSA to develop consumer protection 'proficiency examination' of HHG applicants (as merely recommended in 1999), but provided no rulemaking deadline. As of August 2026, this remains on FMCSA's 'to do' list agenda. The 2012 law also required for new HHG licensees a 'consumer protection standards review' within 18 months of license approval, somewhat like the regular SMS safety review, but this also remains on FMCSA's 'to do' list 14 years later. In Senate testimony after passage of the 2012 law (MAP-21), FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro testified: 'FMCSA is beginning to implement these new authorities and believes they will provide further strength to our household goods program.' Another FMCSA promise made, another promise broken.

In 2015 Congress again addressed the moving scam problem and mandated creation of a Household Goods Consumer Protection Working Group to make recommendations to FMCSA. Some useful regulatory amendments resulted, but these were somewhat constrained by the dominant influence of transportation industry representatives in the Working Group, and the absence of moving fraud consumer victim representatives. Enforcement of the improved rules remains elusive.

The other part of the story is revealed in FMCSA's failure to effectively implement HHG moving fraud controls and remedies (such as license revocation) currently authorized and directed by Congress.

Until 2019, FMCSA assessed administrative civil penalties against carriers and brokers who violated FMCSA economic regulations, including HHG rules. This came to a halt after an ALJ observation in the Riojas case decision that FMCSA lacks civil penalty authority. Cases must be referred to DOJ for federal court assessment of civil penalties. Bills pending in the US House and Senate, S.337 and H.R.880, the 'Household Goods Shipping Consumer Protection Act,' would fix this regulatory gap. Versions of the pending bills were first introduced in 2024, in the prior legislative session. Two years later, they still linger without Congressional approval.

Civil penalty limitations might be raised as an excuse for recent agency non-enforcement. That would be a red herring. Ever since FMCSA assumed HHG consumer protection responsibilities after ICC termination in 1995, the law and FMCSA regulations have required carrier and broker license applicants to show (and FMCSA's licensing unit to find) that the applicant is 'fit, willing and able' to provide the services for which license approval is sought. For special HHG authority, this means fitness to apply and follow the exacting HHG integrity and performance standards of the FMCSA and STB, not just the safety standards. In 1999, Congress recommended, but did not require, proficiency examination for all carrier license applicants. In 2012, Congress required that HHG applicants must identify 'its tariff' in the application. Fourteen years later, this is not yet included anywhere on FMCSA's OP-1 application form, and enforcement investigations demonstrate that some licensed carriers don't even have a tariff.

FMCSA's consumer-facing Protect Your Move (PYM) web pages delegate primary responsibility for a move gone wrong to the consumer victim. FMCSA's 'Rights and Responsibilities' Booklet says: 'The primary responsibility for protecting your move lies with you in selecting a reputable household goods mover or household goods broker, and making sure you understand the terms and conditions of your contract and the remedies that are available to you in case problems arise.'

This blame-game overlooks FMCSA's failed gate-keeping function at the HHG mover's application for license stage and FMCSA's failed enforcement functions when moving fraud violations become glaringly obvious to the agency (but invisible to consumers) for individual brokers and carriers. Any consumer that engages in days or weeks of investigative work to complete all of the PYM suggestions before moving cannot completely avoid all carriers and brokers for which FMCSA allows continuing operating authority notwithstanding demonstrated HHG incompetence or lack of integrity.

The failed gate-keeping function is shown in FMCSA A&I investigation and enforcement data, and illustrated by examples. In 2023, FMCSA granted HHG broker authority to Booking Agency USA, owned by Farah Al-Ibrahim of New Jersey. At the time, Ms. Al-Ibrahim was on parole after being sentenced for moving fraud violations (DNJ 2:19-cr-00140-SDW). In April 2025, the Florida owner of 3 Brothers Moving & Storage, Edward Cannatelli, was indicted for insurance fraud along with his wife, Robbyn and others (SD Fla. 8:25-cr-00177). Cannatelli's FMCSA-authorized HHG brokerage company was unaffected by this integrity-related development, and continues to show active authority into early August 2026. In 2017 Anthony Tursi pleaded guilty to charges related to Florida's sober home fraud crackdown. In January 2026 Tursi's company, Zenith Moving Group (DOT #04046181), was granted FMCSA HHG broker authority, and in the first 6 months accrued 15 NCCDB complaints, mostly for bait and switch pricing.

