The #1 Moving Complaint Is Actually a Felony. FMCSA Doesn't Enforce It.

Trunk's analysis of 23,789 companies in the FMCSA database (of which approximately 7,900 have active household goods authority) found that Estimates/Final Charges is the #1 complaint category nationally with 8,896 complaints. It leads in every FMCSA region. It leads in almost every state.

The pattern is consistent: a consumer receives an estimate, the carrier arrives, and the final charge is significantly higher. Sometimes double. Sometimes triple. The consumer, whose belongings are on the truck or about to be, has no practical choice but to pay.

What most consumers, and most enforcement officials, do not realize: this is not just a consumer complaint. Under federal law, intentional pricing of a household goods move in conflict with the carrier's published tariff is a felony.

The federal Transportation Code (Title 49, United States Code) contains three felony provisions specific to household goods transportation:

1. Tariff pricing violations (49 USC 14903): Intentionally charging prices that conflict with the carrier's published tariff. Civil penalty up to $205,375 per violation (inflation-adjusted per FMCSA), the highest of all HHG penalties. Criminal penalty: up to 2 years imprisonment.

2. Weight bumping (49 USC 14912): Knowingly and willfully falsifying the weight of a shipment. Criminal penalty: up to 2 years imprisonment.

3. Hostage goods (49 USC 14915): Holding household goods hostage for payment beyond what is legally owed. Civil penalties of not less than $15,445 per violation (inflation-adjusted from the original $10,000 statutory minimum), plus suspension of authority for 12 to 36 months. Criminal penalties including imprisonment.

Of these three, tariff violations carry the highest civil penalty by far ($205,375 vs $15,445) and are the most pervasive in the complaint data. Yet they receive the least enforcement attention.

A tariff is a carrier's published schedule of rates, charges, and service terms. It functions as a price menu that the carrier is legally bound to follow. Every FMCSA-registered household goods carrier is required to maintain a published tariff (49 USC 13702).

Tariffs were a cornerstone of transportation regulation throughout the 20th century. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) required them for most surface carriers and strictly enforced compliance. When Congress deregulated commercial freight in the 1970s and 1980s, tariffs fell out of favor for commercial use, replaced by negotiated market rates.

But Congress retained tariff requirements specifically for household goods carriers, even after terminating the ICC in 1995. The reason: household goods consumers are uniquely vulnerable. Unlike commercial shippers who negotiate from positions of knowledge and leverage, individual consumers move once every few years, have no industry expertise, and have no bargaining power once their belongings are on the truck.

The severe penalties for tariff noncompliance ($205,375 per violation, imprisonment) reflect how seriously Congress took this consumer protection. The tariff requirement was not a bureaucratic holdover. It was a deliberate policy decision to protect a vulnerable consumer class.

When a broker provides an estimate to a consumer, that estimate must be based on the carrier's published tariff (49 CFR 371.10). A broker acting as an agent of the carrier is bound by the tariff. When a carrier arrives on moving day and charges more than the tariff allows, that is not just a breach of contract. It is a potential felony.

Tariff rates cannot be individually discounted. As transportation attorney Michael Garcia explains (michaelgarcialaw.com): 'Tariff rates/prices for line haul and accessorial services must NOT be randomly or individually discounted. Motor carriers may not charge or receive different rates/prices for services other than the rates/prices specified in the tariff.' The only permissible way to change tariff rates is through a formal tariff amendment with proper documentation (49 USC 13702(a)(2)).

Yet nearly every broker estimate Trunk has examined includes a line item labeled 'Tariff Discount' of 30% to 40%. In documented cases: Eagle Moving Group showed a 'Tariff Discount: 34.35%,' Noble Moving showed 'Tariff Discount: 34.35%' (the same percentage from a different broker), America First showed 'Tariff Discount: 39.55%,' and Hercules Moving Solutions (DOT 3497836, Fort Lauderdale FL) showed 'Tariff Discount: 53.55%,' the highest documented fake discount percentage. The Hercules estimate, filed as a court exhibit in Peterfai v. USA Logistics (S.D. Cal., 23-cv-1695, Document 22-3, Filed 01/06/25), listed a Total Tariff of $7,867, applied a fabricated 53.55% discount of $4,213, and arrived at a 'Basic Price' of $3,654. These 'discounts' are themselves federal violations. The brokers inflate the tariff rate, display a fake discount to create the illusion of a deal, and the 'discounted' price is the actual price. The tariff rate shown on the estimate was never real.

Some carriers do not even maintain a tariff. In a documented 2026 case, when a consumer requested a copy of the carrier's tariff as required by law, Noble Moving and Storage (NJ) responded: 'Our internal tariff listing is not provided to clients.' This is an admission of a federal violation. The tariff is not an internal document. It is a public, legally binding price schedule that consumers have the right to inspect. A carrier that refuses to provide its tariff is either operating without one (a violation of 49 USC 13702) or concealing it to avoid accountability for overcharges.

FMCSA rarely investigates tariff violations. Several factors contribute to this enforcement gap.

