East Coast Moving Systems ripoff Stole everything owned Sunrise Florida

A houseful of things disappears

Kevin Giles, Star Tribune
August 21, 2004 SCAM0821

When Megan and Christopher Reed of Prior Lake decided to move to South Carolina this summer, Megan found a moving company on the Internet she thought they could trust. She drove to South Carolina with their kids, Taylor and Cody, and enough clothes for a week. Chris stayed behind to help load the truck.

They haven't seen their belongings since. The FBI told the Reeds they never will.

"I just don't want this to happen to anyone else," Megan Reed said Friday from a friend's house in South Carolina. "My 33 years on this planet are gone, just like that."

What the Reeds found out, the hard way, is that at least a dozen others around the country have lost their belongings in the same fashion, to the same company, East Coast Moving Systems. The people they talked to at the company, which they've since learned goes by several names and operates from several locations, have vanished.

Chris Reed in his empty living room.

Jay Karr

The Island Packet of Hilton Head, S.C.

Megan Reed wanted to hire a moving company she could trust. Being a mortgage banker, she's good with numbers -- "the best," she said -- and she carefully researched moving companies on the Internet, settling on about five that she contacted and asked for bids.

The lowest price wasn't the first concern; timing was. They wanted a company that could work at the end of July, which would give Megan time to start her new job, for Chris to start his studies in radiology in Charleston, S.C., and for the kids to enter school.

Chris Reed

Jay Karr

The Island Packet of Hilton Head, S.C.

They settled on East Coast Moving Systems after checking with the Better Business Bureau and the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has an agency that monitors moving companies. "We did our research, with what we though was due diligence, to know it was up and up," Chris said.

Seemed professional

Each of the companies that gave them bids asked for detailed lists of the contents of the house, which Megan and Chris compiled with great care. In the end they trusted $100,000 in belongings to East Coast Moving.

"Everything seemed so professional," Megan said. The company initially charged them $2,700. And then, she recalled, with some alarm in her voice: "They knew everything we had."

On July 25, two movers arrived at the Reed's four-bedroom house. Chris asked the men why they were driving a rental truck instead of a company truck, and they said that East Coast Moving had a contract with the rental company to guarantee road repairs.

As the truck was being loaded, the driver told Chris that the amount of furniture exceeded original estimates. The Reeds wired $2,000 more to a company address in Florida.

By Aug. 4, East Coast Moving assured them, their belongings would arrive in South Carolina.

At their house on Hilton Head Island, 13-year-old Taylor wants her bed, her clothes, the many things that make a girl's bedroom her refuge. "Lots of emotions flying around, hard to put in perspective," is how her dad describes her mood.

Megan has lost heirlooms that belonged to her late mother. The family's wedding pictures, passports, bank statements, tax returns and military records are gone.

On Friday, after a story about them appeared in the Island Packet newspaper in Hilton Head, dozens of people offered to give them furniture and clothes. "I know the term Minnesota Nice," Megan said. "Now I've come to know the meaning of Southern hospitality."

Megan grew up in White Bear Lake and Hugo. Chris spent his early years in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul.

Company response

At first a company receptionist told them the truck had a breakdown. Eventually, as the Reeds became more persistent, the receptionist told them, "Do you want me to lie to you and tell you somebody will call back?" Finally, the company quit answering the phone. Megan tried as many as 75 times a day to contact the company.

Star Tribune calls to the company went unanswered.

Megan and Chris have turned their anger into a crusade to warn other consumers about East Coast Moving, which the FBI told them is being investigated for alleged swindling tactics. Megan has been comparing notes with other victims.

She also discovered that East Coast Moving's license to be a household carrier across state lines was revoked on June 7 and wasn't reinstated until three days after the two movers with the rental truck came to her home.

The FBI told Chris that moving companies that swindle people often drive a family's belongings to a container ship, and the drivers then disappear. Chris, a former Army Ranger, said one of the men who came to their house had a military tattoo and said he was a former Israeli soldier.

The Reeds, certain they took the right precautions, can't believe this happened to them.

"I would have much rather had a fire," Chris said Friday. "At least I could have pointed at it and have a cause and do the mourning of my goods."

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

Kevin
Minneapolis, Minnesota
U.S.A.

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