Gate-keeping at the carrier application stage is also essential to catching or curtailing reincarnated or chameleon carriers, carriers that get clean FMCSA authority under a new company name to avoid a bad regulatory compliance record or evade authority revocation. Secretary Duffy prominently announced in May 2026 that FMCSA's new MOTUS registration system would stem the reincarnation tide.

Carrier reincarnation is a problem for HHG moving fraud prevention just like it is for safety and crash prevention. On March 25, 2026, FMCSA authorized the new one-truck carrier application of JCS Moving (of Georgia), which continued operations at the same location as Handle With Care Moving, whose HHG license was revoked effective March 30 after receiving 147 NCCDB complaints, 49 in 2025 alone. Both carrier corporations were organized by Damian Cowell, operate with the same employees, and receive moving jobs from Menards Moving, a Florida broker, who apparently helped facilitate the reincarnation. True to form, JCS has had 27 NCCDB complaints in its first 3 months of operation, most (15) for hostage goods. FMCSA (CEI, Ga, and Southern Region) was expressly informed by emails in early June of the HWC to JCS reincarnation that slipped through its registration cracks. No visible enforcement response has resulted. JCS continues to defraud HHG consumers daily.

FMCSA has, commendably, expanded its gate-keeping function beyond the OP-1 application process to include special safety compliance review procedures for new carrier entrants since 2002. 49 CFR Part 385 (Subpart D). In this process, new entrants are examined within the first year after initial licensing, and are subject to greater scrutiny for the first 18 months. This provides new carriers a chance to learn and apply safety requirements, and to correct deficiencies found in inspections. But for new entrant HHG carriers intent on consumer fraud, the period in which FMCSA is not looking, from initial licensing to first new entrant examination, provides a window for free-ride scam and extortion revenue from consumer victims. The free ride extends even beyond HHG violation discovery because investigation, enforcement, and sanction procedures take time. A lot of time, during which the carrier still retains and exploits unrevoked authority secure in the knowledge that moving fraud rarely results in enforcement, and even more rarely results in criminal prosecution.

FMCSA's observation of moving fraud events during the scam opportunity window, while not intervening to immediately suspend HHG operating authority, sadly reminds this writer of the Kitty Genovese story. A New York woman was brutally murdered in 1964 while neighbors reportedly observed the ongoing assault from their apartment windows and did nothing to intervene. But for moving scams, the bystanding observers of ongoing fraud assault are agency law enforcement officials.

For example, new entrant Howards Vanlines of Garfield, NJ, was granted FMCSA HHG authority on September 26, 2025, with a one-truck fleet, and then falsely promoted 60+ years of high-quality moving experience. Consumer moving fraud quickly followed, as some victims duly reported to FMCSA. In its first 7.5 months of operation, Howards accrued 89 NCCDB complaints, mainly for integrity and fraud categories of bait and switch pricing, hostage goods, and deceptive business practices. Another 79 NCCDB complaints were added from 5/15 to 6/26/26, with hostage loads leading the complaint list. Most transactions, as reported by consumers, were by Howards' rental of Penske trucks, invisible to FMCSA safety system oversight. Howards continues to defraud HHG shippers, drawing as much revenue as possible from fraud while FMCSA investigates and contemplates possible enforcement remedies. Similarly, new entrant JCS Moving & Storage in Georgia, granted HHG authority on March 25, 2026 as a reincarnation of authority-revoked carrier Handle With Care, has accrued 27 NCCDB complaints in the first three months of operation (through 6/26/26), with hostage goods (15) in the highest category. JCS may enjoy many months of free ride to scam consumers before FMCSA pays attention by NCCDB complaint response or new entrant examination.

