Broker Complaints vs Carrier Complaints: What Five Years of FMCSA Data Shows

Using NCCDB complaint data aggregated by Trunk, broker complaints have outpaced carrier complaints by a widening margin every year since 2021. The trend is accelerating, and the gap between the two complaint categories has more than tripled in five years.

This is not because carriers have gotten better. It is because brokers have scaled faster than any other segment of the moving industry, and the complaint infrastructure has not kept pace.

Broker complaints roughly tripled from approximately 2,000 in 2021 to approximately 6,000 in 2025. Carrier complaints grew about 30% in the same period, from approximately 4,500 to approximately 5,800.

In 2021, broker complaints represented about 31% of all NCCDB filings. By 2025, that share had grown to approximately 51%. Brokers now generate more complaints than carriers despite performing zero actual moves. Every complaint against a broker represents a transaction where a middleman added cost and removed accountability.

The crossover point, where broker complaints first exceeded carrier complaints, occurred in late 2024. This is a structural shift in the complaint landscape, not a temporary spike.

Brokers create three distinct gaps that each generate complaints.

The information gap: the consumer does not know who will actually move them. The broker sells the move, but a different company shows up on moving day. The consumer has no relationship with the carrier and no ability to vet them in advance.

The pricing gap: the broker's quote does not match the final bill. The broker quotes low to win the sale, and the carrier charges more at pickup to cover actual costs. The consumer is caught between two prices with no leverage.

The accountability gap: when something goes wrong, the broker blames the carrier and the carrier blames the broker. The consumer files a complaint, but neither party accepts responsibility. The broker says they are not liable for the carrier's actions. The carrier says they were given bad information by the broker.

Each of these gaps produces complaints that would not exist if the consumer had hired the carrier directly. The United States Supreme Court has described interstate brokers as "middlemen between motor carriers and the shipping public." Under federal law, brokers are not motor carriers and cannot be held liable as if they were a moving company (49 CFR 371.2(a)). Brokers must disclose their broker status in writing in each of their advertisements (49 CFR 371.7). A broker is not a party to the bill of lading between the consumer and the carrier.

Broker complaints and carrier complaints cluster around different issues, which reveals the nature of the harm each business model creates.

Broker complaints are overwhelmingly about Estimates/Final Charges and Pickup/Delivery issues. These are pricing and logistics problems that stem from the broker's incentive to underquote and the lack of coordination between the broker's sales promise and the carrier's operational reality.

Carrier complaints cluster around Loss and Damage. These are execution problems that happen during the physical move itself. A scratched table, a broken mirror, a missing box. These are bad outcomes, but they are the kind of problems that can be resolved through claims processes.

Hostage load complaints, where a mover holds your belongings until you pay an inflated price, are overwhelmingly associated with broker-arranged moves. The consumer paid the broker a deposit, the carrier demands additional payment at pickup, and the consumer's belongings are caught in the middle. This dynamic rarely occurs when a consumer hires a carrier directly, because the pricing was established between the two parties who are actually present at the move.