James Uthmeier: Moving brokers ordered to pay more than $4M to customers ripped off in scams

Brokerage companies that provide moving services in Florida received a lifetime ban from operating in the state and heavy financial penalties for a scheme they were tied to.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced this month that courts have ordered Gold Standard Moving Storage and others after investigations by the Florida Consumer Protection Division. The brokerage must pay $4 million to settle litigation. Uthmeier’s office said that  Charles Abrams, Rudolph Rice and Daniel Metz operated the moving brokerage companies that presented themselves as moving carriers and subjected Florida residents to unnecessary payments.

Consumer complaints filed with the state caused the Consumer Protection Division to launch investigations into customers’ claims that the companies provided low quotes for jobs and then demanded additional payments. Many customers also complained that the companies promised refunds but never lived up to those promises.

“We will not tolerate shady moving operators scamming hardworking Floridians,” said Uthmeier in a news release. “Thanks to the work of Senior Assistant Attorney General Josie Warren, Deputy Director Sasha Funk Granai, and Assistant Attorney General Pooneh Charkhian-Martinez of the Consumer Protection Division, these operators and entities are permanently banned from the moving business in Florida and will be paying millions of dollars in monetary judgments.”

The bogus moving brokerages operated under company titles such as Gold Standard, Executive Van Lines, Imperial Moving Group, Simple Path Moving, National American Van Lines, Razor Van Lines, Spartan Moving and Storage, United American Moving and Us Pro Moving and Logistics. Investigators say the companies continued the scam by routinely changing the names of the businesses to dodge any links to bad reviews online or otherwise.

The orders include repaying $4.139 million to Gold Standard customers. Out of that sum, $1.12 million will go to consumer relief. State officials say they’ll continue to try to contact customers to see if they get the financial relief the courts ordered.