Wichita moving company hit with $119,000 penalty for consumer protection violations

A Wichita moving company has been hit with a $119,000 civil penalty after ignoring a consumer protection lawsuit filed by the Sedgwick County district attorney’s office.

The penalty stems from what was supposed to be a $6,000 move from Wichita to Georgia a year ago.

Get A Move On and company president Eric Kimler were ordered to pay $119,197 after a Sedgwick County District Court judge granted a default judgment against the company on Tuesday. The business, which was located at 1008 S. Washington when the case was first filed, is also known as GAMOICT.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett announced the judgment, noting that Get A Move On was found to have engaged in “deceptive and unconscionable” business practices under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act. The news release said that Bennett “reminds residents, consumers looking for moving services should research the mover prior to agreeing to hire them.”

Court records listed eight violations: operating without property authority, failure to provide required documentation, misleading statements of opinion, two instances of false advertising and three violations involving a protected consumer.

The judgment was filed exactly one year after the customer’s property was supposed to be delivered to his new home.

Neither Kimler nor the company ever responded in court, leading to the default judgment. A phone message seeking comment from the business was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Consumer complaint

The district attorney’s consumer protection division and assistant DA Jason Roach handled the case. The DA’s office detailed the allegations in a petition filed March 11.

On April 14, 2020, an approximately 70-year-old man found Get A Move On while calling moving companies listed in the local Yellow Pages. Due to the man’s age, he is considered a “protected consumer” under Kansas law. The man spoke with Kimler about moving household goods from Wichita to Georgia, and Kimler estimated the cost for the move at $6,000.

The customer chose to use Get A Move On because it had one of the best prices among the moving companies he called.

On June 5, 2020, the movers loaded enough household goods to fill one and a half trucks. The customer bought $416 in additional insurance from the moving company. On the June 8, 2020, scheduled delivery date, the company delivered only a portion of the property to the customer’s new home in Georgia. The customer wrote a $4,000 check, and the driver of the moving truck said the rest of the property would be delivered one week later.

On June 15, Kimler showed up in a pickup truck with more items, but not all of the customer’s remaining property.

“Kimler told (the customer) that he still had some of (the customer’s) items in his warehouse, but didn’t know what they were and wasn’t responsible,” the petition states.

After Kimler offloaded the second shipment, the customer said he would not pay the remaining $2,000 until he got the rest of his property. Kimler never delivered them. Additionally, some of the items that were delivered were damaged.

Among the nearly $32,000 in items that apparently disappeared were a Rolex watch worth about $11,006, an autunno-inverno long coat worth about $1,360 and a portable wardrobe worth about $60.

The customer had family friends and a police officer go to the GAMOICT storage facility on June 26, to retrieve two of his plastic totes, two pictures and a lamp and lamp shade. He filed a complaint with the district attorney’s office on July 21.

When the customer contacted Kimler to file a damage claim against the insurance policy he purchased, Kimler told the customer he would have to pay an extra $250. Kimler then failed to respond to a business records subpoena request from Oct. 10.

Legal trouble

An investigation determined that GAMOICT’s authority to operate intrastate had been canceled on May 11, 2018, by the Kansas Corporation Commission’s transportation division. Further, on Feb. 4, 2019, the company’s authority to operate interstate was canceled by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Get A Move On is not currently authorized to transport household goods from Kansas to any other state, FMCSA records show.

The company also failed to provide two documents required of movers by federal law: a bill of lading and an inventory list. Additionally, the company failed to provide information on the insurance purchased by the customer, in violation of federal transportation law. The company’s website as recently as March 8 claimed that Get A Move On was a “BBB Accredited Business” and claimed an “A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.”

In reality, Get A Move On has an “F” rating, is not an accredited business and has been told at least three times by BBB to stop using the accredited business logo in its website advertising, according to the DA’s court filings.

The website, listed in court records as www.getamoveon.com, is no longer operational.

Judge Eric Commer found that Kimler and his business violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act and permanently enjoined them from further violations. He ordered $38,000 in restitution to the victim, civil fines and penalties of $10,000 for each of the eight consumer violations, $1,000 in district attorney investigation costs and $197 in court costs.

The original petition had also requested that Kimler and Get A Move On be banned from doing business in Kansas until properly licensed and insured. No such ban was included in the judge’s order.

Kansas Secretary of State business records for GAMOICT show “corporation is delinquent.” Its annual report was due in April, and a July forfeiture date has been set. Its last annual report listed Kimler as the president and co-director with Jaymie Wilson.

The landlord of the business’s office space and warehouse filed an eviction case, noting $13,360 in unpaid rent. The judge granted the petition in March after Kimler failed to respond.

The business also owes unpaid taxes. As of a Dec. 7 tax warrant filed in court, GAMOICT owed more than $9,500 to the Kansas Department of Revenue.

This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 5:30 AM.