He paid a mover to relocate his belongings. So how did his guitar end up for sale on eBay?
.png "Rick Airey says he saw his guitar on eBay. It was supposed to be part of his relocation shipment.")
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Relocation aggravation
Broken promises, broken dreams, broken furniture: The nightmare of unscrupulous movers
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How a supposed $3,939 move became a $15,900 ordeal, courtesy of a Miami Lakes broker
Movers jacked up his bill, made his life hell, then told him, he says: ‘Have a great day’
He paid a mover to relocate his belongings. So how did his guitar end up for sale on eBay?
Five tips to avoid being overcharged when moving your possessions
After a previous article on one couple’s relocation nightmare, the Miami Herald invited readers to share their moving day horrors. They shared a lot. Here are some of their stories.
Rick Airey
Rick Airey told the Herald that on or around Feb. 23 of this year, he contracted US Pro Moving and Logistics LLC in West Palm Beach to move his things from Bend, Oregon, to Texas on March 4. He was relocating his family to Costa Rica, but planned to leave most of their items in storage in Texas, where they had family, in case they decided to move back to the States. But he said a company representative called on March 1 and more than doubled the initial estimate. Under a time crunch, Airey saw no other option but to pay.
On March 4, movers from Princeton Moving and Storage LLC, the company with which US Pro Moving & Logistics had contracted to do the actual move, packed up and drove away with the family’s possessions.
Airey told the Herald that about a month later, he called US Pro to ask about the delivery, which was supposed to arrive in Texas within 21 business days but had not. A customer representative told him to be patient, Airey said. Finally, in May, a representative from US Pro told Airey that Princeton wasn’t returning their calls.
Airey said he called and texted the number for days until someone finally picked up and told him his possessions were in public storage on Barbara Avenue in Portland. After multiple phone conversations with the Portland PD and two flights back and forth from Costa Rica, Airey, joined by a Portland officer and three other alleged victims, arrived at the storage facility with a warrant. They found some of Airey’s belongings mixed in with the items of three other people in a single unit. But many of his things had already been auctioned off.
“I literally witnessed an eBay bidding war for a guitar that I’d owned for over 30 years,” Airey said. He got in contact with the man who had bought a unit where his things had been stored, but the man told him that he had bought the guitar and it was legally his, Airey said.
Records show that Princeton Moving is a licensed interstate carrier run out of Rantoul, Illinois, by Gilbert Benedict, 35. Currently, there is an outstanding warrant for Benedict’s arrest in Michigan, and a Facebook group has formed with over 20 members claiming to have been cheated by Princeton.
“When I told the police the owner’s name, they knew who he was immediately,” Airey said. When reached for comment, the Portland Police Department confirmed it was looking into the case, but told the Herald that the department was unable to comment. Neither Benedict nor US Moving Pros replied to repeated emailed requests for comment.
Ken and Lena Mayo
Ken and Lena Mayo, 53 and 42 respectively, told the Herald that they hired Alliance Moving & Storage in late April to relocate them from New Jersey to Lake Mary, Florida, the following month. The Mayos told the Herald that Alliance gave them an initial estimate of $8,070, which they agreed to, and that the moving broker promised to conduct a virtual tour of their home to make sure the estimate was accurate.
But no virtual tour occurred, they said. Alliance simply passed the job to Allied Moving Group LLC, run out of Boca Raton, Florida, which showed up on moving day in mid-May with what Lena Mayo described as a “tiny” truck that was too small to pick up all their possessions — something that the company would have caught if the virtual tour had been done as promised, she added.
“When Allied showed up, the movers did a walk-through of our home and said we had way too much stuff and that they’re going to need two more trucks,” Lena told the Herald. By the end of the day, the estimate that they had been assured by Alliance would be very close to the actual bill had nearly tripled to over $21,000.
“That’s a lot of money for someone to just so casually say, ‘here’s another $13,000 for your bill’,” Lena Mayo told the Herald. “But what are you supposed to do? They have all your belongings. They had already left with one of the trucks. So that was that.”
The Mayos were told that their things would be dropped off by the end of the month at the latest. But weeks passed by with no word about their belongings, and the couple struggled unsuccessfully to get in touch with Allied representatives. It wasn’t until July 20 that their furniture finally arrived.
Before the movers would open the truck doors, they demanded that the couple pay them in cash and sign a paper confirming that they had received their belongings in good condition. If they refused to sign, the Mayos said the movers told them, they would simply drive away with all their belongings. The Mayos signed the paper. To their horror, several pieces of their furniture were damaged. Their couches arrived unwrapped, streaked with dirt and with tears in the fabric. Their baby grand piano, which had immense sentimental value, arrived half-assembled with its pedals haphazardly torn off, a missing leg and deep cracks in the wooden structure, they added.
The Mayos called Alliance to complain but were told there was nothing the company could do because Alliance was the broker, not the carrier. Nor was there anything that the company was liable for, a representative added, because as soon as the customer’s job was transferred from the broker to the carrier, the contract with Alliance became void, as did the company’s responsibility to its customers.
The Mayos are still recovering financially from their move. “No one takes accountability. The broker blames the carrier. The carrier doesn’t answer the phone. And at the end of the day, the customer is left alone to clean up the mess,” Lena Mayo said.
Neither Allied Moving Group nor Alliance replied to emailed requests for comment.
Russell Black
South Florida Pastor Russell Black, 56, told the Herald that he hired Fresh Start Moving and Storage — a company that operates out of Pompano Beach and also goes by Thompson National Holdings LLC — to move him and his wife from Homestead, Florida, to Panama City Beach, Florida, on April 14.
