USMPO Under Siege: When Watchdogs Become Targets

The United States Moving Protection Organization (USMPO) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to consumer protection in the moving industry. Founded by Segah Yildirim, USMPO operates usmpo.org, a website that provides consumer information on household goods moving, interstate moving company performance rankings, and a 'Verified Carrier Network.' In early application of the usmpo.org service, carriers could apply for verification by paying a $149 audit fee and meeting criteria including a minimum BBB B rating, an aggregate of positive reviews across platforms, and documentation showing the initial quoted price versus the final price charged across their last 50 moves. Brokers cannot become verified. Only carriers. The website also allows consumers to submit complaints against carriers and brokers, which are forwarded to the company for response and published with both sides visible.

In January 2025, Vellar Holdings LLC (operating as Safe Ship Moving Services, the nation's largest household goods broker, owned by Roger Vance) filed a federal trademark lawsuit against USMPO and Segah Yildirim in the Southern District of Florida (Case No. 25-cv-80042). In April 2025, Colonial Van Lines (connected to Aldo DiSorbo and Nationwide Move Management LLC) and AMS Moving Inc. (operating as Amerisafe, connected to Frank Lucido and Frank DeSantis) filed separate lawsuits with nearly identical claims, represented by the same counsel. The three cases were consolidated by the court in August 2025. The complaints allege trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair trade practices. The central grievance: the plaintiffs are listed as 'not verified' on usmpo.org, and they claim this status harms their business.

Five months before the first lawsuit was filed, Roger Vance called Segah Yildirim on August 4, 2024, on a recorded line. In the conversation, Vance told Yildirim he wanted to 'spend like, three or $400,000 and get your little site shut down.' He said he spends 'a million dollars a week on advertising' and has resources to sustain litigation. He stated: 'I'm going to bleed you dry. I'm going to get an injunction against you due to default, because you can't pay your attorney, or I'm going to suck every single dollar out of your bank account.' When Yildirim explained that USMPO is a nonprofit and that 'nobody's asking money from you, I'm trying to get the customers the justice that they deserve,' Vance responded: 'I'll burn $2 million on this.' The transcript of this recorded call is a discovery document in the consolidated federal case.

Yildirim initially represented himself pro se for nearly a year, with paralegal assistance. His August 2025 Motion to Dismiss argued that Colonial Van Lines' complaint failed to meet basic federal pleading standards: it did not identify any specific false statement, did not show 'how or where' the trademarks were used, and did not provide content or context for the alleged infringement. The court agreed, granting the motion to dismiss and finding that Colonial 'pled nothing more than conclusory facts.' Colonial filed an amended complaint in August 2025, but the defendant's response noted it 'responds to the Court's Order without a single new or amended allegation or exhibit attachment showing how or where the Marks appear.' Yildirim obtained legal representation in February 2026. Two of the three plaintiffs (Vellar/Safe Ship and AMS/Amerisafe) voluntarily dismissed Yildirim as an individual defendant in September 2025, but added him back as a co-defendant in an amended complaint filed in May 2026. Also added were an individual and company seen by plaintiffs as helping USMPO's endeavor, creating a threatening message: if you do not remove platform posts about Safe Ship, Colonial, and Amerisafe, we will go after your friends.

In a May 2026 settlement submission, the plaintiffs itemized their claimed damages. Vellar Holdings (Safe Ship/Roger Vance) claimed 'lost potential customers' and $12,495 in attorney fees. AMS Moving (Amerisafe/Frank DeSantis) claimed approximately $10,000 in actual damages from one consumer cancelling a move after seeing the 'not verified' status, plus $9,272 in legal fees. Colonial Van Lines (Aldo DiSorbo) claimed $15,000 from one cancelled move. The plaintiffs' total specific damages across all three lawsuits amounted to two cancelled moves and legal fees. Notably, the plaintiffs have never identified 'any specific untrue statement which has caused them harm or confused consumers,' .

The USMPO case illustrates a structural problem in the moving industry: companies with resources can use litigation to silence consumer protection platforms, regardless of the merits of their claims. The legal fees alone represent an existential threat to a nonprofit that charges $149 per audit, with income of only about $3,000 per month, with income of only about $3,000 per month. The strategy is explicit in the recorded call: the goal is not to win the lawsuit but to make the cost of maintaining negative information higher than the cost of removing it. USMPO's position, that it has an 'obligation to maintain this database in a factual, substantiated, and non-defamatory manner as part of its charitable mission to educate the public, promote transparency, and prevent consumer harm,' is the same principle that drives every independent verification platform in the industry, including Trunk. The difference between platforms like USMPO and Trunk on one hand, and individual review sites on the other, is that data-driven platforms report verifiable facts from authoritative sources. FMCSA registration status, BBB complaint counts, court filings, and FOIA responses are not opinions. They are documented records. This makes the litigation playbook less effective, but does not eliminate it. During the course of litigation, Amerisafe (AMS Moving) was investigated by the Florida Attorney General and DOT's Office of Inspector General for moving fraud. A settlement was reached with Amerisafe and its owners, Frank Lucido and Frank DeSantis. But the company is still a plaintiff in the suit that claims USMPO mischaracterized Amerisafe's moving services.

The USMPO case did not arise in a vacuum. Aldo DiSorbo, the individual behind Colonial Van Lines and Nationwide Move Management, was a central figure in a 2012 U.S. Senate investigation into moving industry fraud. The Senate Commerce Committee's staff report, 'Internet Moving Brokers: A New Consumer Protection Problem in the Household Goods Moving Industry,' documented the broker-carrier fraud model that continues to operate today. The accompanying hearing, 'Taking Consumers for a Ride: Business Practices in the Household Goods Moving Industry,' included testimony from the FMCSA Administrator. These records are publicly available through the Senate Commerce Committee and the Library of Congress. The fact that the same individuals documented in congressional investigations in 2012 are filing lawsuits against consumer protection organizations in 2025 illustrates the persistence of the problem and the failure of enforcement to address it.