How to Verify a Moving Company's Address (Before You Wire Them Money)

Every moving company registered with FMCSA has a physical address on file. The assumption is that address is where the company operates. In practice, many flagged movers register addresses they never occupy. One consumer researcher personally visited two addresses listed for her broker and found the first led to a fenced water treatment facility. The second was a virtual office suite. This is not unusual. Our research has identified clusters of 7 or more companies registered at a single address, addresses listed as available for rent on commercial real estate sites while supposedly housing active businesses, and companies operating from residential houses with no commercial signage or capacity.

In northern New Jersey alone, we identified multiple addresses where flagged moving companies cluster. One address in Hawthorne, NJ (85 Wagaraw Rd) has housed at least 7 companies, several of which are connected to the same operators and share a subject of an FBI investigation. Another block in Paterson, NJ has companies at 274 and 297 Getty Ave, across the street from each other, linked by the same registered agent. In Clifton, NJ, a single building at 1 Ackerman Ave has been associated with 8 different moving company names. These are not coincidences. When multiple moving companies share an address, it often means one operation is cycling through names to evade complaints, negative reviews, or revoked authority.

Before hiring any mover, take the physical address from their FMCSA registration (look it up at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov) and do three things. First, paste it into Google Maps and switch to Street View. Does it look like a place that could store furniture and dispatch trucks? If it is a house, a strip mall suite, or a vacant lot, that is a red flag. Second, search the address on Google. If other moving companies show up at the same address, that is another red flag. Multiple companies at one address is a hallmark of a name-cycling operation. Third, check if the address is listed as available on commercial real estate sites like LoopNet or Crexi. If the office is listed as vacant or for lease while a company claims to operate there, nobody is home.

A legitimate moving company needs physical space: a warehouse or staging area for belongings in transit, an office for dispatching crews, and parking for trucks. A company operating from a residential house, a virtual office, or a vacant suite cannot physically do what a moving company does. That does not automatically mean they are a scam, as some brokers legitimately operate from small offices, but it does mean you should ask questions. Where will my belongings be stored between pickup and delivery? Do you own trucks or rent them? Can I visit your facility? If they cannot answer these questions, or if the answers do not match the address on file, consider that a warning.

Trunk automatically flags mover addresses that match known fraud patterns: multiple companies registered at the same location, addresses confirmed as non-commercial (residential, vacant lots, or facilities unrelated to moving), and addresses connected to companies with revoked FMCSA authority. These flags appear on mover profiles as part of our research. If you see an address flag on a Trunk profile, it means our data shows something about that location that warrants caution.

FMCSA does not verify physical addresses when granting operating authority. A company can register a water treatment facility, a vacant office suite, or a house and receive a USDOT number and MC license to transport household goods. There is no site visit, no verification that the address can support moving operations, and no cross-referencing against other companies at the same location. This is one of the simplest checks FMCSA could implement and one of the most glaring gaps in the registration process.

Trunk's database of 1,420 profiled movers reveals consistent patterns in how problematic companies handle their registered addresses.

Broker-only operations, companies that sell moves but own no trucks, are overrepresented among flagged entities. Florida stands out as a geographic concentration point for broker registrations. Among brokers in the database, Florida accounts for a disproportionate share, consistent with what regulators and investigators have documented: South Florida in particular has become a hub for brokerage operations that dispatch to carriers consumers have no prior knowledge of. These operations can be registered at residential addresses in Boca Raton or Pompano Beach while coordinating pickups across the country.

Among the 671 movers Trunk has flagged to avoid (47% of all profiled movers), address irregularities are a common factor alongside complaint history and fraud network connections. Shared addresses, where two or more registered companies list identical street addresses, appear repeatedly in the flagged set. This matches the name-cycling pattern: operators register a new company at the same address when the old one accumulates too many complaints or loses authority.

Movers with no address on file are treated as a separate signal. A company that cannot provide a verifiable physical address to its own federal regulator is a company that does not want to be found.

When Trunk flags an address, it means at least one of the following is true: multiple companies share that exact address, the address has been confirmed as non-commercial or non-operational, or the address is linked to a company with revoked authority. These flags appear on mover profiles and can be cross-referenced against the FMCSA SAFER system at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov.