Your 5-Star Rating, Their Scam: How Fraudulent Movers Hijack Legitimate Companies' Names

When a fraudulent mover takes the name of a legitimate company, two victims are created: the consumer who hires the wrong company, and the real company whose reputation is destroyed by reviews meant for the scam operation.

This is not a hypothetical problem. Trunk has documented four cases of name theft or name confusion involving moving companies. In each case, FMCSA's registration system allowed a new entrant to register under a name nearly identical to an existing carrier. The legitimate company had no recourse except to post warnings and file complaints with the same agencies that approved the duplicate name.

Howard's Van Lines (DOT 1245219) is a legitimate moving company based in Dayton, Ohio. In September 2025, Howards Vanlines Inc (DOT 4391903) was registered in Garfield, New Jersey with a single box truck.

The New Jersey company immediately began advertising '60+ years of moving experience,' borrowing the Dayton company's decades of history as its own. A consumer researching 'Howard's Van Lines' or 'Howards Vanlines' online could easily confuse the two.

The New Jersey Howards Vanlines went on to accumulate 166 NCCDB complaints in eight months, the highest per-truck complaint rate in the FMCSA database. Consumers' goods were held hostage, prices were inflated by hundreds of percent, and multiple police reports and FBI referrals resulted.

FMCSA had dismissed the New Jersey company's first application on May 19, 2025, before approving a second application four months later. At no point did the registration process flag that the chosen name was nearly identical to an existing, established carrier.

Nobel Relocation is a legitimate international moving company with over 20 years of experience. It is a member of FIDI, IAM, and AMSA, and undergoes annual external audits for compliance with US and international moving regulations.

Noble Moving and Storage (NJ, Joseph Hannouch) is a documented fraud operation connected to at least 21 aliases, 145 NCCDB complaints under its Moving Systems DBA, and an active DOT Office of Inspector General investigation.

Because Noble Moving does not maintain a Google Business page, victims searching for the company to leave negative reviews instead find Nobel Relocation's listings on Google, Yelp, and other platforms. The legitimate company receives the negative reviews for moves it never performed.

Nobel Relocation posted a public warning on the 'Victims of Noble' Facebook group in August 2025, explaining: 'Noble Moving & Storage has been scamming clients, ignoring calls, refusing to provide updates, and failing to deliver promised services. Because they do not maintain a Google Business page, many of their victims mistakenly leave negative reviews on our Google, Yelp, and other platforms, damaging our reputation for moves we did not perform.'

Nobel Relocation reported Noble to the FBI, DOT, FMCSA, and BBB, and offered to join any legal action victims pursue against Noble.

Josh Martin owns Noble Moving Inc. in Southern California, a small company operating since 2020 with a 5-star reputation built through direct, owner-supervised moves with no subcontractors.

Since the New Jersey Noble Moving fraud operation gained notoriety, Martin's company has been 'taking the fall for the wrong doing' of a completely unrelated business on the other side of the country. Consumers and review platforms confuse the two companies. Martin's 5-star reputation, built over years, is being eroded by a scam operation he has no connection to.

FMCSA's registration system does not prevent multiple companies from operating under the same or similar names in different states. A consumer searching for 'Noble Moving' may find either company, with no clear indication of which is which unless they check the DOT number and state of registration.

1. Always check the DOT number, not just the company name. Two companies can have the same name in different states. The DOT number is unique.

2. Verify the company's state of registration matches where you found them. If a company's website says 'serving the Northeast' but its FMCSA registration is in a different state than expected, investigate further.

3. Check how long the company has had its FMCSA authority. A company claiming '60+ years of experience' but with authority granted last year is lying.

4. Search the company name plus 'complaints' or 'scam' before hiring. If another company with the same name has a documented fraud history, make sure you are hiring the right one.

5. Look up the company on Trunk at trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb. Trunk cross-references multiple data sources and tracks aliases, DBAs, and connected entities.

Atlas Van Lines has operated since 1948 with 430+ agents across the U.S. and Canada. The company has spent $28 million in advertising and generated $14 billion in revenue since 2006. The Atlas brand is a registered federal trademark.

In 2024, Atlas Mover Group LLC (DOT 4086604) registered in Macon, Georgia, incorporating the Atlas name into its corporate identity and website (atlasmoversgroup.com). The website displayed the DOT number of a second company, United Best Moving LLC (DOT 3442313, McDonough GA), in its footer. Both companies shared an address at 3312 Northside Drive, Macon GA.

Atlas Van Lines filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit in the Southern District of Indiana (Case 3:24-cv-00116, July 15, 2024). Neither defendant responded. Default was entered October 7, 2024. Final judgment was entered February 4, 2025.

United Best Moving LLC, the co-defendant, is the same broker that arranged a consumer's Alaska-to-Kentucky move, in which belongings were held hostage and eventually auctioned without notice. It is also a co-defendant with Home and Office Movers in a Florida Attorney General enforcement action. A single company that steals a major brand's identity, brokers consumer moves that end in hostage loads and auctions, and then defaults on a federal trademark lawsuit without responding.

FMCSA's registration system does not check new applications against existing company names. A new applicant can register under a name identical to an established carrier in a different state. There is no trademark check, no name-conflict review, and no notification to the existing company.

The OP-1 application asks about affiliations with other FMCSA-regulated entities, but it does not ask whether the chosen name is already in use by another carrier. A chameleon carrier that wants a clean record can adopt the name of a legitimate company and immediately benefit from whatever positive reputation that name carries online.

For consumers, this means that positive reviews, established websites, and recognizable names are not reliable indicators of a company's quality. The only reliable identifier is the DOT number and the complaint history attached to it.