For HHG brokers, new entrant and otherwise, there is no automatic new entrant regulatory oversight like there is for carriers, at least no oversight visible to consumers, carriers and the public. The free ride scam opportunity starts on the day HHG brokers are issued their special FMCSA HHG license authority. It continues thereafter, as revealed by zero closed broker enforcement cases since September 1, 2024, the start of FY 2025.

As observed above, FMCSA's 'Protect Your Move' website and publications are intended to educate consumers on 'remedies that are available' when problems arise. Detailed instructions are provided by FMCSA to address lost or damaged property, with options for arbitration, legal actions, and the 9-month notice of claim deadline for Carmack Amendment property claims (49 USC 14706). Not mentioned by Protect Your Move is a much shorter 120-day deadline for consumers to give a notice of claim to the carrier in order to preserve the right to recover attorney's fees in certain disputes otherwise subject to arbitration. 49 USC 14708(d)(1).

Property claims, however, represent only 11% of consumer NCCDB HHG complaints. The greatest number of NCCDB complaints are for fraud and other integrity failure categories: Lowball to highball bait and switch pricing (20%), deceptive business practices (16%), and hostage goods extortion (7%).

For the growing HHG moving fraud categories, FMCSA's Protect Your Move guidance on consumer remedies is scant. First, the agency suggests filing a complaint on the NCCDB. But this is no consumer remedy. FMCSA explains that the NCCDB complaint is only 'used for analytical and statistical purposes,' and may help FMCSA decide which movers to investigate. This practice led an executive of OOIDA, a national truckers association, to observe in Senate hearings in February 2025 that the NCCDB is 'where complaints go to die.' Consistent with this perception, consumer HHG fraud victims increasingly rely on Facebook moving scam group posts, and other social media, rather than using the somewhat tedious and seemingly ineffective NCCDB complaint system. Second, FMCSA suggests that moving fraud victims 'can file a complaint with... the Better Business Bureau, or seek help from consumer groups within your State.' Again, these are useful places to vent and provide data. But they are not remedies.

FMCSA's PYM website and moving handbook explain that primary responsibility for HHG moving fraud enforcement lies outside of the Department of Transportation. Congress gave state agencies authority to enforce federal HHG laws, and FMCSA's preference is to pass the enforcement buck to the states. The agency's PYM preference is clear: 'State attorneys general and consumer affairs agencies are responsible for pursuing suspected moving fraud.' The Catch-22 circle is complete when consumer victims contact state agencies who disclaim or decline HHG enforcement and refer consumers back to FMCSA.

FMCSA's pass-the-buck message to consumer victims of moving fraud seeking remedies is similar. The Rights and Responsibilities handbook basically tells consumers, 'you're on your own': 'You must resolve your own loss and damage and/or moving charge disputes with your mover.' A victim of moving fraud or property loss may try to start this process by using FMCSA's Protect Your Move resources in 'Check the Registered Mover Database' only to be stymied by the mover's chameleon opportunity built into the agency's own search system. For example, Noble Moving and Storage, a carrier in Fairfield NJ, Vellar Holdings, a Florida broker, and Eagle Moving Group, another Florida broker, do not show up by search on that database. Information is only provided by a search using current d/b/a trade names: 'Moving Systems' for Noble, 'Safe Ship Moving Systems' for Vellar, and 'New Start Relocation' for Eagle. To add to the 'Safe Ship' confusion, a sister company called 'Safe Ship Moving Services, LLC' can only be searched on PYM under the trade name 'Rapid Relocation.' A moving company only needs to use its company name, or cycle through trade names, to hide malfeasance records from inquiring HHG moving victims.

