38 complaints against Broward mover ‘under active review,’ Florida attorney general says

A Fort Lauderdale-based operator of moving companies around the state, who has two civil judgments and several screens of reviews that say he’s an extortionist fraud, now might have another legal problem: Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.

That’s on top of other legal developments involving Shawn Thompson, a Boca Raton homeowner who operates moving companies out of Fort Lauderdale, Vero Beach and Orlando.

Civil cases in Miami-Dade County and Orange County, Reddit thread posts and at least 86 Better Business Bureau complaints tell a similar story of moving days with Thompson-connected companies.

An agreed-upon cost in the binding estimate gets several add-ons that weren’t approved by the customer and the movers demand the inflated costs be paid before unloading the customer’s possessions. If the customer pays, the possessions are unloaded, sometimes in good condition. If the customer doesn’t pay, the movers take the possessions to an undisclosed location, holding them hostage until the customer pays.

Customers who eventually get their things back consistently describe broken or ruined objects.

“Our office has received 38 complaints against Thompson Nation Holdings, Shawn Thompson, or Small Move Movers and these complaints are under active review,” the Office of the Attorney General said in an email to the Miami Herald.

Thompson Nation Holdings and Small Move Movers are two of the many companies through which Thompson has worked his moving business, many of which have similar names to more established companies. At least eight of the 21 companies he registered with the state of Florida remain active and he operates a few companies under fictitious names.

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Most recently, on Jan. 3, state records say Thompson registered Today’s Move Mover. The listed manager of Today’s Move is Two Man One Truck Movers. The latter isn’t a registered corporation with the state of Florida, but both have an operating address of 2814 Silver Star Rd., Unit No. 219 in Orlando.

Reached on the phone by a Miami Herald reporterthis week, Thompson declined to comment on the email from Moody’s office. Before hanging up on a Herald reporter, Thompson had something to say about Nicollette Gonzalez, the woman who used Small Move Movers and sued Thompson in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

READ MORE: Mover added $3,000 of fraudulent charges, then hid a Miami woman’s furniture and clothes

An ‘unfair, deceptive and fraudulent scheme’

Thompson called Gonzalez a scammer and said they were appealing December’s summary judgment in Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Barket’s court. Gonzalez sued Thompson, Small Move and Thompson Nation Holdings after refusing to pay an additional $3,243 added to her invoice by movers she said took 11 hours to reach Gainesville from Miami.

Thompson withdrew his appeal on Jan. 23. Neither he nor his attorney, Gawane Grant, would answer why.

Barket said in the summary judgment that not only did Thompson refuse to accept payment of the signed binding estimate, he “extorted Ms. Gonzalez by accepting only payment of the inflated invoice and discounted inflated invoice. Without question, then, Mr. Thompson was a direct participant in this unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent scheme.”

Gonzalez’s attorney, Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton’s Rasheed Nader, has filed a motion that includes attorney’s fees and an entry of final judgment. A hearing is scheduled for March 4.

That motion includes accounts of Thompson’s deposition truculence, such as “Man, how many exhibits do you have? You must be a dancer. You’re dancing around the customer not paying their bill. It’s never going to happen...[Nader] is a clown, man.”

Barket wrote that Thompson’s deposition testimony played a significant role in his decision. Thompson wasn’t deposed for the lawsuit against him in Orange County. He never answered it.

READ MORE: Another judgment against a Broward mover accused of another fraud and extortion

A $1,132 inflation from Orlando to Oviedo

George Brew, attorney for Scott Meyer, filed an amended complaint last week and attached Barket’s summary judgment to an amended complaint with “the allegations of the Second Amended Complaint as verified, together with the county court’s findings of Miami-Dade County demonstrate that [Thompson’s] actions are intentional, and at the very least, grossly negligent, warranting an award of punitive damages.”

Meyer got a default judgment in January on his original complaint that sought over $8,000 in damages against Thompson, Renee Carter and Thompson Nation Holdings doing business as Moving Giants. The amended complaint says Thompson still has Meyer’s possessions.

Paperwork with Meyer’s complaint show an agreed-upon cost of $669 to take Meyer’s possessions from an Orlando storage unit to an Oveido storage unit 19 miles away. That turned into $1,801 upon arrival in Oveido. Meyer refused to pay.

Other court documents say that when a Broward Sheriff’s Office process server found Thompson at 6742 NW 17th Ave., he claimed to be “Sam Smith.” But the process server checked license plates in the parking lot and found Thompson’s dark Mercedes SUV.