New Jersey Moving Complaints: 1,260 Companies, 1,911 Complaints, and the Sherwood Lane Warehouse

New Jersey has 1,260 registered interstate movers in FMCSA's database. Of those, 191 have at least one NCCDB complaint on file. Together they account for 1,911 total complaints. That is a complaint-per-company ratio far higher than California (955 complaints from 2,042 companies) or Texas (648 from 1,992 companies), and closer to Florida's pattern despite having half as many registered movers.

New Jersey is a smaller state with a concentrated moving industry. The complaint data points to specific companies and specific locations that generate outsized consumer harm.

The most-complained-about companies registered in New Jersey:

1. Howards Vanlines: 166 complaints (subject of FBI referral) 2. Moving Systems Inc / Noble Moving and Storage: 145 complaints 3. Northern Moving Systems Corp: 26 complaints

Howards Vanlines tops the list with 166 complaints and has been the subject of an FBI referral. But the second entry reveals a different kind of problem. Moving Systems Inc operates as a DBA ("doing business as") for Noble Moving and Storage. Consumers who hired Noble Moving cannot easily find the complaint history, because FMCSA files the complaints under Moving Systems Inc. A consumer searching for "Noble Moving" in the NCCDB finds nothing. The 145 complaints are invisible unless you know the legal entity name.

This is not an isolated case. The DBA gap is a systemic problem in FMCSA's complaint database. Companies can operate under a consumer-facing brand that has no searchable complaint history, while the legal entity accumulates hundreds of complaints under a name no consumer would recognize.

One of the most striking patterns in the New Jersey data is the cluster of companies registered at 30 Sherwood Lane in Fairfield. At least four companies operate from this single warehouse address. They share physical space and, in some cases, personnel and equipment.

Consumers whose goods were taken to this location have reported tracking their belongings using Find My iPhone. Their items, loaded onto a truck by one company, ended up at the Sherwood Lane warehouse under the control of a different company. When they showed up in person, they were told the goods would not be released without additional payment.

This is the hostage load problem in its most literal form: consumer property held in a warehouse the consumer did not choose, by a company the consumer did not hire, behind a demand for payment beyond what was quoted. The fact that multiple companies share a single warehouse makes it difficult for consumers or regulators to determine which entity is responsible.

The Sherwood Lane cluster illustrates why address-based detection matters. A consumer looking up any one of these companies would see a single entity. Only by cross-referencing addresses across the full FMCSA database does the shared-warehouse pattern become visible.

New Jersey's complaint landscape has drawn attention beyond FMCSA. KMBC, a Kansas City television station, investigated moving fraud cases linked to New Jersey companies after consumers in Missouri had their goods shipped to New Jersey warehouses without consent. The FBI has received referrals on at least one high-complaint New Jersey mover.

Despite this attention, FMCSA enforcement action against the most-complained-about New Jersey companies has been minimal. The complaint data accumulates. The companies continue to operate. New entities register at the same addresses when old ones face scrutiny.

New Jersey also highlights the limits of state-level analysis. Many of these companies serve consumers across the Eastern seaboard. A New Jersey company may pick up goods in Virginia, store them in Fairfield, and deliver (or not deliver) in Florida. The consumer's state of residence, the company's state of registration, and the state where the goods are held may all be different.

New Jersey's complaint rate, adjusted for the number of registered companies, is among the highest in our dataset. The state has fewer movers than the big three (FL, CA, TX) but generates disproportionate consumer harm. The causes are identifiable: a small number of high-complaint companies, shared warehouse operations that obscure accountability, and DBA structures that hide complaint histories from consumer searches.

The DBA problem is particularly actionable. If FMCSA linked complaints to all operating names, not just the legal entity, consumers could find the complaint history of the company they actually hired. This would cost nothing to implement and would immediately improve the transparency of the NCCDB.

The full New Jersey dataset is available in Trunk's NCCDB Complaint Intelligence dashboard at trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb.