Website: https://americasmovers.com/ After I accepted a position in Broward County, Florida, my wife, Angela, and I decided to sell our house in Bartow, Florida. A man, who identified himself as "Jonathan," with America's Movers, contacted me and conducted a detailed virtual walkthrough with my wife, Angela. The walkthrough included every household item, as well as the number of boxes we were taking. Americas Movers was more than $500 higher than their competitors (Contact information in Addendum). After bringing this disparity to Jonathan, who never provided his last name, he offered to talk to his "dispatcher," and came back with a lesser amount, using my military family as justification. Jonathan also added five (5) "free" wardrobe boxes. We agreed on the following: The pickup and delivery date was to be on Monday, February 7. The loading and unloading of furniture and boxes was to take place on the same day. The entire move would be paid by credit card.
Jonathan gave me a written estimate of $3975. I clearly conveyed to Jonathan and repeated back that we had three bedrooms, a garage, a living room, and a dining room. We were also informed that "Tony," the dispatcher, would be calling us "two days" before the move to confirm their arrival. NOTE: I requested an in-person inspection of our house and all materials; however, Jonathan's response was that, due to COVID, he could accommodate my request. For the record, at the time of this discussion, in January 2022, Florida was no longer under a declared state of emergency. I later realized that the COVID excuse was deliberate and a way to avoid providing an accurate estimate.
When the movers finally arrived, the driver asked me if I had read the contract closely. He repeated this question twice, which I found suspicious, but my wife and I were in no position to cancel; we had closed our house and needed to vacate the premises. Following a brief walkthrough with the movers, accompanied by the new owners of our house in Bartow who stopped by to see the place, Andrey took me out to the truck which was woefully inadequate for the amount of furniture and boxes that had been inventoried by Jonathan. There, he pulled out a piece of masking tape and stuck it on the side of the truck, a little over halfway towards the rear of the vehicle. He informed me that the tape marked the 1242 cubic feet limit, that anything beyond would be subject to an additional charge of $3.50 per cubic feet. This convoluted formula would become the basis for charging us more than $1586, or upwards of 42% beyond the estimate. When the driver and his assistant arrived at our new residence in Sunrise, Florida, the driver presented me with a succinct demand; they (he and assistant) would not unload his truck until we paid the full amount owed ($5160) with cash, or a money order, or cashier's check or wire transfer. This did not include the 10% deposit. When I protested this outrageous condition, the driver advised me to talk to his boss, "Tony," who repeated the same condition.
When I called "Tony," the previous condition of paying $4K with credit card and the remainder with cash was suddenly reversed. Per Tony, since the amount owed exceeded the $4000 amount, it automatically meant the entire amount would need to be paid in cash, per my contract. Nowhere, in the contract provided, did it stipulate such an extreme condition. This was a blatant and deliberate act of extortion; hold our furniture hostage until we pay in cash. I was forced to drain my entire checking account. This imposed an immense hardship to my wife and myself. Both of us, as previously stated, have medical conditions which have worsened.
ISSUES: The modus operandi of Americas movers is clear. They provide a competitive estimate that is strategically close to an arbitrary ceiling, so that their on-site staff can exceed this ceiling just enough to have more paid by cash. Most credit card companies allow their customers to dispute charges. In my case, the estimate was $3975, with a ceiling of $4000. Anything above $4000 was to be paid by cash, according to the contract they signed.
The secondary MO of Americas movers is to dangle false discounts as a way to lure unsuspecting in to choosing them above their competitors. In contracts, this would be considered a "false bid." The most egregious, especially to military families like mine, is to exploit Veterans and or their families expectations of said discount. As the final bill of lading shows, the Veteran discount and all others were erased by the grossly inflated amount of more than 40%
The tertiary MO of Americas movers is to arbitrarily decide what constitutes the amount of cubic feet and penalize their customers who exceed this amount, by their estimate. Rather than dispatch a sufficiently large enough truck to move an entire house-worth of furniture and goods, they send a small truck that incentivizes customers to reduce their load, sometimes at a great cost.
The fourth MO of Americas Movers is to exploit the vulnerabilities of their customers by showing up late, doing a secondary walkthrough, then have the customer re-sign their contract in person, usually under duress since most people are relocating for a new job, selling a home, buying a home, and said move is time sensitive. The fifth and final MO of Americas Movers is to "change the game," especially if the customer has expressed dissatisfaction. This, in my case, included holding our furniture hostage, and forcing us to pay their declared amount due by cash ($5190).
SPECIAL NOTE: No one from Americas Movers ever provided his last name, unlike every mover I have used in the past 30 years. In retrospect, I can only conclude that this is deliberate since the company and its staff do not want to be held accountable for his and his fellow employee's transgressions. SUMMARY OF GRIEVANCES:
Below are specific grievance items that speak to an organized effort to deceive, bait and "gouge." When the driver and his assistant arrived at our new residence in Sunrise, Florida, the driver demanded my wife, and I pay the full amount due of $5160 or they (he and assistant) would not unload his truck. We were forced to pay with cash, money order, or cashier's check or wire transfer. This did not include the 10% deposit. When I protested this outrageous condition, the driver advised me to talk to his boss, "Tony."
When I called "Tony," the previous condition of paying $4K with credit card and the remainder with cash was suddenly reversed. Per Tony, since the amount owed exceeded the $4000 amount, it automatically meant the entire amount would need to be paid in cash, per my contract. Nowhere, in the contract provided, did it stipulate such an extreme condition. This was a blatant and deliberate act of extortion; hold our furniture hostage until we pay in cash. As a result of the aforementioned issues, I was forced to drain my entire checking account. This imposed an immense hardship on me wife and myself. Both of us, as previously stated, have medical conditions which have worsened.
The $3975 estimate was nothing but a ruse. The $4000 ceiling was intentionally close enough to the estimate to make it near-impossible to avoid surpassing it. The expectation to pay cash for the amount exceeded was also a set-up. The contract was weaponized from the outset. The use of cubic feet, which is nearly impossible to measure, and deliberately confusing to consumers, was designed to justify the highly inflated cost. No discussion of cubic feet as a metric was ever introduced in the pre-estimate discussions. It was only indicated by the driver on the day of the move. After the virtual walkthrough, Jonathan only put the estimate of 8,600 pounds, which was later rendered meaningless. With the second bed, frame, mattress, and box spring, removed from the equation, the weight should have gone down significantly. But it did not. Americas Movers never intended to go by weight, but by their own measurement. When the Driver more than twice asked if I had read the contract carefully, I knew this was a pretext for something nefarious. In all the times I have moved, I was never asked this question. In retrospect, the contract had clearly been weaponized by the moving company against its customers. We paid a total of $60.00 for five wardrobe boxes that had clearly been used and reused numerous times before, based on their deplorable conditions. The movers took them back from us after we unpacked our clothing. Why did they take the boxes back? The $5160 plus $397.50 deposit equaled a total of $5,557.50, a total deviation from the written estimate, ($3,975.00) of more than 1,582.50 or approximately 40%. The justification for this clear deviation was the "amount of cubic feet" we allegedly exceeded (?). All the discounts referenced both verbally and in writing were no more than a ruse to charge us the amount we were asked to pay prior to negotiant during the bidding process. SPECIAL NOTE: The presence of a mattress in the truck prior to any of our furniture being touched indicated that the $150-$200 "disposal fee" was part of a pattern. No one knows if this mattress or mine was actually discarded. The driver claimed that he had loaned his truck to someone else. Also, due to the inadequate number of movers, (two for a three-bedroom house and garage), and the seven hours it took them to load a woefully inadequately sized truck, my wife and I were forced to stay the night at the only hotel we could find. I requested reimbursement from "Tony" who agreed to reduce our bill by $200. CONCLUDING REMARKS: The fact that a predatory moving company like this continues to operate is reprehensible. I will be more than willing to testify in court or virtually, should this and other grievances result in arrest and prosecution of the principle/owner, supervisors, "dispatcher," the intake staff member who blatantly distorted and egregiously misrepresented the cost and methods, the driver and all others who processed the extorted payment in the requested form of a cashier's check. The failure on the part of all those company employees and managers to provide their last names speaks to the intent to commit a crime. When people conceal their last names, used someone else's email address, and introduce themselves as "Tony," rather than use their entire, formal name, it usually indicates malicious and nefarious intent.

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