Rogue Movers

​Rogue Movers fall into two categories: 

1. Movers who have obtained a license from the licensing authority but have a pattern of fraudulently scamming consumers through a variety of means, usually involving lowball estimates, refusal to deliver without more money, committing extortion and fraud on consumers.
2. Operators who merely claim to be movers and have not bothered to get licensing authority from any agency, but follow the same pattern of bilking uneducated, vulnerable people.

The greatest difference between the two is that there may be some kind of contract issued by the licensed mover which may be of some help to a wronged consumer, whereas an unlicensed operator may just smooth talk their way into performing the move without any protection at all for the consumer. 
The problem is lack of education, again falling into two categories:

1. Most consumers are uneducated about rogue operators and don’t know to research the reputation or licensing of the mover they are considering hiring and therefore do their research after the operator has ripped them off for more money by holding their shipment hostage until the additional funds are paid.
2. There is a lack of education on the part of enforcement agencies. Too often when a customer calls some enforcement agency for help, they are informed that it is a “civil matter” and to take it to court. When a licensed rogue mover or a rogue operator with no license operates with the sole purpose of scamming all their customers, they quite often have other areas that are non-compliant, i.e. the driver does not have the proper licensing, the vehicle is not safety compliant; the driver and/or crew may have outstanding warrants, etc.

A rogue, licensed or not, operates by offering an attractively low moving estimate, takes possession of the customer’s property and then increases the price to transport and/or deliver, holding the delivery of the goods until the customer pays the fraudulently inflated price.  Conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion, money laundering. One of the more frequent ploys the rogue will tell the customer is that their shipment “takes up more cubic feet than originally estimated”.  Not unusually, the customer doesn’t have a clue how many cubic feet of space their load requires and accepts the rogue’s increased price, or not, and it doesn’t really matter, the rogue is already in possession of all the consumer’s goods any way.
Educating yourself, the moving public and law enforcement is a start.

• You can check to see if a company has Texas authority at:  https://apps.txdmv.gov/apps/mccs/truckstop/
  
  
• You can check if the company has interstate authority at: https://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/. Remember, just a USDOT number does not indicate a company has interstate authority. A company with interstate authority will have an MC number in addition to the DOT number and both of those must be active in the FMCSA “safer” system. 

And, you can call SMA at 1/800-759-2305, or email [email protected] to check them out and file a complaint if they are not properly licensed. If notifying SMA or an enforcement agency be sure you’ve seen their truck operating and not just an ad on the internet or the yellow pages. Rogues tend to flit in and out of existence more quickly than ads do.