RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

I joined MovingSCAM.com in 2005, posting as “Rick”.

My interest in becoming part of the community was to use my tenure and professional experience within the domestic and international household goods moving industry to provide some balance to the site.  I was concerned with the amount of inaccurate information, bad advice, and anti-mover vitriol being used by the site's owner and moderators when responding to new visitor inquiries.

Tim Walker and I have never seen eye-to-eye.  Over the years our difference of perspective combined with my outspoken support and familiarity with most aspects of the professional moving industry has resulted in some of my forum entries being edited, or my access to the site restricted. 

In September, 2010, several of my posts at a very active topic were once again arbitrarily removed.  This time by a part-time MovingSCAM moderator who only rarely participates in the any of the forum exchanges.

Evidently she didn't agree with the historical information I was sharing in a dialogue with several industry colleagues concerning An argument for non-binding contracts.

This particular overzealous consumer advocate apparently felt she knew more about the moving business than all of the industry professionals involved in the popular discussion.  She became so incensed by the exchange that she promptly removed my comments and locked the thread.

I decided to leave the community after realizing that the moderator's hostile opinions and ongoing personal prejudices carried far more weight and influence in the slanted MovingSCAM forums than what the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's consumer protection regulations requires of interstate household goods motor carriers it licenses to provide moving estimates under federal law.

Before I departed, however, I requested that all of my 3200+ posts, any reference to my member name or MS profile, and any related web links I'd added to the site over the last five years be removed.  I no longer wished to have any association with the salient, anti-mover attitudes and self-serving opinions held by some of the MovingSCAM staff. 

I was told that “Tim said that he doesn’t know how to remove your posts in one fell swoop. He could remove them individually, but he said that it would leave holes in the discussions, making them difficult to follow. He feels that if you insist on this, you should remove the posts yourself.”

Sorta contradicts what his brother told the Chicago mover whose company was targeted in the MovingSCAM 'Open Community Forum'.  I reiterated my request, and then began manually deleting the information that I could myself.   I removed approximately half of them. 

Several week later I saw the inquiry from the widow in Chicago … and then witnessed the unfair personal beating the small, two truck Windy City mover's reputation was taking at the hands of the MovingSCAM community.

I stepped in to his defense and shared the information I'd privately collected and verified about his background and experience in the very popular thread with his company's name on it.  

Once again, my posts were removed.  This time, however, my membership at the "consumer oriented", anti-mover website was permanently revoked. 

According to those involved in the decision, my contributions and industry perspective were deemed by MovingSCAM's management to have become too “anti-consumer", "inappropriate", "inflammatory"; and "derogative”.

That's OK, though!

I followed Mr. Walker's advice and got my own website … powered by four decades of actual experience working with customers, vendors, and corporate clients throughout the moving industry.