Which States Have the Most Moving Fraud? FMCSA Complaint Data by State

Not all states produce the same volume of moving fraud complaints. Trunk queried the FMCSA's registered carrier database, filtered to companies authorized to transport household goods, and counted them by state. The results confirm what consumer advocates have suspected for years: a small number of states account for a disproportionate share of problematic movers.

Of 2,231 federally registered household goods carriers in Trunk's database, here is how the top states rank:

1. Florida: 361 registered HHG carriers (16.2% of all registered movers) 2. Texas: 285 (12.8%) 3. California: 173 (7.8%) 4. New York: 133 (6.0%) 5. Georgia: 110 (4.9%) 6. New Jersey: 85 (3.8%) 7. Colorado: 69 (3.1%) 8. Michigan: 63 (2.8%) 9. Washington: 62 (2.8%) 10. Virginia: 61 (2.7%)

Florida alone has more registered HHG carriers than the bottom 30 states combined. Illinois, despite being the third-largest state by population, has only 32 registered carriers, placing it 20th.

Florida's dominance is not a coincidence. The state has become the national center of the moving broker industry, where companies collect deposits from consumers, then dispatch the actual move to carriers the consumer never chose and never vetted.

The concentration is visible at the city level. Miami has 35 registered HHG carriers. Pompano Beach has 24. Boca Raton has 14. Fort Lauderdale has 23 (split across two spellings in federal records). Hollywood has 13. South Florida's Broward and Palm Beach counties alone account for more than 100 registered carriers.

Specific Florida-based companies that have generated the highest complaint volumes include Safe Ship Moving Services (Boca Raton, 404 complaints tracked by Trunk), Menards Moving (290 complaints), and Coastal Moving Group (229 complaints). All three operate as brokers, not carriers. They collect deposits, dispatch to subcontractors, and disclaim responsibility when belongings are damaged, held hostage, or lost.

Why Florida? Three factors: the state has minimal barriers to forming an LLC, it sits at the southern terminus of the Eastern Seaboard corridor (the highest-volume moving lane in the country), and its population growth means constant inbound moves from consumers unfamiliar with local operators.

New Jersey ranks sixth with 85 registered HHG carriers, but its role in the fraud ecosystem is distinct from Florida's. Where Florida specializes in brokerage, New Jersey is where belongings end up.

30 Sherwood Lane in Fairfield, NJ is one address Trunk has identified with multiple registered carriers: Moving Systems, Space Moving VanLines LLC, Premiere Moving and Storage LLC, and Four Seasons Movers LLC. Four companies, one address, different suite numbers. This is a pattern that appears across multiple NJ locations.

New Jersey's proximity to New York City, its warehouse infrastructure, and its position on the I-95 corridor make it the natural staging ground for hostage-load operations. Belongings collected in the Northeast are consolidated in NJ warehouses, then held until the consumer pays an inflated balance.

Texas ranks second with 285 registered carriers, driven by the same factors that drive everything in Texas: scale. The state has four of the top 15 metro areas in the country (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin), massive inbound migration, and a regulatory environment that favors business formation over consumer protection.

Texas does not require state-level licensing for interstate movers. A company needs only its FMCSA operating authority, which can be obtained online in a matter of days. The result is a large number of registered carriers, many of which are single-truck operations with no permanent address, no warehouse, and no claims process.

California (173 carriers) and New York (133 carriers) rank third and fourth, roughly proportional to their populations. Both states have stronger consumer protection frameworks than Florida or Texas, including state-level licensing requirements and active attorneys general.

California's carriers concentrate in Los Angeles, where addresses like 1601 Perrino Place have appeared in connection with companies like KF Moving LLC and LoadRans. New York's carriers are distributed across the metro area, with significant clusters in Brooklyn and Queens.

The presence of strong state regulators does not eliminate fraud, but it does create consequences. California's Bureau of Household Goods and Services can revoke state permits. New York's Department of Transportation conducts inspections. These enforcement mechanisms push the worst actors to register in states with lighter oversight, even when they operate nationally.

The pattern across all six hotspot states comes down to three variables:

1. Ease of registration. States where forming an LLC takes 24 hours and costs under $200 attract companies that plan to dissolve within months. Florida leads here.

2. Enforcement gaps. States without active intrastate moving regulators allow companies to operate without inspections, insurance verification, or complaint tracking. Texas and Georgia fall into this category.

3. Population corridors. Moving fraud follows moving volume. The I-95 corridor (Florida to New York), the Sun Belt migration pattern (Northeast to Florida, California to Texas), and the coastal-to-interior flows create predictable lanes where fraud concentrates.

A consumer hiring a mover registered in Florida, Texas, or New Jersey is not necessarily hiring a fraudulent company. But the data shows these states have the highest density of carriers, and density correlates with the presence of bad actors hiding among legitimate operators.

1. Check where the company is registered, not just where it advertises. A mover marketing to customers in Chicago may be registered in Boca Raton, FL. That is a broker, not a local mover.

2. Verify the USDOT number at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov. Look at the physical address. If it is a residential address in South Florida, proceed with caution.

3. Ask whether the company is a broker or a carrier. Brokers are registered under 49 CFR Part 371. Carriers are registered under Part 375. They are different businesses with different obligations.

4. Prefer carriers with a physical warehouse in your origin or destination state. A warehouse means equipment, employees, and a location where you can show up if things go wrong.

5. Search the company's registered address on Trunk. If multiple companies share the same address, that is a data point worth investigating before you hand over a deposit.