Safe Ship Claims 'High Standards' for Carrier Vetting. We Checked Their Carrier List.

Safe Ship Moving Services (DOT 3475743), based in Boca Raton, Florida, is the most-complained-about moving company in the FMCSA database with 404 NCCDB complaints across two DOT numbers operated by the same owner Roger Vance (321 under Vellar/Safe Ship DOT 3475743, 83 under Rapid Relocation DOT 3570396). It is a household goods broker with zero trucks. It does not move anything. It selects carriers and dispatches them to consumers.

On its website, Safe Ship states: 'We set high standards for our partners. We expect all our carriers to adhere to strict safety protocols and provide high-quality service.' Its 'Join Our Network' page invites carriers to submit licensing information and proof of insurance for review.

Safe Ship publishes its carrier list on its Consumer Information page. Federal regulation (49 CFR 371.109) requires brokers to provide a carrier list to consumers upon first contact, though not necessarily on a website. Safe Ship's list is buried deep in its Consumer Information page with no prominent link from the main site. Some brokers do not publish a list at all, and some refuse to provide one even when requested. The list contains 1,080 carriers with DOT numbers. Trunk cross-referenced every carrier on the list against the NCCDB complaint database. The results do not support Safe Ship's claims of high standards.

Of the 1,080 carriers on Safe Ship's published list, Trunk matched 297 against the NCCDB database. The findings:

237 of 297 matched carriers (80%) have NCCDB complaints.

100 carriers (33%) have revoked or inactive FMCSA authority. These are companies that are no longer authorized to transport household goods in interstate commerce. They are on Safe Ship's carrier list anyway.

37 carriers are flagged in Trunk's database as companies consumers should avoid. The full list of flagged movers, including the criteria for flagging, is searchable in Trunk's NCCDB Complaint Intelligence dashboard (trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb).

186 carriers (63%) are small operators with 1 to 2 registered trucks.

The combined complaint count across carriers on Safe Ship's list: 2,954.

The worst carriers Safe Ship dispatches to include:

Rado Express Logistics (IL, 1 truck, 60 complaints, 60 per truck) First Class Movers (IL, 1 truck, 53 complaints, 53 per truck) Lodestone Logistics (TX, 1 truck, 50 complaints, 50 per truck) Goodview Moving and Storage (NJ, 5 trucks, 90 complaints, 18 per truck) Moving Solutions (TN, 2 trucks, 56 complaints, 28 per truck)

These are not companies that meet any reasonable definition of 'high standards.' They are single-truck operators with per-truck complaint rates that indicate systemic fraud.

Rado Express Logistics, the worst per-truck offender on Safe Ship's list, is now a named defendant in Peterfai v. USA Logistics (S.D. Cal., 23-cv-1695-WQH-KSC, Sept. 24, 2024), a federal case involving fraud and extortion in an interstate move. The consumer was quoted $6,597 and the carrier demanded $17,500 on arrival, threatened to dump belongings in the desert, and required cash payment. Rado brokered the move. Another carrier on Safe Ship's published list involved in federal litigation for consumer extortion.

Notably, Ver Vanlines does not appear on Safe Ship's published carrier list. Safe Ship dispatched a consumer's belongings to a carrier that was not even on its own published network.

The gap between Safe Ship's vetting claims and its actual carrier selection is most visible in the case of Ver Vanlines LLC (DOT 4390489), the carrier Safe Ship dispatched for Ke Wang's PCS move.

Ver Vanlines received its FMCSA certificate of authority on May 23, 2025. It was not incorporated as an LLC until June 10, 2025, seventeen days later. FMCSA granted authority to a company that did not legally exist.

Safe Ship claims to require 'at least one year of unblemished HHG history' from carriers in its network. Ver Vanlines had zero history. It was weeks old. It had no track record, no complaint history to check, and no corporate existence at the time it received authority.

Safe Ship dispatched an active-duty Navy officer's household goods to this carrier. The goods were picked up on August 14, 2025. They have not been delivered. Ver's authority was revoked on November 10, 2025. Safe Ship's position: 'We were just the broker.'

