Global moving giant Allied Van Lines is suing a similarly named Boca Raton-based moving broker for trademark infringement and accusing the smaller company of hurting its brand reputation by providing poor service that generates bad reviews.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, accuses Allied Van Lines Moving and Storage and his “alter ego” — company president Zackary Sudakoff — of deliberately “highjacking” Allied Van Lines’ name to lure customers with attractive quotes, only to “arrange for third party carriers who may hold customers’ possessions hostage while demanding additional fees beyond the originally quoted price.”
According to the lawsuit, the defendant has no “moving assets or trucks.”
The lawsuit claims that the company has ignored multiple “cease and desist” letters over many months. Instead, the lawsuit said, the defendants “doubled down on their deception, creating copycat websites, falsely claiming Allied’s stellar reputation and leaving a trail of deceived and dissatisfied customers who believed they were dealing with the legitimate Allied Van Lines.”
Efforts to reach Sudakoff by email and by the phone number listed on his company’s website were unsuccessful. A call to the phone number was met with a recording that stated that the number “has calling restrictions that are preventing the completion of this call.” The number for a landline listed in a publicly available telephone directory was disconnected.
The case docket does not yet list an attorney for Sudakoff nor a response to the complaint.
Allied Van Lines Inc. is represented by Frost Brown Todd LLP of Louisville, Kentucky.
Allied Van Lines Moving and Storage LLC was created in July 2023, according to the Florida Division of Corporations website. Sudakoff is listed as president. The website also shows Sudakoff listed as registered agent of another moving company, Premium Van Lines LLC formed in July 2024, and as manager of Veteran Van Lines LLC, since its reinstatement on the same day in July 2024.
The global moving giant began emailing its cease and desist letters in September 2023 after discovering a website, alliedxpressmoving.com, that the Boca Raton-based company had created using its trademarks, the suit states. “The letter notes that Allied has received multiple complaints from consumers that have been deceived by Defendants to believe that Defendant AVLMS is associated with or authorized by Allied,” the letter explained.
Complaints by consumers on Yelp alleged poor customer service, damage to goods during the moving process, delayed delivery, failure to provide refunds for insufficient service, having their numbers blocked, and dishonesty by company representatives, the lawsuit cites.
A couple of days after the first letter was sent, Sudakoff created another website, AlliedVanLinesMoving.com, according to the complaint. Five additional cease-and-desist letters were sent to the company and Sudakoff at his business and home addresses between November and the following August, the suit states.
Sudakoff and his company, the lawsuit claims, “have persistently engaged in ‘whack-a-mole’ tactics to evade Allied’s enforcement efforts,” the suit states. “Each time Allied has succeeded in taking down one infringing website or social media account, defendants have promptly created new ones.”
The plaintiff stated in its complaint that it had become aware of numerous complaints from customers who thought they were dealing with the larger, long-established moving company when they were actually dealing with a moving broker.
In February, a consumer contacted Allied Van Lines’ parent company complaining that the Boca Raton-based company had “unexpectedly increased the pricing of the moving service over time” and was making it difficult to obtain his belongings, the lawsuit states.
South Florida-based moving brokers who provide low quotes for jobs and then demand additional payments have been targeted frequently by law enforcement agencies in recent years. Some have been simultaneously pursued in civil court by established companies who say brokers deliberately mislead customers using confusingly similar names.
In 2022, national hauler Mayflower Transit LLC accused a West Palm Beach-based company that called itself Mayflower Relocation Services of being part of a “fraudulent network of so-called ‘chameleon’ movers which broker freight to others, and are known for holding freight hostage for additional fees or other scams.”
As part of a settlement, the defendant agreed to stop using the term Mayflower or those trademarked by affiliated companies, including United Van Lines Inc.
In the case against Allied Van Lines Moving and Storage, the larger Allied Van Lines Inc. accused the defendant of trademark infringement, false descriptions, federal trademark dilution, cybersquatting, injury to its business reputation and dilution, and misappropriation and unfair competition.
Allied Van Lines seeks statutory damages of $100,000 plus any further relief the court deems appropriate, and a permanent injunction to bar the “moving and storage” company from future use of its trademark.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071 or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.
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