FMCSA - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

An article about the moving Industry part of the full review of the GAO (Government Accountability Office)

“The recent increase in the FMCSA’s enforcement activity, while a positive step, will not be enough to protect consumers on a nationwide basis. The FMCSA’s increased enforcement efforts will not solve the problem on the federal regulatory level for several reasons. The FMCSA’s primary method for improving consumer protection is to continue to provide outreach and education, rather than taking enforcement actions against violators. As mentioned above, while outreach and education are important, many consumers will remain unprotected in the absence of aggressive and consistent enforcement. Additionally, when the FMCSA does take enforcement action, its focus is necessarily on patterns of complaints, rather than on specific complaints by individual consumers. Such a focus, while maximizing the impact the FMCSA can make with its limited resources, necessarily does not respond to many consumer complaints.

In 2004, Congress increased the FMCSA’s funding so that the agency could hire an additional ten household goods complaint investigators.  While in 2001, the FMCSA had devoted five investigators to household goods complaints, immediately before the 2004 increase in funding, the FMCSA had only one full-time investigator devoted to household goods complaints.  As of April 2005, the FMCSA had a total of ten full-time investigators devoted to household goods complaints for the entire country and had cross-trained thirty-seven other investigators to provide support. full-time investigators are simply not enough to handle thousands of complaints — complaints that have been increasing in volume each year. When one considers the rate at which complaints have increased in recent years, it becomes clear that the recent improvements in enforcement are far from sufficient.

As of 2001, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) found that the FMCSA received a total of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 complaints about household goods carriers each year. In 2004, the FMCSA received over 16,000 complaints about household goods movers. This nearly exponential increase in complaints occurred during the four years following the GAO study that found the need for significant improvements. This increase happened despite the educational and enforcement efforts of the FMCSA. Considering that FMCSA investigators receive many thousands of complaints each year, it is no surprise that the agency focuses on patterns of complaints rather than on investigating the complaints of each individual consumer. In 2004, despite the volume of complaints, FMCSA household goods complaint investigators conducted only approximately thirty investigations. In fiscal year 2005, FMCSA household goods complaint investigators hope to conduct as many as 300 investigations. Of course, the FMCSA and its leadership should be applauded for their efforts, but that does not change the fact that many consumer complaints are not investigated.

Simple mathematics leads to the conclusion that when consumers lodge 16,000 complaints — whether the FMCSA conducts 300 investigations — many complaints are not investigated. This is not to demean the FMCSA or its investigatory efforts; the agency is simply focusing its limited resources to achieve maximum results. Making outreach efforts and focusing on patterns of complaints in regions of the greatest concern are the only responsible actions the FMCSA can take, considering its limited resources. In its 2003 rulemaking, the FMCSA reiterated that, “[given the volume and scope of household goods movements each year, FMCSA acknowledges that it cannot intervene in individual cases to assure consumers their desired result.” It is also clear from the FMCSA handbook, Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move, that the FMCSA will not help consumers settle their disputes with movers and will not intervene if a consumer’s goods are being held hostage.

Federal Criminal Enforcement has not solved the problem consumer complaints have increased dramatically despite strong federal criminal enforcement actions taken against household goods moving companies. In the last five years, the DOT Office of the Inspector General has investigated allegations of fraud involving over twenty-five household goods moving companies associated with approximately 8,000 victims. Despite the combination of such criminal investigations with the civil enforcement efforts of the FMCSA, complaints of fraud and abuse in the household goods moving industry have increased.

Such an increase in fraudulent activity is not surprising given the limited federal resources the federal government can allocate to the household goods moving industry. Fraud and abuse of consumers has increased, not because federal criminal fines and imprisonment are insufficient to deter, but because federal resources are too limited. While the investigations conducted by the office of the Inspector General were associated with approximately 8,000 victims, those investigations were focused on just over twenty-five moving companies. While in no way minimizing the importance and impact of these investigations on the targeted companies, and while recognizing the efforts of the Office of the Inspector General, the FMCSA, and other participating federal and state agencies, the increase in consumer complaints of fraud and abuse clearly indicate that the federal government’s efforts have not sufficiently deterred dishonest moving companies bent on defrauding consumers”

My Moving Guide is presenting the following article to advise the large consumer how important it is to find a reputable company with a good background and reputation who will be relocating your personal goods overseas or interstate. Out team of experts have researched the internet and books to educate our customer how to find the right mover on there relocation. for a full report that contains 8 pages from the GAO please click here