When booking your move it’s important to pay attention to the type of company you are choosing. In the moving industry, there are carriers brokers, and the in-betweens.

Brokers:

Simply put brokers are companies licensed with the DOT to broker out the moving jobs they book. They sell the moving jobs to a third party. They have to do that as they are not licensed to actually perform your move. They don’t have trucks they don’t have facilities or dispatchers. They have salespeople. Very often the actual moving company that will perform your move is a mystery to be solved only on the day of your move. So you don’t know who is actually moving you. More often than not, even the person who helps you book your job doesn’t know who will move you as the job is not sold yet to a third party.
This means you have no way to evaluate the quality of the service you will receive. It’s a bit of a gamble if you think about it.
The company that does end up performing your move shows up on the day of the move with their own estimate with new and different terms and conditions than what you signed up for when you booked your move with the broker.
The brokers are not the ones doing the move so they can skip the minute details of planning the move and omit them from their estimates. They don’t care if you have stairs or about your parking conditions or how you pack your things so the estimate is very basic and lacking in details.
Since the estimate provided by the broker is not really binding they can come up with any price that will get you to book. These are the reasons why, more often than not, the prices they give you sound so good. Too good to be true would be the right way to define them.

Telltale signs that you are dealing with brokers:

• First, the obvious, their DOT license. If you look them up in the DOT database using their DOT number their license comes up as a broker license.
• Usually, their deposits are higher than 20%. The deposits are an important source of income for them which sometimes means they are not even refundable and if they are you might find that the booking fees are not.
• A lot of them provide very high discounts.
• Usually not that difficult to get them to significantly lower their initial price.
• They will yes yes you into booking, instead of explaining rules and regulations. Remember? They are not doing the actual move so they can do that.
• The honest ones will actually tell you upfront on the phone that they are brokers.

Carriers

Now that you get the gist of what are brokers it’s easy to understand that a carrier is the actual moving company that will perform your move under the same contract responsibilities and terms and conditions. The carrier is the actual moving company that you are booking with and the moving company that is helping you plan your move to the finest details and then actually performs it. The estimate they provide is binding and it has the same terms and conditions you signed up for. You call the same number to plan your move and to track it’s delivery. All under one roof.
You are welcome to check our DOT license. Like all carriers, our license is a carrier license.

In-betweens

The inbetweeners are the ones with a dual license they do operate a moving company with a fleet of trucks but they also operate a broker operation on the side. The DOT allocates special licenses for them. It’s difficult to know whether or not they will actually do your move or outsource it.

To sum it up, Always go with the company that actually does your move, the carrier. Put your money in the hands of the mover with a carrier's license. It’s safest there. It’s money for sweat. As simple as that.