Moving fraud disputes most often involve bait and switch pricing, which (if anyone bothered to look) is often a willful violation of tariff provisions, a felony offence. For some billing/pricing disputes, the consumer-shipper must provide 'notice' of dispute within 180 days of receipt of the bill of lading. 49 USC 13710(a)(3)(B). This critical 'statute of repose' deadline is shorter than the 9-month deadline for property damage notice of claim, affects a much larger category of NCCDB complaints, yet is mentioned nowhere in FMCSA's Protect Your Move webpages.

Also not mentioned in Protect Your Move are administrative adjudicatory remedies available to HHG consumer victims of moving fraud. For carrier violations of tariff pricing rules, or use of pricing practices that are not 'reasonable,' the Surface Transportation Board continues to provide the same kind of administrative adjudicatory remedies used by the ICC prior to its termination in 1995 (49 USC 13701-13702), with particular focus on adjudication of HHG tariff and pricing practices. 49 USC 13702(c)(5). Consumer protection would be well served if FMCSA disclosed this remedy to its consumer (and carrier) constituents.

No mention is made in the agency's Protect Your Move webpages about the Secretary of Transportation's own statutory authority to adjudicate claims by consumers (and others) that carriers and brokers have caused economic injury by regulatory violations. This is found in 49 USC 14704, entitled 'Rights and remedies of persons injured by carriers or brokers,' which was provided in the 1995 ICC Termination Act (including award of attorney's fees). Subsection 14704(c)(1) expressly allows injured persons three alternative forums in which to bring a private enforcement adjudicatory complaint for regulatory violations: (1) the Surface Transportation Board, (2) the Secretary of Transportation, or (3) a court by 'civil action.' The STB has rules of practice for this kind of procedure, and dockets complaints immediately upon filing. The Federal Maritime Commission likewise has rules for parallel complaints involving violations in international HHG moving transactions. The DOT, more than 30 years after authorized by Congress, has nothing. After the first 14704(c)(1) complaint to the Secretary of Transportation was filed in March 2025, it took 10 months for agency referral to the Office of Hearings and assignment to an administrative law judge. A second 14704(c)(1) complaint filed in June 2026 still waits docketing referral to DOT's Office of Hearings after two months.

Additionally, no mention is made in Protect Your Move about the special hostage goods remedy created by Congress in 2012: 'The Secretary may order, after notice and an opportunity for a proceeding, that a person found holding a household goods shipment hostage return the goods to an aggrieved shipper.' 49 USC 14915(a)(1). This was one of the 'new authorities' of which FMCSA Administrator Ferro spoke in Senate testimony in September 2012. Fourteen years later, FMCSA has still published no rules or instructions by which consumer hostage victims can access or request prompt use of this remedy before hostage goods are auctioned off, are lost, or are destroyed by the carrier. A hostage victim filed a petition to FMCSA requesting use of this remedy in mid-June 2026. None of the several FMCSA recipients of the petition acknowledged or responded to the remedy request.

When injured HHG consumers look for guiding adjudicatory precedent on agency websites, it can readily be searched and found in STB's and FMC's dedicated adjudication web pages. Not so for FMCSA, which has some safety, registration and enforcement adjudication material posted on regulations.gov, with highly limited, unfriendly, and largely useless search options.

And should injured consumers require public documents not published on DOT's web pages in order to support moving fraud claims, FMCSA's backlogged FOIA process presents another remedy obstacle. An FOIA request was made in August 2024 to FMCSA for redacted NCCDB records (without personal identifying information) to use in a bait and switch complaint against a moving company. The agency FOIA response: It would take about 12 months because of great backlog of requests from personal injury lawyers in accident cases. More than a year later, a partial production of requested HHG complaint records was finally provided. For consumer HHG fraud victims that have filed a NCCDB complaint online, but neglected in the confusing web process to copy or print the complaint contents, the complaint cannot be accessed if needed for an adjudication complaint or insurance claim. FMCSA's message to such consumers is to request a copy of their complaint by filing an FOIA request.

