The 10 Most Complained-About Moving Companies in America

FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database tracks every complaint filed against a registered interstate mover. The data is public but fragmented: you can look up one company at a time, but there is no way to see the national picture. Trunk built a scraper that extracts complaint records for every registered mover, state by state. As of July 29, 2026, we have scraped 23,789 companies across all 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus Washington DC).

This is the first complete ranking of the most complained-about moving companies in America, based on verified federal complaint data. The list is not based on Google reviews, Yelp ratings, or BBB scores. It is based on complaints filed directly with the federal regulator responsible for overseeing interstate movers.

1. Safe Ship Moving Services (Deerfield Beach, FL | Broker | 0 trucks): 321 complaints. A pure broker with no trucks, no drivers, and no capacity to move anything. Safe Ship is also actively suing USMPO, a consumer protection platform that publishes complaint data, in what appears to be a strategic lawsuit to silence public accountability.

2. Amerisafe Vanlines (Pompano Beach, FL | Carrier + Broker | 6 trucks): 293 complaints. That is 48.8 complaints per truck. Amerisafe was investigated by the Florida Attorney General and the DOT Office of Inspector General. Both investigations resulted in settlements, not criminal prosecution.

3. Menards Moving & Storage (Greenacres, FL | Broker | 0 trucks): 290 complaints. 156 of those were filed in the first half of 2026 alone, making Menards the fastest-accelerating complaint generator in the country. Subject of a Section 14704 complaint (Griffin v. Menards) filed with the Secretary of Transportation. Connected to a Georgia chameleon carrier network.

4. Coastal Moving Services (FL | Broker | 0 trucks): 229 complaints. Another zero-truck Florida broker in the Broward/Palm Beach corridor.

5. American Van Lines (FL | Carrier | 81 trucks): 215 complaints. At 2.7 complaints per truck, American Van Lines has a high total but a relatively low per-truck rate. This is what high volume looks like with moderate risk, compared to smaller companies with extreme per-truck rates.

6. New Start Relocation (FL | Broker | 0 trucks): 179 complaints. Zero trucks, zero drivers, zero physical moving capacity.

7. Howards Vanlines (NJ | 1 truck): 166 complaints. That is 166 complaints per truck. Subject of a KMBC 9 Kansas City investigative series. Independence, MO police referred the case to the FBI. Consumers tracked stolen goods via Find My iPhone to a warehouse at 30 Sherwood Lane in Fairfield, NJ, shared with at least four other companies.

8. Loadrans LLC (CA | Carrier | 12 trucks): 166 complaints. 13.8 per truck. The only top-10 company outside the Florida/New Jersey corridor.

9. Handle With Care Moving (Tucker, GA | 1 truck): 147 complaints. Operating authority revoked March 30, 2026. Five days earlier, a replacement company (JCS Moving and Storage) was licensed by the same incorporator, with the same employees. JCS has already accumulated 20 complaints in four months. Connected to Menards as its primary dispatch broker.

10. Value Added Moving (FL | 1 truck): 135 complaints. 135 per truck. This company went from 3 complaints in 2023 to 100 in 2026, a 33x increase in three years.

Raw complaint counts favor high-volume companies. A carrier with 81 trucks and 215 complaints is a fundamentally different risk profile than a carrier with 1 truck and 135 complaints.

American Van Lines runs a large fleet and generates 2.7 complaints per truck. That is not good, but it is within the range of a high-volume carrier that handles thousands of moves per year. Some percentage of those complaints may reflect operational problems, not fraud.

Value Added Moving, by contrast, has 1 registered truck and 135 complaints. Howards Vanlines has 1 registered truck and 166 complaints. Handle With Care had 1 registered truck and 147 complaints before its authority was revoked.

A company with 1 truck cannot physically complete 135 or 166 moves per year with a single vehicle. These companies are almost certainly operating with rental trucks (Penske, U-Haul, Ryder), which are invisible to FMCSA's safety scoring system. The per-truck rate is a screening signal: when it exceeds 50 complaints per registered truck, the company is likely running a fleet of untracked rental vehicles.

7 of the top 10 most-complained companies are based in Florida. 5 of the top 6 are Florida brokers with zero trucks. This is not a coincidence.

Florida's business formation laws make it easy to register an LLC, obtain FMCSA broker authority, and begin taking consumer bookings within weeks. The broker model is low-capital: no trucks, no drivers, no warehouse, no insurance on physical assets. The broker takes a booking, dispatches a carrier the consumer never chose, and collects a fee. When the carrier holds goods hostage, inflates the price, or damages property, the broker claims no responsibility.

FMCSA closed zero broker enforcement cases in FY 2025 and zero in FY 2026. The companies on this list are the direct result of that enforcement gap.

Before hiring a mover, check its NCCDB complaint history on FMCSA's Protect Your Move site or on Trunk. Look at four things: total complaint count, complaint trend (growing or stable), per-truck rate, and whether the company is a broker or carrier.

If a company has zero trucks, it is a broker. It will not be performing your move. The company that shows up on moving day will be a carrier you did not choose, vetted by no one you can hold accountable.

If a carrier has 1 or 2 registered trucks but dozens or hundreds of complaints, it is likely operating with rental vehicles outside FMCSA's safety tracking system. This is a red flag.

If you have been scammed by a mover, file a complaint with FMCSA at ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/hhg/. File with your state Attorney General. If goods were held hostage, file a police report. Document everything: estimates, bills of lading, text messages, photos of damage.

Trunk scraped complaint records from FMCSA's Protect Your Move database for 23,789 registered household goods companies across all 51 jurisdictions. Data was extracted per company, per complaint category, per year. Company metadata (trucks, trailers, authority type, state, operating status) was cross-referenced from FMCSA's SAFER system. Per-truck rates were calculated using the truck count reported in SAFER as of July 2026. Companies with zero trucks are brokers or freight forwarders. Complaint totals include all NCCDB categories across all available years.