Moving Company Accused of Unfair Practices, Fees

Melissa LaGrone traveled by bus to Ohio last March seeking treatment for a serious lung ailment and failing vision at a Cleveland clinic specializing in her condition. But her belongings didn’t make the trip.

LaGrone’s property -- including such crucial items as her winter clothes, bed, breathing machine and Braille reader -- remained locked in the Southern California warehouse of the moving company she had hired, the former social worker said.

The company, Galore Moving & Storage, failed for nearly three months to deliver her possessions, LaGrone, 34, said.

“I felt like I was being held hostage” as Canoga Park-based Galore ignored her phone calls for weeks. “I want to nail these people.”

She may get her wish.

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer sued Galore on Monday, accusing the company of extorting higher-than-negotiated payments from customers by refusing to deliver or threatening to destroy their property.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John P. Farrell issued a temporary restraining order Monday shutting Galore down. Farrell also froze the company’s assets and ordered it to assist authorities in reuniting victims with their possessions.

Galore, which has generated dozens of consumer complaints in the last year, frequently demanded that customers pay four or five times the initial estimate in cash to get their things back, according to the lawsuit, which also names Chief Executive Jerry Kavon and Chief Financial Officer Ely Kavon, who are father and son.

The company illegally moved customers after its license was revoked by the California Public Utilities Commission last February and employed unfair business practices, including quoting weight-based price estimates for shipments without weighing the cargo, the suit says.

“This rogue outfit victimized hundreds of consumers, leaving a trail of hardship and heartbreak,” Lockyer said in a statement. “We want to permanently shut them down, hit them with civil penalties and obtain restitution for their victims.”

The Kavons didn’t respond to a request for comment left with Galore’s answering service.

Ely Kavon’s attorney, Jeffrey Nadel, said his client was the victim of “unreasonable” state regulations and consumer unhappiness over the high cost of moving goods.

Nadel said the state PUC required movers to provide a quote for a shipment three days before the move, often before they knew how much cargo there was and whether unloading it at the destination would entail extra costs. In a majority of moves, he said, movers must tack on additional costs to cover unforeseen circumstances.

The public “doesn’t understand how much a move can cost,” Nadel said, and that has produced a recent flurry of lawsuits against small moving firms such as Galore.

Nadel said he would have to review company records to determine whether Galore took new customers after its license was revoked.

Deceptive practices are a problem in the moving industry, particularly between states, because state and local authorities have trouble crossing jurisdictions and the U.S. Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Administration can’t address every incident, said David Sparkman, a spokesman for the American Moving and Storage Assn., a trade group.

“We still believe the situation with rogue movers is an active one and one that needs to be addressed,” Sparkman said.

Lockyer’s suit calls for Galore, which recently changed its name to Diamond Relocations, to pay $2,500 for each count of unfair business practice or misleading representations, as well as the cost of lost or damaged property. The attorney general’s office estimated that civil penalties and restitution would top $500,000.

Galore has been in business since 2002 and posted more than $1 million in revenue last year, investigators discovered.

When LaGrone’s belongings finally arrived in Akron on June 28 -- nearly 10 weeks after they were picked up from her home in California -- several boxes, she said, looked as though they had been opened and retaped. The headboard for her bed remains missing.

“They thrive on people who can’t afford it,” said LaGrone, who was able to retrieve her property without paying an extra fee. “They make it sound so sweet over the phone, but once they have your things, you don’t matter anymore.”