Safe Ship's carrier recruitment extends beyond its website form. Screenshots from Facebook groups show a Safe Ship representative, Jessica Badgett, soliciting carriers on multiple Facebook pages dedicated to moving industry professionals, including 'Moving Company Owners & Leadership,' 'Pro Mover Group,' 'Sprinter Van Group,' and 'Movers Life.'

The solicitation posts on these pages seek carriers with as little as one year of experience. This contradicts the image of 'strict safety protocols' and 'high standards' presented on Safe Ship's website. It is consistent with a broker that needs a large volume of available carriers to handle the volume of bookings it generates, regardless of carrier quality.

A broker soliciting carriers on Facebook groups, including a 'Sprinter Van Group,' is not conducting the kind of due diligence that would identify carriers like Ver Vanlines before dispatching consumer goods to them.

Safe Ship's 'Join Our Carrier Network' page features an image of a U.S. service member in uniform holding a child, with an American flag in the background. Safe Ship advertises 'Military Moves' as one of its services.

In a July 2026 profile on Military.com titled 'Lucky Coincidence: Moving Brokerage CEO Takes Pride in Military Family Relocation,' CEO Roger Vance claimed Safe Ship has handled over 100,000 family relocations since 2020, employs approximately 360 people, uses a 'proprietary AI system analyzing 20 metrics' to match families with movers, and donates 10% of proceeds to charity ($2.5 million over three years). The article featured a testimonial from a retired Army sergeant praising the company's service.

The Military.com profile does not mention Safe Ship's 404 NCCDB complaints, its BBB F rating, the 100 carriers with revoked authority on its dispatch list, or the active-duty Navy officer whose household goods disappeared after Safe Ship dispatched them to a carrier that was not legally incorporated when FMCSA licensed it.

The gap between the Military.com profile and Safe Ship's federal complaint record is the gap between marketing and operations. A company claiming AI-driven carrier vetting dispatched a Navy officer's belongings to a carrier that had been in existence for weeks, had zero history, and was not incorporated when it received federal authority. The goods have not been seen since.

For service members planning a PCS move, Trunk's PCS Move Guide (trunk.lorea.ai/pcs-move-guide) covers how to vet movers and protect yourself from broker fraud.

In March 2026, Safe Ship co-sponsored the American Trucking Associations' Moving & Storage Conference in Nashville, the industry's largest annual gathering. Safe Ship sponsored the conference hotel room key cards, mobile app, and event registration. The company had a booth at the expo to solicit carriers and build industry relationships.

The ATA Moving & Storage Conference includes sessions on military and government moves, with speakers holding credentials from DOD, GSA, and FMCSA. By sponsoring the conference, Safe Ship positioned itself alongside legitimate van lines and established carriers, despite holding 404 NCCDB complaints and an F rating from the BBB.

The conference schedule and sponsor page are public: mscannual.trucking.org. ATA's acceptance of Safe Ship as a sponsor grants a degree of industry legitimacy that Safe Ship's complaint record does not support.

In May 2025, Safe Ship was named 'Moving Service Company of the Year 2025' by Transportation Review, a publication that features companies as 'Featured Vendors' alongside paid advertising. The award announcement was distributed through PR Underground, a paid press release service, and syndicated to sites including MiamiNewsnetmedia, AustinNewsnetmedia, and PrPioneer.

The press release claims Safe Ship has a 'rigorous carrier-vetting process' that 'ensures that no contractor with a history of negligence or predatory practices ever touches a customer's belongings.' It describes the company as 'veteran-owned' with 'over 200 professionals' completing 'approximately 3,000 relocations each month.' It credits 'Maxwell Parker, Manager' as a spokesperson, though FMCSA's MOTUS system lists Roger Vance as the owner.

This paid content matters because it shapes what consumers and AI platforms find when researching Safe Ship. A Google AI Overview search for 'safeship carrier vetting process' returns Safe Ship's own marketing claims about 'verifying legal operating authority through the FMCSA' and 'checking safety records.' The AI does not surface the 404 NCCDB complaints, the BBB F rating, the 100 carriers with revoked authority on the carrier list, or the Navy officer whose goods disappeared.

Paid press releases and vanity awards create the public-facing narrative that AI platforms absorb. Independent complaint data and investigative analysis exist in separate systems that AI does not yet weight equally. This is the information asymmetry that Trunk's NCCDB aggregation is designed to correct.