First, institutional knowledge has eroded. The ICC employed specialists who understood tariff structure, could read and interpret tariff documents, and knew the regulatory history. When the ICC was terminated and its household goods functions transferred to DOT/FMCSA, much of that expertise was not transferred with it. Many current FMCSA investigators and HHG compliance staff may not have the training to identify tariff violations or understand what a tariff is.

Second, having a tariff has become a matter of form over substance. Many carriers maintain a tariff to satisfy the registration requirement but do not actually price their services according to it. Under current rules, carriers must keep a published tariff and make it available upon request, but unlike the ICC era when tariffs were filed with the government, there is no requirement to post them publicly. Federal registration law requires HHG applicants to identify their tariff, but FMCSA has never incorporated this mandate into its OP-1 application form. The form simply does not ask about tariffs. Some responsible carriers voluntarily publish their tariffs online, but many do not, and enforcement investigations have found that some licensed carriers do not have a tariff at all. The gap between tariff requirements and actual pricing practices is wide, and FMCSA does not routinely audit for consistency.

Third, FMCSA's enforcement apparatus is oriented toward safety violations, not commercial violations. The Safety Measurement System scores carriers on crash history, inspection results, and driver fitness. Tariff violations, like all consumer protection violations, are classified as non-acute and non-critical. They do not affect a carrier's safety score and do not trigger enforcement interventions through the automated system.

Fourth, the 2019 Riojas decision stripped FMCSA of administrative civil penalty authority for household goods violations. Even if FMCSA identified a tariff violation, it cannot impose the $205,375 penalty through its own proceedings. It would need to refer the case to the Department of Justice for prosecution, a step FMCSA has rarely taken.

FMCSA's own investigation data, published through its A&I Enforcement Programs portal (MCMIS data snapshot as of 7/31/2026), documents how frequently investigators find tariff violations when they look.

Violation code 137.02A2 ('Charging or receiving a different rate than in tariff') is the third most common violation found in HHG carrier investigations. The three-year record:

FY 2024: 40 tariff violations found in 114 HHG investigations (35% of investigations) FY 2025: 64 tariff violations found in 169 HHG investigations (38% of investigations) FY 2026 (through July): 27 tariff violations found in 87 HHG investigations (31% of investigations)

Three-year total: 134 documented violations of 49 USC 13702(a)(2). Each one carries felony criminal penalties under 49 USC 14903 (up to $205,375 civil penalty per violation, up to 2 years imprisonment). Not a single felony enforcement referral or criminal proceeding has resulted from any of them.

For comparison, the hostage load violation (149.15, 'Failing to give up possession of household goods for which payment was made') was found exactly once in 87 FY 2026 investigations. Hostage loads are the most reported consumer complaint category. FMCSA's investigation system finds them at a rate of 1.1%. It finds tariff violations at a rate of 31%. The system finds what it is designed to find, and it is not designed to find what consumers complain about.

Trunk's NCCDB data provides a rough measure of the tariff violation problem's scale. Estimates/Final Charges complaints total 8,896 nationally. Not all of these represent intentional tariff violations. Some may reflect legitimate disputes over inventory size, accessorial charges, or changed circumstances. But the pattern of systematic price inflation, where hundreds of complaints describe the same sequence (low estimate, higher charge on moving day, pay or lose your goods), is consistent with carriers and brokers operating outside their published tariffs.

The companies with the most Estimates/Final Charges complaints are disproportionately Florida-based brokers and single-truck carriers using rental vehicles. Safe Ship Moving Services (404 total complaints across two DOT numbers operated by the same owner), Menards Moving (290), and Coastal Moving (229) are brokers whose estimates are supposed to be based on carrier tariffs. The carriers they dispatch to, many of which have per-truck complaint rates above 50, are the ones setting prices that conflict with those estimates.

The tariff violation framework gives consumers and enforcement agencies a tool most do not know they have. A consumer who was charged $7,264 for a move estimated at $4,895 (as in the Griffin v. Menards case) is not just a victim of overcharging. They may be the victim of a federal felony carrying a $205,375 civil penalty.

Even plaintiffs' attorneys in active federal litigation are not using these tools. In Peterfai v. USA Logistics (S.D. Cal., 23-cv-1695), the court-filed Hercules estimate contains a fabricated 53.55% tariff discount and a $4,500 binding estimate fee on a $3,654 basic price. These are textbook Section 14704 tariff violation claims and predatory binding estimate fee claims. Neither has been asserted by plaintiffs' counsel. The plaintiffs instead pursued RICO, Carmack, conversion, and state fraud theories. The RICO claims were dismissed. The state fraud claims were preempted by Carmack. The 14704 tariff claims, which arise under federal law and are not preempted by Carmack, were never filed.

This pattern suggests that the tariff violation framework is not just underenforced by FMCSA. It is underutilized by the plaintiffs' bar. Attorneys representing moving fraud victims may not know these claims exist, or may not understand the tariff structure well enough to identify the violations in the estimates their clients signed. The evidence is on the face of the documents. It is not being used.

The full complaint category breakdown is available in Trunk's NCCDB Complaint Intelligence dashboard at trunk.lorea.ai/dashboard/nccdb.