We Scraped 8,500 Movers from FMCSA. Here's What the Complaint Data Shows.

FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB) tracks every consumer complaint filed against registered interstate movers. The data is broken down by 14 categories, by year, and by company. But there is no way to see the national picture. You can look up one company at a time. You cannot ask: what is the most common complaint? Which states are worst? Are brokers or carriers generating more complaints?

Trunk built a scraper that extracts complaint records for every registered mover from FMCSA's Protect Your Move database, state by state. As of July 28, 2026, we have scraped 8,500+ companies across 8 states (Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington DC), with more states being added daily. This is a snapshot of what the data shows so far. The numbers will grow as we complete the national scrape.

Previous analyses, including an earlier version of a Trunk article, cited hostage loads as the largest complaint category at 31% of all filings. That claim could not be verified from public data. Now we can test it.

Across 8,500+ scraped companies, the actual ranking:

1. Estimates/Final Charges: 6,027 complaints (20.6%) 2. Consumer Complaint / Deceptive Business Practices: 4,949 (16.9%) 3. Shipment Documents: 3,566 (12.2%) 4. Pickup and Delivery: 3,336 (11.4%) 5. Claim Settlement: 3,129 (10.7%) 6. Loss and Damage: 3,083 (10.5%) 7. Hostage Goods: 1,934 (6.6%) 8. Weighing: 1,910 (6.5%)

Hostage loads rank 7th, not 1st. The dominant complaint is about estimates and final charges: the price you were quoted versus the price you were charged. This is the bait-and-switch problem. A consumer gets a binding estimate for $4,900, and the carrier invoices $7,200 on moving day. The second-largest category, Deceptive Business Practices, captures the broader fraud pattern.

This does not mean hostage loads are not serious. They are extortion. But the data shows that the most common consumer harm is financial: being charged significantly more than the quoted price.

FMCSA organizes its enforcement by region, each with an administrator who has semi-independent enforcement authority. The complaint distribution is not even close to balanced:

Southern Region (FL, GA, TX, and others): 7,721 complaints from 5,400 companies Western Region (CA and others): 955 complaints from 2,042 companies Eastern Region (MD, VA, DC, NJ, and others): 357 complaints from 1,522 companies

The Southern region generates 85% of all complaints in our dataset. Florida alone accounts for the majority. This is not a national problem distributed evenly across states. It is concentrated in a specific geography, operating through a specific business model: Florida-based brokers dispatching to carriers in other states.

The companies with the highest total NCCDB complaints across all scraped states:

1. Safe Ship Moving Services (FL, broker, 0 trucks): 321 complaints 2. Amerisafe Vanlines (FL, carrier, 6 trucks): 293 complaints 3. Menards Moving & Storage (FL, broker, 0 trucks): 290 complaints 4. Coastal Moving Services (FL, broker, 0 trucks): 229 complaints 5. American Van Lines (FL, carrier, 81 trucks): 215 complaints 6. New Start Relocation (FL, broker, 0 trucks): 179 complaints 7. Loadrans LLC (CA, carrier, 12 trucks): 166 complaints 8. Handle With Care Moving (GA, carrier, 1 truck): 147 complaints 9. Value Added Moving (FL, carrier, 1 truck): 135 complaints 10. America First Moving Services (FL, broker, 0 trucks): 129 complaints

9 of the top 10 are in Florida. 5 of the top 10 are brokers with zero trucks. These companies do not own a single vehicle. They take consumer bookings, dispatch carriers they may or may not have vetted, and collect fees.

Note: raw complaint counts favor high-volume companies. American Van Lines (81 trucks, 215 complaints) has about 2.7 complaints per truck. Value Added Moving (1 truck, 135 complaints) has 135 complaints per truck. Per-truck rate is a more meaningful measure of carrier risk.

By normalizing addresses and phone numbers across all 8,500+ companies, Trunk automatically detects companies sharing the same registered location or contact information. These clusters are a primary indicator of shell company networks.

So far we have identified over 150 addresses with 2 or more companies registered, and over 150 phone numbers shared by 2 or more companies. One Jacksonville, FL address (815 South Main Street) hosts 11 companies sharing a single phone number, including US Van Lines, First Coast Van Lines, Military Relocation Services, and three "Dependable Relocation" branches in Texas cities.

A separate investigation found a Georgia carrier, Handle With Care Moving (147 complaints, authority revoked March 30, 2026), that was replaced five days earlier by JCS Moving and Storage, registered by the same person, with the same employees, dispatched by the same Florida broker (Menards). JCS has accumulated 20 complaints in its first four months. FMCSA was notified twice and has not acted.

FMCSA closed zero broker enforcement cases in FY 2025. Zero in FY 2026. Not reduced. Zero.

Meanwhile, the five most-complained-about brokers in our dataset (Safe Ship, Menards, Coastal, New Start, America First) have a combined 1,148 complaints. These are companies with no trucks, no drivers, and no physical capacity to move anything. They take bookings and dispatch carriers. When those carriers damage goods, hold shipments hostage, or inflate prices, the broker faces no FMCSA enforcement consequences.

A July 2026 jury verdict of $604 million against freight broker C.H. Robinson for liability in a fatal crash may begin to change this dynamic. The legal principle that brokers bear responsibility for the carriers they select applies equally to household goods.

This is a snapshot from an ongoing project. Trunk is currently scraping the remaining 43 states. When complete, we will have complaint data for every registered interstate mover in the country, aggregated in ways FMCSA has never published.

The full dataset, including complaint category breakdowns, company type analysis, regional trends, and shell company detection, is available in Trunk's NCCDB Complaint Intelligence dashboard at trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb.

If you have been scammed by a mover, you can report it at trunk.lorea.ai/report-mover. If you are researching a mover before hiring, check their complaint history, safety record, and reviews at trunk.lorea.ai.