Issue Date: August 3, 2003
Move smart
These sites can help you protect your possessions.
Handing all your belongings to a stranger who promises to carry them miles away is unnerving enough, but to do it the year after the Better Business Bureau received more than 9,000 complaints about movers (up from 3,800 in 1997) is downright scary.
Luckily, there are some good sites to help you develop the critical eye needed to size up any potential movers. Badmovers.org/badmove/fom-serve/cache/1.html is a no-frills compendium of ways to avoid having your worldly goods hijacked. The site covers every aspect of moving, from types of estimates to ways of packing your belongings. It describes technical terms and legal issues, including solutions for people whose possessions are being held hostage. The site also has lists of bad movers, with real stories from victims. (For similar "blacklists," check out MovingAdvocateTeam.com, BadBusinessBureau.com and MovingScam.com.)
Despite the name, Monstermoving.com is a less scary place to do research about moving. Instead of tales of moving disasters, the site clearly outlines information such as moving terminology. A search for movers also provides quotes online. (Beware: Other sites recommend not obtaining a quote online, because that can lead to inflated charges.) The site also has tools, such as an address changer that will provide your new address to all your magazines, credit cards and the post office.
When the government abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1995, the Department of Transportation took over regulating the moving industry, but it has few investigators working. It pays to do your own sleuthing before handing over all your possessions.
-- Laura Shin
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