A New York woman lost all her belongings to a moving company scam. She got a $10,000 settlement, but is living with her parents and scraping together 5 part-time jobs to make ends meet.

• Moving company scams, in which companies charge extra fees or steal customers' things, are on the rise. 
• Stephanie Wagner stored nearly all her belongings in December 2020. She hasn't seen them since.
• The 45-year-old lactation consultant won about $10,000 by suing the moving company. 

Stephanie Wagner knew she had to leave New York in December 2020, when her apartment building management announced they would raise her rent by $250 per month. Her fledgling small business as a lactation consultant was suffering under the pandemic lockdown. 

Wagner, a 45-year-old longtime registered nurse, decided to go live with her retired parents in Hawaii until New York opened back up. But she only had about three weeks to organize her move.

There weren't a lot of options available when it came to moving companies, but she eventually found Gold Standard Relocation. The company gave her a good price and had very friendly customer service representatives, she said.

Everything seemed normal on Wagner's moving day — until the movers didn't show up and the company wouldn't answer the phone. She'd already paid the moving company about $4,300 to transport and store more than 70 boxes of her things and many furniture pieces for six months. 

Finally, three movers showed up to her Harlem apartment around dinnertime. They said they'd been delayed by snow in the region and another move in New Jersey. They stayed until the wee hours of the morning packing nearly all her possessions into their truck. 

But on their way out, the movers handed Wagner a bill with about $500 in weather-related fees on top of other unexpected charges.

"They had everything on the 18-wheeler truck and then they handed me the final contract — and there's all these extra charges. I mean, there's a weather charge, they claimed I had more stuff than the video walkthrough," she said. "They were like, 'Well, your stuff's on the truck. We just won't move it if you won't pay this.'" 

When Wagner called the company the next day to see if she could get reimbursed for what she believed were unwarranted fees, the company insisted the charges were legitimate. So she gave up and left for Hawaii on December 21, 2020, believing her things were being securely stored in an air-conditioned long-term storage unit in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  

"I was like, well, you know, they have my money now," she said, "at least my stuff is safe." 

What Wagner didn't know was that she'd been caught in a moving scam. 

Fraudulent moving companies will often offer customers a low estimate and deposit price, and then demand additional exorbitant fees after taking their belongings hostage. And the companies that customers initially contact are often just brokers, who then contract out a carrier to do the actual moving.

Complaints about moving companies more than doubled between 2015 and 2022, according to Newsweek, and many scammers took advantage of people who had few other options during the pandemic lockdown.

'We just don't know where your stuff is'

Wagner didn't think much about her things for the next several months. 

But when she decided she wasn't ready to move back to New York, she called Gold Standard to extend her storage contract for a few more months. At first, the company simply wouldn't return her multiple messages. Wagner eventually asked her dad to leave a message, in case the company would be more responsive to a man. Sure enough, they called back shortly after, she said. The news wasn't good. 

"We got this very bizarre story that it wasn't Gold Standard that moved me, that they were a brokerage firm," she said. "They were like, 'Oh, we realize now we brokered out to a horrible company, he kept no records. He was a horrible business manager and we just don't know where your stuff is." 

When Wagner got in touch with representatives for the contracted carrier, New Era Relocation, they told her the company's owner had died. 

Wagner began to panic. She had stored everything she owned, except for a few suitcases she brought with her to Hawaii.  

So she and her parents decided they needed a lawyer. They eventually found Susan Chana Lask, a New York-based consumer rights attorney who had already filed a suit against Florida-based Gold Standard Relocation LLC and New Era on behalf of three other people who'd allegedly been scammed. 

Lask told Insider she was shocked to discover the lack of enforcement of federal regulations when it comes to the moving and storage industry. It's cheap and easy to become a licensed broker. 

"You just go online, make up a fake name, and that's it and you're up and running. No one's regulating," Lask said. "It's just a name with an LLC for 100 bucks." 

Wagner borrowed $50,000 from her parents to pay Lask's retainer fee and joined her class-action lawsuit against Gold Standard and New Era, which sought $5 million in damages. 

Both Gold Standard and New Era are now defunct.

Maggie Drayton, the former owner of Gold Standard, didn't respond to Insider's request for comment. Drayton denied any wrongdoing during litigation. 

John Campanella, who says he was the general manager of Gold Standard for more than two years, denies having any involvement with Wagner's move, despite managing the company at the time. 

"I heard about all of that stuff after I left," Campanella told Insider, adding, "I don't associate" with New Era "because they do bad business and they put Maggie [Drayton] in an unfortunate situation." 

Almost a year later, the case was settled for about $40,000. Wagner was awarded only about $10,000. The legal process ultimately dug her into an even deeper financial hole and she hasn't been able to pay her parents back.

"I never ever thought I wouldn't get at least $50,000 to pay them back," she said. "It makes me sick because they've worked their whole lives." 

More than two years after leaving New York, Wagner is still living with her parents in Hawaii and is reliant on them as she cobbles together an income through part-time virtual lactation sessions and speaking gigs, dog sitting, babysitting, house sitting, and driving for Uber Eats. 

No one has been able to locate her belongings. 

"It's my entire life," she said. "I have no memories, not a picture, not a yearbook."

Wagner said she and her parents have written to Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg and multiple members of Congress, but she hasn't found any real closure. Buttigieg announced earlier this month that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would do more to investigate moving companies with the worst customer ratings, but didn't specify how the agency would do so.

Wagner said she'll continue to fight for the government to crack down on moving company scammers and hopes Congress will hold hearings on the issue.

"I already feel like they've taken everything from me, so I have nothing else to lose, but I don't want anybody else to feel this way," she said. "It's been dark, and it's put me into a deep depression that I've been fighting to get out of, and you suddenly just see the world differently." 

She added, "After you've dealt with this for a couple years, you start to think you're the crazy one. And I think that's part of their tactic, too."