Moving Safely & Avoiding Scams Guide
A move puts your home, documents, and identity in transit at once. This guide covers the verification, containment, and scam-avoidance steps that keep a relocation from turning into a loss.
- Verify every mover before paying — Interstate carriers need a valid USDOT and FMCSA authority; intrastate movers need the relevant state license. Check at safer.fmcsa.gov or the state regulator.
- Keep valuables and documents with you — Jewelry, cash, deeds, passports, and financial papers travel in your own car, never on the truck. Photograph high-value items for the claim file.
- Protect personal safety on move day — Strangers will be in your home all day. Secure bedrooms, limit what visitors see, and arrange childcare or pet care so no one is underfoot near dollies and stairs.
- Watch for moving scams and phishing — Fake movers, spoofed 'your shipment is delayed' texts, and phishing from 'moving portals' spike around relocations. Verify numbers against the carrier you hired, not the message.
- Guard your identity during the move — Change-of-address, utility transfers, and new accounts create windows for identity theft. Use secured mail, strong passwords, and monitor credit through the transition.
- Keep pets safe through the chaos — Open doors and unfamiliar noise are the top causes of lost pets on move day. A secured crate or off-site care prevents the most common move-day emergency.
Verify, then trust
Most household-goods fraud starts with a too-good estimate and ends with a demand for many times the quote at the curb. Confirm authority at safer.fmcsa.gov or the state regulator, require a written survey, and never pay a large cash-only deposit. Full red-flag list.
Protect your identity through the move
Change-of-address, utility transfers, and a wave of new accounts create windows for identity theft and phishing that impersonates your mover or the “moving portal.”
SecurFig covers identity protection and how to spot moving-related phishing and scams — read it before you hand over personal details to any “mover” portal.
Keep pets safe in the chaos
Open doors and unfamiliar noise are the top causes of lost pets on move day. Plan their containment as seriously as the truck — see the Moving with Pets guide, and model pet care cost with PawFig.
www.fmcsa.dot.gov, www.protectyourmove.gov, www.bls.gov, www.eia.gov, www.irs.gov, www.usps.com. Figures are model benchmarks, not quotes. ReloFig never sells your information.