Bringing Suits Against Moving Brokers
This is the first in a series of articles describing people who have successfully sued their moving carrier in small claims court.
The following story was recounted on the pages of a prominent anti-moving scam web site. The woman reporting the story, was scammed by a moving broker. For those who don’t know the difference, a moving broker, as opposed to a mover, merely arranges the move and then sells the rights for the move to a mover for a percentage of the fee. Sometimes, the mover, for whatever reason, never makes the move. Maybe he went bankrupt; maybe he pocketed his share of the move and disappeared. Then the broker is obligated to refund the deposit, he has already received from the customer. In this story, the victim made the deposit, and the movers never showed up to move her belongings. The victim then had to hire a second moving company to make the move, and she now wanted her deposit back from the first company.
Moving brokers refuse to send back the deposit for a failed move all too often in today’s world.
This woman decided to put her foot down. However, by the time she decided to go to court, she had already made the move from Florida to Dallas. Therefore, she sued the company in a Dallas small claims court. She argued before the Judge that because she had had to pay twice for her move, she didn’t have enough money to travel to Florida to sue the moving brokers, in their venue. The Judge assented. and kept the case in Dallas. The brokers argued that they were protected by the Carmack Amendment which limits the rights of consumers to sue movers for problems arising in interstate moves. The victim, or her attorney, cleverly argued that the interstate move arranged through the broker, never took place, so the claim against the broker, had nothing to do with an interstate move. Again the Judge assented, and ordered the moving brokers to pay the full refund to the plaintiff. The broker agreed to make the payment, and payment was received.
Thanks to Packing Service Inc. of Florida for sponsoring this article. Packing Service Inc are dedicated fighters of moving scam. They provide New York and Florida moving services, including a pre move flat fee, packing and moving cost estimate, packing and loading on the day of the move, and free help to customers regarding the selection of an honest container shipping company that will reliably transport the customer’s goods to their new location .
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