#moving scam

My sister Ashley is a pet/house-sitter open to traveling, she was seeking a “live-in-pet-sitter” for any extended period of time. A woman in Missouri contacted her, needing someone to take care of her 5 pets while she traveled. They both agreed to a “work-for-rent” situation. It was supposed to be approximately 8 months starting in March 2025. I helped her move from TN to MO.

Less than 2 months later shit started to get real — the woman would constantly berate and abuse her. She would weaponize things she learned about my sister to berate and abuse her.

She no longer felt safe in the house and cut off the arrangement when the woman turned off the hot water for the whole house, forbade her from exiting her room, and turned off the internet 5 days before she was able to leave.

With police assistance, Ashley was able to get out of the house with all her stuff, but it wasn’t easy. She has joint pain and cannot do all the heavy lifting herself. She found an “affordable” moving company that would travel between state lines to get her to where I live in North Carolina, fast.

The company came two days late, with no supplies and one driver.

She paid a “deposit” which was the full amount of the job, and everything totaled to around $3,000 upfront 🚩

The moving company gave her 3-5 day timelines every 3-5 days. Weeks went by and they gave no additional info. 🚩

This moving company is a type of a very elaborate and unfortunately a very common scam system that specifically targets people in crisis situations and the elderly. They hold everything over your head in hopes that you don’t find the loopholes in the contract and the victims get too overwhelmed to fight back, especially when potential legal expenses are high, and sometimes the company changes their company name so they remain untraced by the police.

After sending several demand letters, a truck arrived with perhaps 85% of her packed belongings a few weeks ago, with about 5% of several different items and boxes having been torn open, unpacked, or straight up destroyed.

The remaining 10% of items are valuables such as her grandmothers jewelry, antiques, family heirlooms, electronics, autographed vinyls, and Taylor Swift collectors items, are all completely missing.

The amount of gaslighting tactics and power play talk these people engaged in with my sis is simply so much more than what I can put in a post.

These people are criminals and they know what they are doing. Ashley has spoken with a legal expert and is carrying a lot of this out on her own.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

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We suspect that these items are being sold off to local pawn shops in the Kansas City/Atlanta area, or online places like eBay.

If you happen to come across any of these items, PLEASE message me anywhere, my links are pinned.

👉 Send an email with any info to: [email protected]

Thank you so much.

Serious Post for once.

I’m making this post to bring awareness about three moving companies that are confirmed to be part of this. I’ve fallen for their games. And I am currently paying the price for my poor decisions. Hopefully this helps you not get yourselves stuck in the same situation.

If you have to move to a different state/side of the country, avoid these companies.

The three companies are (in the same order as I’ve dealt with them):

- American Moving and Freight

Guess what: they’re not even a real company. They’re just brokers that contract other movers to do their job. These people basically set me up for the big loss. They took $3000+ as a down payment for the move, and pretty much ran with it. Those money were supposed to go towards the move, but no. They just took them, and never communicated with the people they’ve contracted, so when the pickup movers showed up, they basically charged me for the entirety of their services. And calling American Moving and Freight did nothing, since they never picked up the phone ever again.

Which brings me to:

- Prosperity Moving

These guys have questionable DOT information, and I wish I had inquired about it sooner than later. In any case, these people showed up, and had a truck that was pretty much already full. We had paid for extra space already, but they said they were charging us more since we were going to “fill the truck”. Of course they didn’t want to hear any reason, and we had to move and didn’t have time or resources to call the whole deal off. On top of being some of the rudest/laziest people I’ve dealt with (showed up late, took a million breaks, acted smug), they pretty much made us throw away part of our belongings since they wouldn’t fit in the truck they had already filled. Mind you beforehand, we had communicated with American Moving and Freight a whole inventory of things, and we had measured every single piece of furniture and the such. So they had no excuse to show up like that. In the end, part of the stuff I had bought with my hard earned money a few years back had to be ditched to the side of the dumpster. Also they made us sign their papers and didn’t even want to give us copies of it! I have copies because I took pictures of the paperwork. Still, we had to pay $4000+ more (by the end of it) than initially estimated by American Moving and Freight.

In the end, they loaded up the truck and left.

It took them over 1 month, 37 days to be precise, for them to get it together and bring us our stuff. And only because we threatened them. Their customer service kept saying they did not have a trailer ready to get our stuff on the way. This for a few weeks (when they were in the mood to pick up the phone).

My SO is disabled, and basically sleeping on the floor for that long has not been good for either of us, but more so for him. He is getting medical attention, and will be fine. But still, they’re literally playing and preying on people’s misery.

In the end, he called them and said he was going to call the police and report all of our belongings as stolen if we didn’t get them within a few days.

And look at how things work, the very next day our stuff was on the way. In the hands of a different company.

- Alpha Van Lines

Okay, avoid these people at all costs. They were THE rudest people ever. And the laziest. Their lack of professionalism was appalling.

They delivered, asked for more money than agreed upon (because they had to walk more than 75ft) threatening to leave without giving us our stuff, and were overall an awful experience that I am only glad is over.

I don’t know how they were handling our stuff, but, as we’re going through it, we’re finding more and more damages. Asides from the fact that some of our things never made it to us. So far we are 4-5 boxes missing. Nothing major, but still, things we had paid for it. Also our furniture has scratches and chips in several spots. They even damaged some antiques we had. Including a Native American sculpted lamp. We are trying to get a reimbursement, but I’m not holding my breath on it.

In conclusion:

We’ve followed some guidelines for these kind of situations, and nothing has sorted any effect. Even reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and the state Attorney General was useless. As apparently they operate in a gray area of legality, hence making them able to get away with all sorts of acts. The whole process has drained me of all my savings. From an initial estimate of $6500ish, I ended up paying just a little over $12000. I am furious and depressed. Because this is just one more example of the system allowing these “services” to exist.

Avoid Falling In Hands Of Moving Scam

Moving to a new location is a difficult task and it is very important that the moving company handling the move is professional and genuine. If you are moving your home, you will be putting your precious belongings in the hands of moving company. Commercial moves involve confidential files, essential computer equipment, and other items that you need to keep your business running. Unfortunately…