Hamilton woman is in 'pure shock' after $3,600 moving bill

When Alicia Seed was moving from Dundas to St. Catharines, she knew it wouldn't be free, but she certainly didn't expect to arrive ather new home with a $3,600 bill and none of her possessions.

The 23-year-old McMasterUniversity student and single mom says her items,which include her two-and-a-half-year-old's birth certificateand social insurance number,were held hostage unless she paid the bill.

"I didn't do my research enough," Seed said. "It's been absolutely horrifying."

Seed said she originally looked at quotes from four different companies and ended up hiring Moonstar Van Lines.

Documents obtained by CBC News show Seed agreed topay $625 for her move. That included her $100 deposit and would coverroughly500 pounds worth of items.

Seedsays Moonstar Van Lines brought on a different company, Move Me Again, to carry out the move.

The movers arrivedand Seed sayshalf way into moving her belongings, theytold her the price of her move would vary based on the weight of her items. (Asimilar warningalso appears on the original invoice.)

She says she agreedand the movers kept loading everything into the truck.

The new form, which Seed says she receivedafter all furniture was loaded into the vehicle, featuredtwo sections one unfilled section for the actual weight of the itemsand an option for aflat rate of 7,000 pounds.

Seed says the moverstold her to sign the form, so she did. "I had no idea what 7,000 pounds looks like."

Then the bill arrived buther possessions didn't.

Seed says she received a phone callsoon after the movers left saying that she owed$3,638.60. If the company didn't get the money,they wouldn't deliver her items to her new place.

"I'm a single mom.I just moved in with my boyfriend. When I got that number, I was in pure shock," Seed said.

"I'm not paying $3,000 for a $600 job."

Seed says the truck containedher and her daughter's social insurance numbers, birth certificates and other personal information.

"All they have to do is open one box to find all that ... they're holding my items basicallyhostage," she said.

"You're supposed to trust your home with everything you had, and I did that, and I trusted my movers with my home."

Seed tried contacting the police but says officers told her bysigning the contract, it would have to be pursued throughthe civil courts. She also called Equifax to warn them she could be a victim of identity fraud.

Moving company has troubled past

Patrick McKeen, president andCEO of the Central Ontario Better BusinessBureau (BBB), said Seed's experience is not an isolated incident with the company.

Moonstar Van Lines and Greenway Moving are listed under the same entry at the BBB. And, hesaysMove Me Againshares a listing with a company called Roadway Movers.

"Businesses will try and change their name in order to carry on these kinds of practices as long as they can until they build up a bad reputation and have taken advantage of a bunch of people, and then they try and change their name to start a clean slate," he said.

Moonstar Van Lines did not respond to requests for comment. Move Me Again andGreenway Movingdeclined to comment.

Documents obtained by CBC News shows Moonstar and Greenway are both owned bySerap Akyaz. Move Me Againis owned byCemal Ozturk.

McKeen said BBB has "lots of concerns" about the situation.

"There's a lot of complaint activity on that file, so much so that at the beginning of August, our team identified the need for an investigation to investigate a pattern of complaints," he told CBC.

"When that investigationwas done, we asked for some comments back from the business which they haven't provided any insight on, but we have identified there is a pattern with this business."

Moonstar and Greenwayhave18complaints on theirBBB profile, 15of which are from 2020.

McKeennoted some of the complaints revolve around customer services issues, not following contracts and issues related to the weight of furniture.

He saidit is illegal for a moving company to withholdfurniture until payment. He also said increasing the price of a job by more than 10 per cent after it is already complete contravenes the Consumer Protection Act.

Data obtained by CBCNews from theMinistry of Government and Consumer Services shows the province has received a total of seven complaints about the three companies, six of which came this year.

'We've essentially given up'

The Canadian Association of Movers (CAM) doesn't list any of the companies under its directory of verified movers.

"I can confirm that Moonstar, Move Me Again, and Greenway Moving arenot Canadian Association of Movers members, and never will be, astheyare the antithesis of what a Certified Professional Mover should be," read an email from CAM presidentNancy Irvine.

"We have dozens and dozens of complaints about these three outfits and their shameful business practices."

Seed says she wouldn't pay Moonstar the $3,600. Instead she said shepaid roughly $5,000 to buy new furniture. During that time, Seed's daughter stayed with her parents.

Eventually Seed's stepfather, she says, paid Moonstar$525 to have access to her items. Then Seed paid$1,000 tohire another moving company to pick up her items from thewarehouse and bring them to her mother's home on Sept. 10.

She said most of her items were scuffed, damaged, bent or dirty after the move.

"They even brought along mice as well, so that was fun... We've essentially given up. A lot of my stuff is destroyed and that's just the way it is."