Canadians say they fear they've been scammed out of thousands of dollars by car moving company

CTV National News: Alleged transport company scam Kathy Le reports on an Ont. man who claims he was scammed out of thousands after hiring a company to transport a car.

An Ontario man says he’s still waiting for a vehicle he purchased on Kijiji to be delivered to his home. But after more than a month, he says he’s losing hope that the car will arrive and believes that he is a victim of a scam.

Steve Sherlock, from LaSalle, Ont., says he purchased a 1955 Dodge Coronet for his wife from a seller in Duchess, Alta. in August for $28,000. He says the seller is legitimate and the vehicle exists, but problems began after he hired transport company, “carmoves.ca,” to move the vehicle to his house.

“They quoted me $2,400, which I paid in full,” said Sherlock.

“But they started to give me the runaround early on and I started to think something doesn’t seem right here.”

Under the Terms of Shipping on the company's website, it states it "cannot guarantee exact pickup or delivery dates."

However, in his agreement with the company, Sherlock says the car was scheduled to be delivered on Aug. 9. But he claims that after inconsistent communication with carmoves.ca and multiple delays on the delivery date, he filed a police report and got his bank to flag the company’s account as fraudulent.

Sherlock says he eventually heard back from the company, which told him he owed them more money.

“At this rate, I was fed up. I just wanted the car, and I was willing to pay the extra. It was around $1,500,” he said.

But Sherlock told the company he would only pay the remaining balance once the vehicle was delivered to his door, which still hasn’t happened more than a month later, he says.

“I just can’t believe there’s people out there like this. I really can’t. It’s just disgusting what’s happened.”

Sherlock isn’t the only person speaking out about the company. Camille Raiche from Quebec says he purchased a classic 1963 Mercury Meteor in British Columbia and hired caremoves.ca to transport his vehicle back east.

He also paid in full and says he still hasn’t received the vehicle after more than a month.

Like Sherlock, Raiche says communication with carmoves.ca has been spotty and the delivery of his vehicle keeps getting delayed. Raiche sent CTV News a recent email correspondence with carmoves.ca which states that it hired a third-party company to transport Raiche’s vehicle.

"The vehicle is with third party, we have attempted to ask them for the location of the car many times. They are not answering, and we do not have the car,” reads the email. Raiche says he was directed by carmoves.ca to file a complaint against the third-party contractor.

“I have lost hours of sleep during the months of August and September hoping for a miracle,” said Raiche.

“My wish is that people responsible for these scams and thefts are found and jailed. They are nothing but a bunch of crooks.”

According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), a non-government watchdog, this type of incident possibly falls under the umbrella of “vehicle transport scam,” which has multiple variations.

The BBB says one of the variations is people hire a transport company to move their vehicle and they are asked to pay upfront. The company will delay the delivery of the vehicle and ask for more money. Eventually, the vehicle may or may not be delivered.

BBB spokesperson Melanie McGovern says people need to be vigilant.

“If you are transporting a high-ticket item, you really want to thoroughly research the company and not just based on their website,” said McGovern.

“Ask some friends. Take it to other websites, take it to review sites, use the name of the company and a search engine, and type the word scam to see if anybody else is reporting any kind of suspicious activity.”

McGovern is encouraging people who’ve been victims of scams to file a complaint with the BBB.

Sherlock says he thought carmoves.ca and carmoves.com were the same company, the latter he is familiar with. He says it was a costly mistake and wanted to share his story.

“I just don't I don't want to see other people get hurt. That's my biggest concern.”

Sherlock did purchase insurance for the transport of his vehicle; however, he won’t be able to claim any money until the vehicle is reported stolen. Unfortunately, he says he hasn’t been able to file the car stolen with LaSalle RCMP because although he has a bill of sale and proof of payment, he says the detachment requires the vehicle to be in his name.

Sherlock asked the seller of the vehicle, Richard Berg, to file a report with Alberta RCMP, but says Berg was told that the purchaser of the vehicle needs to file a stolen vehicle report.

“I have all this information, and yet I got the police pointing fingers at each other saying, ‘no, you have to report it stolen,’ ‘no, you have to report it stolen’ and it's just frustrating,” said Sherlock.

CTV News has reached out to carmoves.ca multiple times through email and phone and have not received a response from the company.