Friend of a friend scammed by moving company...

Wonder if anyone has some advice to share.

Story is that a friend of a friend got a quote from a moving company "America Vanlines" to move her belongings from a storage facility in Maryland down to North Carolina. Quote was for $1800.

Day of the move, she meets them at the storage facility, they load everything onto their truck, and then they tell her the charge for the move will be $4000! She balks, so they tell her the charge will be $1600 to unload the truck back into the storage unit.

As it sits - all her stuff is still on the truck & in possesion of said "moving company."

Any ideas? I've certainly heard of this scam before, but don't remember any good concrete ways for a victim to make things right.

 

Saw that when I was a cop. She needed to call the cops right then and there. Also, tell me she had the bid from them in writing, if not, most duty cops will STILL make them unload the truck.

Just re-read the post, is she still sitting there?

 

Yep, I know someone else who was victim of pretty much the same scam. Have her cry that she has no cash and see if they'll fall for a CC payment and then deny the charges. Contact an attorney and see what they advise? Pay and then sue later. Or, have some bruiser guys make sure these weasels honor the agreement at the other end. Good luck.

 

Never, never, never trust movers.

She should have had EVERYTHING in writing in advance. She should have verified the cost again IN WRITING before allowing them to load anything. If the driver tried to change the bid after loading, she should have recorded the conversation on her cell phone, AND got the police to the scene to file a crime report before letting them leave.

I'm afraid she's going to have a hard time now. They'll undoubtedly add storage charges to the bill, and they won't care about damaging the goods when they unload.

 

Thanks for all the thoughts/advice so far. I'll see if I can't get any further details & try to post an update when I can.

 

Depending on the police that arrive on the scene, she may be hard pressed to get her stuff back without paying. The contract MUST state the cost of everything including the insurance, pick up and delivery date etc if the contract is weak or incomplete it will be in favor of the company, not the customer.

I've only been accused of this once but it is soooo common. I moved a guy from Toronto to Halifax and he called me on the date of delivery and said he would be a few days late, I stored his shipment for 14 days and he refused to pay me for the storage so I told him I would sell his belongings after 30 days of non payment. The storage conversation happened over the phone, I faxed him a storage contract the day he called me about him arriving late and after all that he still didn't want to pay for storage.

If I was her I would have agreed to the $1,600 to unload the truck and then called my cc company and had the charges charged back as "the move didn't happen".

 

Wow! This happened to a cousin of mine..

That's a good scam...

 

shoot 'em dead, take the truck and move yourself.

it is not an uncommon scam.

 

Call the cops and have the cops shoot them dead. After this happens across the nation 4 or 5 times this will not be a viable scam anymore.

 

Any news? I'd like to hear that this story has a happy ending!

 

Sorry - had dinner with my friend on Saturday and she didn't have any more real info from her friend. I'd sure like for the story to have a happy ending too.

Must admit, my thoughts were pretty close to many others - just shoot the b@stards on the spot & look for a reputable mover.

 

I guess I've been lucky. I move myself whenever I relocate. Costs less, no scams and everything arrives in one piece

 

The same kind of thing happened to me a long time ago when I bought my first house. Except they unloaded the stuff and came up with some other amount than what was agreed to. I paid, I was younger.

Lots of moving scams discussed here:

http://www.movingscam.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

You won't believe how prevalent it really is.

RMX

 

Sorry to hear that. I move pretty often, and I have found good movers. Last company we hired gave us a price weeks in advance, had a list of everything that was getting moved along with the condition, and paid for a chair that was broken during the move.

Best of luck to OP.