In August 2026, two independent industry sources confirmed that Safe Ship CEO Roger Vance purchased a 51% stake in BLVD Moving and Storage (DOT 2892909), a Chatsworth, California carrier with 33 trucks and 57 NCCDB complaints, making it the third most-complained-about company in California. Complaints are trending up 27% year-over-year.

One source described the acquisition as Vance 'clearly trying to set up shop in case of Safe Ship's downfall.' A second source provided a recording of a Safe Ship internal staff meeting in which Vance announced plans to acquire BLVD. This is not a chameleon reincarnation, where an owner shuts down one company and opens another with a clean record. This is an acquisition of an existing carrier with an existing complaint history, by the owner of the most-complained-about broker in the country.

The move has strategic logic. Safe Ship is a broker. It owns zero trucks. If Safe Ship's authority is revoked or its litigation exposure becomes untenable, Vance would lose his brokerage but retain a controlling interest in a carrier with physical assets, trucks, and an active DOT number. BLVD Moving gives Vance a fallback operation in a different state, under a different business model, with no visible connection to Safe Ship in FMCSA records.

As of this writing, FMCSA's database does not reflect the ownership connection between Safe Ship (DOT 3475743, FL) and BLVD Moving (DOT 2892909, CA). The two companies appear unrelated in federal records. They are not.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, one of the largest trucking companies in the country, holds both carrier and broker authority with added HHG authority for each function. It actively recruits owner-operators and independent carriers to haul brokered loads.

J.B. Hunt's carrier onboarding uses Highway, a third-party verification platform that checks active authority and insurance, carrier identity and ownership, and safety and compliance status before a carrier can access the Carrier 360 load board. Specific business units and load types impose additional requirements for insurance, equipment, experience, and training.

Landstar, another major broker, cut 40,000 approved carriers from its network in 2026 in response to the Montgomery ruling and the $604M C.H. Robinson verdict. The company raised vetting standards and removed carriers that could not meet them.

Both companies demonstrate what broker carrier vetting looks like when legal liability and reputational risk are real. Safe Ship claims 'high standards' and a 'proprietary AI system analyzing 20 metrics.' Its published carrier list contains 100 carriers with revoked or inactive authority and a combined 2,954 complaints. J.B. Hunt uses a structured third-party verification platform. Safe Ship dispatches to carriers that are not legally authorized to operate.

Even structured vetting does not guarantee immunity. In September 2026, J.B. Hunt was named as a defendant in an Arizona federal broker liability case for brokering a load to Borderlands Transport, a carrier with a history of safety alerts, frequent crashes, and inspection violations. If a company with Highway platform verification faces liability for negligent carrier selection, the exposure for HHG brokers with no vetting infrastructure at all is orders of magnitude worse.

The Supreme Court's May 2026 decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport established that brokers can be held liable for negligent carrier selection. The question in any negligent-selection claim is whether the broker exercised 'ordinary care' in choosing a carrier.

Safe Ship's own published carrier list provides the evidence. A list containing 100 carriers with revoked or inactive authority, carriers with per-truck complaint rates above 50, and a carrier that was not incorporated when licensed is not the product of ordinary care. It is the product of a business model that prioritizes dispatch volume over consumer safety.

Safe Ship is currently represented by the Lomnitzer law firm in litigation against USMPO for listing Safe Ship as 'not verified,' and in the Ke Wang case where Safe Ship is defending its selection of Ver Vanlines. The combined NCCDB complaint count of Safe Ship and its two co-plaintiffs in the USMPO lawsuit is 818.

On August 10, 2026, Ke Wang filed a Second Amended Complaint in Wang v. Safe Ship Moving Services LLC (Palm Beach County Case No. 502025CA012956XXXAMB). The complaint includes this article as Exhibit H, contrasting Safe Ship's published marketing claims about carrier vetting standards (Exhibit G) with Trunk's findings on the actual composition of Safe Ship's carrier list.

All carriers on Safe Ship's list, and their complaint histories, are queryable in Trunk's NCCDB Complaint Intelligence dashboard at trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb.