The American Moving and Storage Assn., Alexandria, Va., has urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to crack down on scammers
who represent themselves as professional movers on the Internet and rip off consumers. The AMSA wants the DOT to promulgate rules against the web-based crooks.
“As consumers become increasingly more dependent on the Internet as their primary source of information on transportation service providers, the need for household goods broker regulatory boundaries becomes acute. Unscrupulous brokers continue to prey on unsuspecting consumers at an accelerated pace,” the AMSA said.
The proposed regulations will address a compelling public need, AMSA President Joe Harrison told DOT in comments the association filed on Feb. 22. “Delay in their prescription will allow unacceptable operating conditions to continue to plague the household goods shipping public.”
Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration opened a rulemaking proceeding on whether it should establish regulations for Internet household goods brokers. FMCSA opened the proceeding in response to an AMSA petition filed several years ago.
AMSA asked the agency to act when became evident that crooks were scamming the public.
According to the AMSA, websites lure unsuspecting customers to illegal moving companies that typically offer unrealistically low estimates and then at destination extort additional money from victims by refusing to unload a family’s belongings – in effect holding the shipments hostage -- until they are paid for inflated charges.
The scam isn’t new, but the Internet has given the scammers new reach.
The AMSA says the crux of the problem is that website operators fail to identify themselves as brokers of moving services, which is required under the law. But they have not been forced to adhere to laws and regulations governing brokers.
AMSA told regulators that when it engaged in an Internet search for a hypothetical move from Florida to Washington, D.C., it turned up eight Internet broker sites that recommended 51 different movers, 37 of which were not licensed by FMCSA as interstate movers or brokers.
For more information, visit www.promover.org.