RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) for 2013 on March 3-9. NCPW is a coordinated campaign of more than 60 participating federal, state, and local government agencies and business partners that encourages the general pubic to make more informed buying decisions by taking full [...]

The United States Department of Transportation's (DOT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) was established in 1978 to provide the Secretary of Transportation and Congress with independent and objective reviews of the efficiency and effectiveness of DOT operations and programs and to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. The OIG's Office of Investigations is comprised [...]

SAN FRANCISCO, March 15, 2012 – The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in its ongoing commitment to consumer protection, has recently taken a number of actions to protect consumers from illegally operating moving companies. During the fourth quarter of 2011, CPUC staff took the following enforcement actions against moving companies for violations of the Public [...]

Bad guys beware!On January 10, 2012, the US Attorney's Office filed a fifty five (55) count indictment in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado against defendants Yaron “Roni” Levin, Liat “Lee” Levin, Francisco Guevara, John Allen Darby, Golden Hand Moving LLC, and Movers USA LLC. The plaintiff's charges allege that each [...]

Beginning on October 1, 2011, rogue movers operating illegally in North Carolina will have to think twice before advertising their services to the general public. In an effort to protect inexperienced, uninformed consumers from hiring non-professional moving companies, the executive committee and board members of the North Carolina Movers Association (NCMA) worked in conjunction with [...]

“Realtor of the Year” takes aim at the moving industryThe following is a copy of a recent entry that a well-intentioned realtor posted in the Report a Scam forum at the popular trash-your-mover site at MovingSCAM.com. Tim Walker, the owner, created the 'consumer oriented' venue to let others “know what is going on in the [...]

It appears it’s now the movers who are fighting back!   Perhaps it's the hectic summer schedule created by too many customers and not enough capacity that's getting on people's nerves. Then again, maybe it's just the overwhelming heat that's creating the rancor. Whatever the reason, it appears that there's an industry backlash developing at [...]

On Friday, August 12, 2011, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued regulatory guidance to clarify the appropriate and intended use of blank or incomplete documents under 49 CFR 375.501(d) – Must I write up an order for service? Carriers may require shippers to sign incomplete, but not blank, documents so long as the [...]

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) just launched a newly designed website to help consumers protect themselves from fraudulent or unscrupulous interstate household goods moving companies. Different format; same content. The announcement comes two and a half months after the start of the relocation industry's traditional summer peak moving season. [...]

Remember Budget Van Lines, the company involved in the recent lawsuit against Tim Walker's 'consumer oriented' website MovingScam. Guess what? According to a recent CBS news report , Budget Van Lines, the New York based household goods and property broker who's held a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration license since 2005, is now being investigated [...]