Finally, when HHG consumers suffer losses from carrier and broker regulatory violations, or property damage, there is but token opportunity for recovery from insurance and bond security required by Congress and FMCSA for HHG licensees. Carriers are not required to carry a performance bond of any kind for their frequent regulatory malfeasance. Broker bonds purportedly cover both contract and regulatory malfeasance, but insurance carriers responding to a bond claim often require cumbersome and confusing claim filings protocols, creating claim obstacles antithetical to FMCSA's goal of 'consumer protection.' When HHG claims actually reach the desk of insurance company adjusters, they often respond with unfair claims settlement practices that are not regulated or even observed by FMCSA. Property loss and damage insurance for carriers is limited to a paltry $5,000 minimum by FMCSA rules, yet even for this small amount, unfair claims settlement practices abound.

There is no complaint category in the NCCDB for misconduct by providers of FMCSA-mandated insurance, and no FMCSA subagency is identified in Protect Your Move for consumers to contact when insurance and surety insurance providers fail to serve the purpose Congress intended. Even if insurance carriers did not create obstacles to claim recovery, FMCSA provides no information or instruction in its Protect Your Move website on how shipper victims of HHG property damage or regulatory violations may effectively access relief from FMCSA-mandated security instruments.

Not all is gloom and doom for prospective household goods moving consumers. A few courageous internet watchdogs have evolved to meet some consumer advocacy needs that FMCSA has been unable or unwilling to provide. These have been threatened by moving company lawsuits and web media disparagement seeking to silence the voice of consumer information.

The oldest web watchdog is movingscam.com, created by Tim Walker in 2001. Mr. Walker and his site were sued in 2007 by Nationwide Relocation Services, a company owned by Aldo Disorbo, who was at the center of the Senate investigations in 2012.

U.S. Moving Protection Organization (https://usmpo.org/), a private non-profit created by Segah Yildirim, appeared in early 2024. In 2025, USMPO and Yildirim were sued by Colonial Van Lines (another Disorbo company), Safe Ship (a Roger Vance company), and Amerisafe. This three Goliaths versus one small David court battle in South Florida is still ongoing.

The most recent website moving fraud watchdogs are homemovingnow.com (Sept. 2025) and Trunk (May 2026), access at https://trunk.lorea.ai/insights. These new entrants, like movingscam.com and USMPO, continue to provide information and tools to benefit consumers notwithstanding the looming threat from some rogue moving companies.

FMCSA might limit unscrupulous movers' easy access to vulnerable consumers by improved gate-keeping and enforcement activities in the future. But with four million interstate moves per year, problems are bound to arise for which consumers need carrier selection and move-gone-wrong remedy guidance. The website watchdogs will continue to serve this need.

U.S. Moving Protection Organization, for example, has published a free Consumer Handbook: Your Rights, Your Remedies, Your Deadlines: The Handbook for Interstate Moves sets out the deadline calendar, the tariff rules, the forum map, and the pre-booking checks to help avoid reincarnated carriers and new-entrant operators. It is not intended to replace the FMCSA booklets movers must furnish to consumers, but supplements those publications with helpful suggestions for consumers (or their attorneys) when things go wrong and they need to be armed for effective negotiation or litigation with a moving company unwilling to declare 'mea culpa.'

A future with improved FMCSA gate-keeping, effective enforcement, and evolving private watchdogs all dedicated to protection of vulnerable consumers will hopefully see less personal anguish and fewer complaints against carriers and brokers on NCCDB, BBB and social media platforms.

August 2026

Prepared by: John H. Vetne, Attorney. Retired, 2015. Scammed by movers, 2023.

For feedback, critique, and sources of data used in preparation of this article, please contact Mr. Vetne by email to shippers4fmcsaHHGreforms@gmail.com.