OHIO — The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio has entered into a settlement agreement with Andrey Shuklin for a Final Order of Forfeiture related to a nationwide moving company scam.
“The investigation revealed that from April 2013 until July 2018, Shuklin, along with other members of the enterprise, controlled several moving companies which defrauded, extorted, and stole customers’ household goods,” the court said in the release. “After loading customers’ goods onto a moving truck, the moving enterprise would increase the price of the move and hold the goods hostage until customers paid the inflated prices. Some customer loads were not delivered at all. The enterprise also charged customers for moving more cubic footage of household goods than they actually used.”
Shuklin was one of 12 defendants indicted in July 2018. According to court documents, the defendants operated and worked through several affiliated moving companies to enrich themselves by stealing from customers who hired them to move their household goods. The enterprise executed their scheme through various moving companies in Florida, Ohio, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, California, Connecticut, Colorado and Missouri. More than 1,000 customers have been identified as victims.
Shuklin admitted to participating in the scheme from April 2013 through July 2018. The defendant was the owner of affiliated moving companies and worked out of the enterprise’s main business offices in Florida.
As part of the conspiracy, the defendants would provide customers with low binding estimates to do their move, promising to beat their competitor’s prices. After the customers agreed to hire the moving companies, employees of the moving companies would load the customers’ goods onto the truck and then the price of the move would be bumped. Co-conspirators would use an inflated cubic footage for the price of moving the customers’ goods.
The order requires Shuklin to pay $36,481.58, which will be substituted for real property. The companies were not named in court documents.
DOT-OIG is conducting this investigation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
I believe my Mom hired these movers from California to Ohio around 2013-2014. They overcharged her and she was missing a lot of furniture. Do you happen to have the names of the companies they did business under? She had hired an attorney out of Florida but the moving company just filed bankruptcy and reopened under a different name. Although Mom is deceased now, I would still like her name added to the victim list in the event that these movers were one of them. Thanks
The names of the companies were not included in the information we received from the US District Court!
I used the a company and took forever to get our things some missing a lot damaged Was charged a lot for storage because they didn’t bring it when promised
They should look into the moving company I used. The price went from $6,000.00 to just under $14,000.00 and the same thing they said they wouldn’t unload unless I paid in full. Then the other issue was they said it would be a week it was moved from Boston to Florida in 2 days wasn’t prepared. I also had to find a storage unit and then hire another mover to move it to our new home. I had about $3,500 in damages to my goods.