When it comes to choosing a reliable interstate moving company you need to be careful. Your belongings will be on the road for a long time. And that is the perfect opportunity for scammers to take advantage of your trust. That’s why it’s wise to do a background check of an interstate moving company you are planning on hiring. There are a few things that are essential for any interstate moving company, and some other that will show you how reliable and trustworthy the company is.
Information about the moving company
When doing a background check of an interstate moving company you should expect certain information to be freely available. First, you can start with simple things, like what are the types of moving assistance they offer. It can tell you a lot about how serious the company is. Other information, like the registered name of the company, their address, and registration number is also quite important. And it will tell you if the company is legit and trustworthy. The company shouldn’t hide it and you should be able to find it on their website easily. The full list of the information you want to have is:
- Full business name or DBAof the moving company
- State carrier license number
- USDOT number
- State carrier license number
- Phone number
- Email address
- Physical office address
Get all the information and then make a decision!
How to check if the information is correct?
Most of this things can be easily checked. The most important one for you is to check if the USDOT number is correct. You can check that by going to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration website and entering the number. Just make sure it corresponds to their business name. Make sure you give them a call and do a quick maps search to see if everything checks out.
Look at their website
You can tell a lot about a company simply by looking at their website. Is it fast and modern or is it outdated? Do all the pages work? If the website seems a bit off and unfinished, that can be a good indicator that the moving company is not serious. So, take a good look around and see if you can find something out of order. If it’s a minor thing you can call them and ask about it.
Other things to look at
There are also some other things that you should check about the moving company. Just because the company is registered doesn’t mean they are trustworthy and reliable. By visiting a few review sites you should be able to make a good assessment of their reliability. See what kind of experience did other people have with them. Did they arrive on time and was there any damage to the items.
Final verdict
When you finish doing a background check of an interstate moving company take a good look at all the available information. Just because their website is currently down doesn’t mean they don’t take their job seriously. But, if you can’t find them on FMCSA website, you should probably avoid them.