The Blame Game

By Tim Walker

If you’ve been reading the message boards here at MovingScam.com for very long, you may have seen someone post something like the following:

“Consumers who hire a mover based on price deserve to get ripped off.”

That’s what I call the blame game, and there are lots of ways it’s played. Federal Authorities and representatives from national organizations have even tried to play that game with me as well as other consumers.

It sound’s logical doesn’t it? I mean if Big Moving Company quotes you $3500 to move you from Dallas to Boston, and Little Movers quotes you $1800 for the same move, then you’re probably just asking for trouble by hiring Little Movers, therefore you deserve what you get right?

Wrong. The problem with the blame game is that it automatically makes several assumptions, and doesn’t take into account some of the little known facts about Little Movers.

For instance, that statement, and ones like it, are made by people who know the moving business. These people deal with moves every single day. A consumer may hire a moving company a few times in a lifetime, and they hire a moving company to make their move easier, not to become experts in transport law.

Another problem with the blame game is that people who play it forget that the scam moving companies don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. They can put logos on their slick web sites saying that they are members of the American Moving and Storage Association (AMSA) or the Better Business Bureau.

How would I know not to trust them? What makes the moving industry any less trustworthy than any other service industry? Now, if you owned a moving company and told your sales staff that they could make any promise to the customer that they wanted to and they have no obligation to keep those promises, do you think that you’ll get more business than the honest company? You’d better believe it. These companies are professional scam artists using professional sales people with less than professional ethical standards.

What? You don’t think that a professional sales person can explain away the $1700 price difference for the moving example that I used above? Hmmm… “We operate a small moving company that specializes in moves just like yours. We keep our advertising budget low by only advertising on the web site where you found us, and in the phone book. Big Moving Company pays millions of dollars every year to advertise nationally. We only have to maintain a small number of moving trucks, unlike Big Moving Company who has to maintain an enormous fleet of trucks and vans. Our sales and support staff consist of a small and dedicated group who will work with you through your entire move, unlike Big Moving Company who has to pay for a huge sales and support staff…” How am I doing so far?

The problem with the blame game is the same problem that infects the rest of the moving industry: The moving company holds all of the cards. All Little Movers has to do is get your belongings on a truck. That’s it. That’s all, and it doesn’t matter how they do it. They don’t have to play by the same rules the rest of us do, and once they have your belongings, the game is up and it doesn’t matter who you blame.

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