I don’t want to generalize here, but for anyone who has had experiences with moving companies, it is usually rare for them to comment on what a wonderful experience it was. Moving itself, the very act, is tough enough. But then when you get movers who break things, move slow and run up the bill, lie about the the cost of gas, and whatever else that is painful, frustrating, and expensive, you start to loathe the day you first called them.
Then there is the little matter of criminal records. Now it is fair to say most moving personnel won’t have a doctorate and they are only pushing other people’s furniture around for spiritual value. It is understandable that some moving personnel will have criminal records. And these employees certainly deserve a second chance, provided they don’t drop anything, steal anything, or otherwise raid on our already painful parade.
It is one thing for movers to have criminal records. It would be nice to know about them. But more importantly, what about the guys who are running the company? The guys you are ultimately trusting with your furniture, art, and family heirlooms? In North Carolina, where moving companies as part of their employment screening program must conduct background checks on their owners and officers, a few dozen companies have reportedly been negligent in doing so.
According to an article in the North Carolina News Observer, the state may be pulling the operating certificates on more than 50 moving companies working in North Carolina. The regulators have found that these movers or not being compliant with the two-year old mandate that they conduct background checks on the company owners and officers. could have their operating certificates yanked by state regulators, a step that would thin the ranks of the state’s legitimate movers by 20 percent.
The owners and managers of moving companies could be fined $500 for being negligent. Their operating certificates could be suspended and to renew them there would be an additional $1,000 fine. Deadline notices and notification of the fines were sent out to moving companies that ignored an earlier commission order to appear in Raleigh last month at a public hearing or send a lawyer. The movers deigned to show up for the hearings were spared fines and given an extension until Feb. 28 to conduct the relevant criminal background checks.
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