The Dual Authority Scam: How a Broker Leases One Truck and Becomes a 'Carrier' Overnight

There is a new pattern in household goods fraud. A broker with a clean complaint record leases a single truck, applies for HHG carrier authority, and overnight transforms from a broker that must disclose its status into a 'carrier' that can tell consumers it has its own trucks.

The truck is real. The authority is real. But the operation has not changed. The company still books moves over the phone, still dispatches to third-party carriers, and still has no crew, no warehouse, and no infrastructure to perform a move. The one-truck lease is a regulatory costume change.

Value Added Moving (d/b/a Moving Storage and Logistics Services Inc, DOT 3488475, Fort Lauderdale FL) is the documented case.

Value Added Moving's FMCSA complaint history tells the story:

2023: 3 complaints 2024: 2 complaints 2025: 30 complaints 2026: 178 complaints (through October, per FMCSA PYM NCCDB)

In late 2025, Value Added leased a truck and obtained HHG carrier authority. The complaint count went from 2 to 178 in twelve months.

The company is registered to Victor Sanziali in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Litigation records show consumer claims against the company and an action by an injured employee who worked for both the moving operation and a health care company also owned by Sanziali.

A company with only broker authority must disclose to consumers that it is a broker and will not perform the move itself. A company with carrier authority can tell consumers it has trucks and will handle their move directly.

A company with both can choose which hat to wear. When selling to a consumer who has been warned to avoid brokers, it wears the carrier hat. When a claim is filed, it points to the carrier it dispatched. The consumer's $75,000 bond claim, available against brokers under 49 USC 13906, becomes harder to pursue because the company can argue it acted as a carrier on that particular move, and carrier bond claims are limited to the $5,000 BMC-34.

Four specific advantages of dual authority for fraud operators:

1. Bond avoidance. A brokered move exposes the broker's $75,000 bond (BMC-84/85) to consumer claims. A subcontracted move, where the dual-authority company acts as the carrier of record and hires another carrier to perform the work, does not link back to the broker bond. The consumer loses access to the larger bond.

2. Disclosure avoidance. Brokers must disclose their status to consumers under 49 CFR 371.7. A dual-authority company can claim carrier status and avoid the disclosure requirement entirely.

3. Complaint dilution. Complaints get split between the broker and carrier authorities. Neither authority shows the full complaint picture. FMCSA's systems do not automatically aggregate complaints across authorities held by the same entity.

4. Consumer deception. A consumer who researches 'should I use a broker or a carrier' and chooses a 'carrier' based on its authority status has been deceived if the company operates as a broker in practice.

In at least one documented case, Value Added dispatched to Seal Pack Movers LLC (DOT 4466896, Jersey City NJ). A consumer reported being extorted for an additional $1,185 at pickup, with payment demanded via Zelle to the driver's personal bank account. The consumer's belongings were stored in Wisconsin for three and a half months with no delivery and eventually no communication from either Value Added or Seal Pack.

Seal Pack Movers was revoked on September 3, 2026, for BMC-91 insurance cancellation. Value Added continues to operate.

The consumer filed complaints with the BBB, FMCSA, and local police. An attorney advised her it would be too expensive to pursue. Her belongings, moved from North Dakota to an undisclosed storage location in Wisconsin, remain undelivered.

The pattern is identical to the broker-chameleon carrier pipeline documented across Trunk's research. The difference is that Value Added's carrier authority makes the pipeline harder to see from the consumer's perspective.

Value Added Moving does not appear in FMCSA's Motus system under its DBA name. A search for 'Value Added Moving' returns no results. The company only appears when searched by its corporate name (Moving Storage and Logistics Services Inc) or its DOT number.

Conversely, FMCSA's older PYM system does not return results for the corporate name. It only finds the company under the DBA name.

As of October 2026, Motus shows Value Added's authority as suspended. PYM shows it as active. The two systems disagree on the status of the same company.

A consumer checking one system would not find the company. A consumer checking the other would see it as active when it may be suspended. Neither system presents the full picture.

1. Look up the company on FMCSA by DOT number, not by name. Name searches fail across systems.

2. Check whether the company has both broker AND carrier authority. Dual authority is not inherently fraudulent, but for a company with one truck and hundreds of complaints, it is a red flag.

3. Ask the company: 'Will YOUR truck and YOUR crew perform my move, or will you dispatch it to another company?' Get the answer in writing. If a different company shows up on moving day, the 'carrier' misrepresented itself.

4. If a different company shows up, note its name and DOT number. Look it up before allowing loading. If the carrier that arrives has been revoked or has a complaint history, you have the right to refuse.

5. Never pay via Zelle to a personal bank account. Legitimate carriers accept credit cards or company checks. Zelle to a driver's personal account is a hallmark of fraud.