Moving interstate? Know exactly what your estimate can cost you — before you sign or pay a deposit.

The problem, plainly

Everyone offering to help you choose a mover is paid by somebody — and it usually isn't you.

The moving "broker" who quoted you a price over the phone? Brokers book a job, then resell it to whichever carrier bids lowest to actually move you — the company on your estimate may not be the company that shows up, and may not even be a moving company at all. Florida's attorney general won over $4 million in judgments and a lifetime industry ban in March 2025 against a broker operation that quoted low to collect large upfront deposits, then handed the jobs to unvetted carriers. The comparison websites that rank movers for you? They are monetized by mover placements — they rank sellers; they never audit your paperwork.

The federal rulebook that governs your estimate is real, and it is free. FMCSA publishes it — the rules on binding and non-binding estimates, the 110% rule, your valuation rights, the booklet your mover is required to hand you. Almost nobody reads it before signing. And the cost of learning it afterward is not theoretical: the Government Accountability Office's analysis of FMCSA's own complaint data counted 4,528 complaints alleging household goods held hostage between 2017 and 2021 (GAO-23-105972) — moves where the goods were on the truck and the price argument started there.

Meanwhile the decision is not small. An interstate move averages roughly $4,900–$5,000 (Forbes Home and ConsumerAffairs reporting, 2025–2026), and the U.S. Census Bureau counted 7.1 million people who moved to a different state across 2023–2024. What's missing isn't more mover rankings. It's a finished read of your estimate, from someone whose only paymaster is you.

What the read gives you

For one interstate estimate, read end to end (Single Estimate Read, $149):

• What your estimate actually is. Federal law knows two kinds of estimates: binding (§375.403) and non-binding (§375.405). "Binding not-to-exceed" is not a federal category — it's a marketing label. We classify your document by what it actually does, not what the sales page calls it.
• The 110% math. On a non-binding estimate, the mover legally cannot demand more than 110% of the estimate to release your goods at delivery, with the balance billed and at least 30 days to pay. We compute your exact 110% number from your estimate, so you know your delivery-day ceiling before the truck is loaded.
• Your stuff, at 60 cents a pound. That's Released Value — the default liability level on most estimates: a 40-pound television is covered for $24. We do the valuation math on your actual inventory weight, and set it beside Full Value Protection, so the choice is made in dollars, not fine print. (Valuation is a liability level set by tariff. It is not insurance, and we won't call it that.)
• The accessorial trap list. Stairs, long carry, shuttle truck, storage-in-transit, packing, bulky items — what's priced in your estimate, what's left as "to be determined," and what's missing entirely. The surprises on moving day live in this list.
• The deposit read. How much they're asking, whether it's cash-only, and whether it's refundable — flagged against FMCSA's own scam warnings. Plainly: there is no federal limit on moving deposits; what FMCSA does say is that a demand for cash or a large deposit is a red flag. That's the standard we flag against.
• Broker or carrier? We check the name on your estimate against the federal record — the legal name, the USDOT number, and whether that record belongs to a carrier (they move you) or a broker (they sell your job to someone who does).
• The booklet check. Your mover is required to furnish FMCSA's Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move booklet, an arbitration summary, a tariff-availability notice, and a complaint-procedure summary. We check whether yours did. A missing booklet is itself a finding.
• The red-flag list and your questions. Everything that meets our written flag criteria — cubic-feet pricing (which defeats your right to a reweigh), discount math that doesn't reconcile, terms that shift between pages — plus a written question list to put to that mover before you sign.
• The mover's federal record, included. Authority status, insurance on file, and the complaint snapshot from FMCSA's database, dated the day we pulled it — hostage-load complaints flagged.

Comparing estimates? The Side-by-Side Read does all of this for up to three, on one normalized basis, with the tariff-discount math decoded. Already booked? The Move File adds a second stage: we read the booked paperwork against the original estimate, and you get a valuation worksheet and a delivery-day rights card.

What we are / what we are not

We are a reading service, paid only by households. We classify your estimate against the published federal rulebook, recompute the arithmetic, summarize your mover's public federal record, and write down the questions. Our loyalty has one direction because our paycheck does.

We are not a broker — we never book a move, arrange transport, or touch money between you and a mover. We are not a moving company, and we never recommend one: our risk notes describe documents and records, and the choice of mover stays yours. We are not a law firm, and this is not legal advice. We never contact a mover on your behalf, and no mover, broker, or lead-generation site has ever paid us a cent; they can't.

If something goes wrong on your move — goods held, charges demanded beyond the rules — the remedies live with FMCSA's complaint process and your state attorney general. We give you the facts, the rule citations, and the contact information. We don't negotiate, and anyone who promises to "get your stuff back" for a fee should be treated the way FMCSA tells you to treat a cash deposit demand.

How it works

1. Send us the estimate. Buy a tier, or start with the free Record Check below. Email the estimate exactly as the mover issued it — all pages, all attachments — to chiticohq+moveread@zohomail.com, with the mover's legal name and USDOT number.
2. We confirm receipt and start your clock. Your clock starts when we have your payment and the complete paperwork. If pages are missing, we'll tell you exactly what's missing and the clock waits until they arrive — we won't read a partial document and call it whole.
3. Your read arrives by email. Within 2 business days for the Single Estimate Read and the Side-by-Side Read — and within 3 business days for the Move File's first stage: the classification, the exposure math, the traps, the federal record, and your questions — one finished PDF.
4. Put the questions to the mover. Before you sign. The read is built to be used in that conversation: every flag names the rule and the page of your estimate it came from.

Timing, exactly: send the estimate the day you get it. A read only helps before you sign and pay a deposit — afterward, your options narrow to the mover's goodwill and the complaint process. The booking window is usually a few days; our 2-business-day reads are sized to fit inside it, and rush delivery (next business day, +$49 on Tiers 1–2) exists for households whose window is shorter. Already booked? The Move File's second stage reads the paperwork you signed against the estimate you were sold — that read still pays, right up to delivery day.

Pricing

Buying for someone else? Realtors buy reads as closing gifts; adult children buy them for a parent's move; employers buy them for relocating staff. The finished file is delivered to the household. Changed your mind before work starts? Full refund. Already delivered? The work stands — every figure in a read is a recomputation or an extraction you can check against your estimate and the dated federal record; if we got one wrong, show us and we'll correct it in writing. Move turns out to be inside one state? Full refund, and we'll point you to your state regulator — interstate rules are our scope, and we won't sell you a federal read for a state move.

The founding cohort

MoveRead is new, and deliberately small: the founding cohort is capped at 10 paid orders total, with no more than 4 in production at once, so every read gets one dedicated reader and a real second pass. When the cohort fills, the buy buttons come down and a waitlist opens. That's a cap, not a countdown — no pressure tactics; the booking window is pressure enough, and it isn't ours.

Honest answers

Start free: the Mover Record Check

Before you pay anyone anything — including us — find out what the federal record already says about your mover.