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New York based Budget Van Lines, a five year old household goods and property broker has sued the owner of MovingScam.com for allegedly endorsing some full service moving companies and vehicle brokerage services while “disparaging” Budget's 'mark' on the site's popular and very active community message boards.

Budget Van Lines is licensed by the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to provide interstate moving services to consumers under motor carrier license number MC# 512534.

MovingScam is a 'for-profit' consumer help website that openly accepts advertising revenue from a variety of moving industry transportation service providers and product  vendors.   

Budget is a middleman involved in the business of brokering contracts between consumers and moving companies. Despite the company's name, Budget Van Lines has no drivers or equipment licensed and approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation to handle any type of interstate relocation.  

The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs mark, Budget Van Lines, “has been become associated with effective, reliable services, as well as a high degree of professionalism.”

A copy of Budget Van Lines FMCSA safety, insurance, and five year customer service complaint record can be found here. Click here for a list of explanations that can be selected by the company's customers from a pre-defined list at the National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB) as well as the category to which the individual FMCSA complaint belongs.

This publicly accessible, government operated resource allows consumers to file complaints regarding household goods moving (HHG) companies, including brokers, carriers and freight forwarders. This system also allows HHG companies the ability to view the individual details of the complaints and to challenge duplicate or fraudulent complaints.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in New York on June 11, 2010, names MovingScam's sole owner Tim Walker and his company, Consumers First, as defendants and alleges false advertising, trademark infringement and commercial disparagement. 

Budget's trademark infringement claim is based, in part, on the opinion that MovingScam has created a likelihood of 'initial interest confusion' where “a consumer seeks a particular trademark's holders goods and services, but is instead lured to the product or services of a competitor by the competitors use of the same or similar mark.”

Interestingly, many of the issues mentioned the lawsuit are nearly the same identical claims made by Aldo Di Sorbo, the owner of Nationwide Relocation Services (MC#: 381766), another household goods and property move broker with a lengthy FMCSA customer complaint history in a lawsuit filed several years ago in federal court in Florida. That case was settled out of court in 2008 when NRS was granted the right to request that any public criticisms or disparaging outside comments from current or former customers about the brokerage company or it's affiliates be removed from the MovingScam message boards by the site's owner.

To someone familiar with the MovingScam community, it appears, at least on the surface, that the intent of the lawsuit is to force the Tim Walker to remove any references to Budget Van Lines from the site's message boards similar to what NRS required before the matter goes to court.

If that's indeed the motivation, it's seem quite apparent after reviewing the consumer protection information generated by the U.S. government that the increasing frequency and types of  complaints that former Budget Van Lines customers have filed at the FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database closely resemble the customer service comments posted by MovingScam visitors at the site's public message boards. 

In addition, many of the criticisms tabled at the federal government's Protect Your Move website against Budget Van Lines resemble those posted around the web at many other popular consumer complaint and publicly accessible 'rating and review' sites.

Related Articles:

"Fake" Review Sites As False Advertising – The Trademark Blog – SchwimmerLegal.com

Budget Van Lines Threatens To Sue Me Over Trademark Infringement – BlackWaterOps