Frederick County Maryland Moving: Moving Scams - not all movers created equal

What does one do if one contracts a company to do a service and one of the parties fails to do what has been contracted?

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One can complain to the 'authorities', whoever they are. Presumably a government agency with oversight and or regulatory powers. That would likely be your state's attorney general or the Better Business Bureau.

One can sue. Then you get into definitions: Did party A really claim that they would do what party B *thinks* the agreement says? Someone has to decide if a contract does or doesn't say what constitutes a breach of contract. Someone has to decide what the service purports to do (what if YOU thought service did one thing and the other party thought the service did another thing)

Those complaints need to be addressed in court.

One can complain to the media, whoever they are, 'the media' used to be your local newspaper and then the local TV station's news department. In the Washington DC area one TV station, Channel 7 has a regular feature called Seven On-Your-Side where us regular folk can report bad behavior from local businesses and national businesses that do business locally and the TV station often will do an expose on the scammers or the scam.

Before a TV station puts it's reputation on the line, the station investigates. They do their *due diligence*. Someone keeps records of alleged scams if for no other reason than to see trends, see if a companies track record has a pattern there...

So just because YOU think a contract was breached doesn't mean a court will agree with you. These things are subject to interpretation. Someone also has to investigate to see if the complainant simply is pissed off and has an "axe to grind", perhaps a jilted lover is having a vindictive streak emerge that they can't or refuse to control.

If the local TV station ignores your complaint you can search the Internet.

I keep seeing two 'they ripped me off' sites over and over again in the search engines:

Rip Off Report

and

Moving Scams

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My review:

Before anyone can take anything or anybody seriously one should *Follow the Money*

Who is getting paid by whom? Is party X getting paid by party Z and might that influence what party X publicly says about party Z?

Rip Off Report obviously has Google Adsense on it's site, Adsense ads are on every page (ss I do on virtually every blog I have) Rip Off Report gets paid if people come to the site, see an ad, click on it and possibly buy what ever the ad is about. If Rip Off Report had a bias toward one mover and said only bad things about another one could deduce the possibilitie exists that Rip Off Report was 'in the pocket' of and therefore could not be trusted to be 'impartial'.

Moving Scams.com

From the words of the founder: I founded MovingScam.com in 2001 after I was scammed by America's Best Movers and decided to fight back.

Who regulates Moving Companies?

Movers are supposed to be regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a division of the D.O.T or the Department of Transportation

At last count the FMCSA had only nine investigators to handle all of the thousands of complaints against moving companies each year. What does that mean for consumers? It means this:

Most complaints against movers are overlooked and the consumer becomes a statistic while no action is ever taken against the moving company.

When Congress dissolved the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1995, they also removed the authority from the FMCSA to step in on a consumer's behalf if they are taken advantage of by a moving company. In other words, they don't have the authority to help you even if they want to.

If an investigation does occur, it takes months if not years for the FMCSA to, yes, get this... Fine the moving company.

The scam moving companies get away with not paying the fines and if they did, the consumers don't see a dime of their money back. The money from the moving company's fines go to pay for highway improvements!

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While I did not find a discernible method of income to see where this website's income is coming from (and follow the money) I did find the site invaluable in terms of teaching me what issues are or might be involved. I know now more about the moving industry as a result of reading articles from MovingScams.com and learned volumes more by reading posts from the MovingScams.com Forum ( message board )

In summary, I wouldn't spend the kind of money being charged by Moving Companies without investing my most valuable resource (my time) in studying the forum posts of MovingScams.com

Regards,