The company did a virtual walk-through of Black’s residence and gave him an estimate of $3,500, he said, which he accepted. But workers arrived late with a truck that was clearly too small for the move, Black added, and had to send another truck to pick up the rest of his things the next day after Black had already arrived at his new home without any furniture. When the moving company arrived to drop off his things, representatives demanded an extra $2,200 for the additional truck, he said.
“They knew exactly how much stuff I had. We did a virtual walk-through of my house” said Black. “Then they showed up under-prepared and charged for their miscalculation.” Black told the movers that he wouldn’t pay the extra money.
“And they said, ‘listen, if you don’t want to pay it, that’s fine,’ ” Black told the Herald. “We’ll just turn around and drive back to Pompano and we’ll charge you for that route, and we’ll charge you for storing it as well. So you can decide what you want to do.”
Black decided to block the truck in the driveway with his car and call the police.
“The police determined that although this was a scam against me, it wasn’t criminal but civil. So there was nothing they could do except to tell me to move my car and work things out with the company in court,” Black told the Herald. “The powerlessness I felt in that moment is indescribable.”
Black paid the $2,200 “ransom” — his word. But once the movers began to unload his things, he could see that the damage to his life’s belongings was immense.
“Even though the contract specified that the company was responsible for pad-wrapping all the furniture, they only pad-wrapped three pieces. Everything else was just wrapped in black plastic,” Black said.
Black filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s Office and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, neither of which helped, he said. “That was the worst part. knowing that we did everything we were supposed to do, contacted everyone we were supposed to contact,” Black said. “But at the end of the day we were still powerless to do anything about it.”
Fresh Start Moving and Storage did not reply to emailed requests for comment.
Jan Little
Jan Little, 69, told the Herald that she hired United Movers Group, operating out of Aventura, to relocate her from Nashville to Orlando shortly after she retired in May 2017. But even though she was promised a delivery date of May 31, Little’s possessions didn’t arrive until nearly two months later, on July 21, she said.
For seven and a half weeks, Little lived in her empty home with a dinette set the previous owner had left behind, as well as a bed and a lamp that she bought out of necessity.
“It was awful, not knowing. I called and called asking for information, but nobody ever answered,” Little said. “Finally I got one person on customer service who apologized and told me that this always happens to the nicest people.”
When the movers finally arrived, they demanded that she pay in cash and sign a paper saying that all her items had been delivered in good condition before they unloaded the truck, she said. Desperate to get her things back, Little signed.
“It might seem odd to an outsider that you would sign that paper before they let you see your things,” the former schoolteacher told the Herald. “But after all that time thinking I lost everything and now they’re threatening to leave and have it start all over again, I would have signed my soul away right then and there to get it all back.”
When Little unpacked, she discovered some of her most beloved possessions damaged. “I found broken crystal goblets and antique dinner plates that had survived intact during approximately 20 other moves in the past 75 years,” she told the Herald. “I took pictures and also submitted a claim for a broken marble top, a missing table, and a missing 32-inch flat-screen, but no one ever contacted me. In fact, the company sent a form letter thanking me for my business as if they had never mistreated me.”
Little reported United Movers Group to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) but she said the emailed response was underwhelming. “We notified the motor carrier/company of your dissatisfaction with the service provided. We have asked company officials to make an effort to resolve your complaint,” the email from an agency representative read. “However, FMCSA does not have the authority to represent shippers in disputes with regulated entities. You may wish to consult an attorney if you wish to pursue private legal action.” She said she never heard from the company.
United Movers Group did not reply to emailed requests from the Herald for comment.
Joel and Annamarie Auerbach
Joel and Annamarie Auerbach told the Herald that they hired moving broker Alliance Moving and Storage, run out of Deerfield Beach, Florida, by Richard Falcone, to help them move their furniture from Fort Lauderdale to Savannah, Georgia, in October 2020. The plan, they said, was to have their possessions stored in the Fort Lauderdale area for three months, and then have them delivered to their new home.
Alliance, the Auberbachs told the Herald, hired Gold Star Moving LLC out of Brooklyn to complete the move on Oct. 9, 2020. But the day of the event, the Auerbachs said, Alliance raised the cost from the original estimate of $6,745.35 to over $10,000. “Then in November, they started calling and harassing me with threatening phone calls saying that we only had one month of free storage, not three,” Rick Auerbach said, “and I owed them $1,400 a month.” He refused to pay, he said, and the company threatened to auction off his things.
“They were obviously trying to intimidate me,” Auerbach added.
Their furniture was supposed to arrive by December, but it never did. Aviad Rotem, the representative for Gold Star, stopped taking his calls and eventually blocked him. After many calls, the Auerbachs were able to convince Gold Star to deliver their things by threatening to call the police, and eventually offering to pay more money. A delivery date was arranged, Joel Auerbach said, but the goods never showed up. The unmarked white truck that finally delivered their things would not arrive until a week later, on Jan. 11, 2021. The driver, they said, demanded they pay in cash before their items were unloaded, which they did. In total, the Auerbachs spent $12,559.95 on their move, nearly double the estimate that they were first given by Alliance.
But when they saw their possessions unloaded from the truck, the couple was horrified. Multiple pieces of furniture were broken or damaged, while others were missing, they said. Rats had chewed through and defecated over boxes holding their most treasured family items, they said. The couple filed a police report, a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation and an insurance claim.
“What I realized after all of this is that, while I was acting out of emotion, out of this rage from feeling like I’d been violated, I was emotionally exhausting myself. And it’s just one of those things that they know you’re going to get exhausted way faster than them,” said Joel Auerbach. “They know they can get away with it. And clearly, most of the time they do.”
The Herald was unable to reach Gold Star for comment, as the company’s listed number did not work and its listed website and email address were both no longer working. Falcone, the head of Alliance, did not reply to multiple emailed requests for comment.
This story was originally published December 12, 2021 at 7:30 AM.
