Fraudulent South Florida mover fined $110,000, banned from business in Florida
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‘Unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent’ mover Shawn Thompson
From judgments in Miami-Dade and Orange County to investigations by state agencies, Shawn Thompson’s practices as a mover have been under scrutiny the last few years. Several customers, a Miami-Dade judge and now the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services say Thompson’s a fraudulent, bait-and-switch extortionist.
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A Thanksgiving Day update on Broward and Orlando-based Shawn Thompson, whose moving companies have extorted and defrauded customers up, down and beyond the state of Florida:
- A final order by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services fined Thompson $110,000 for 22 state statute violations, including lying about delivery time, “deceptively presenting” an estimate on a move, failing to honor a contract, holding customers’ goods hostage, and other fraudulent acts. Also, the final order said, Thompson “shall cease and desist from operating as an intrastate mover of household goods in the state of Florida” and all future applications for registration will be “refused.”
- An Orange County Civil Court wants Thompson to fill out an information sheet about his personal finances after last December’s $60,150 judgment in a lawsuit filed by Scott Meyer, who was extorted by Thompson’s Moving Giants. Court documents say Thompson avoided being served with the order, partially because people at his home threw rocks at the process server.
- The Third Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the Miami-Dade Circuit Court’s 2003 judgment for $7,619 plus attorneys’ fees and for Nicolette Gonzalez, and an injunction against Thompson, Thompson Nation Holdings and Small Move Movers.
- A Sept. 4 report by Orlando’s WFTV Channel 9 raised the possibility that Thompson, despite none of his companies being licensed to move people within Florida or across state lines, continues to operate by his standard fraud used on Gonzalez and Meyer — adding thousands of dollars to a move’s cost once the movers load the customer’s possessions on the truck, then threatening to keep the customer’s goods at an undisclosed location if they don’t pay the jacked up price.
Thompson demanded the Miami Herald stop contacting him about the customer lawsuits and state investigations concerning his moving business. That’s not a demand he could make of Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services investigators, and Thompson eventually started ducking them.
Mover on the move
As detailed in two previous Miami Herald stories, almost 100 customer complaints caused the state Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services to launch an investigation into Thompson’s companies. That investigation ended June 9 with a hefty administrative complaint: 69 pages detailing 22 statutory violations, several committed on all but a few of 18 moves investigated, by companies Thompson ran through Thompson Nation Holdings.
The moves followed the same pattern. The customer received a low estimate and, usually, paid a deposit. The movers arrived, loaded the truck, then produced an invoice with a total double, triple or quadruple the estimate. The movers then demanded the customer pay the total, sometimes inflated by line charges for equipment or services that were unnecessary, not provided or supposedly included in the total cost.
The department sent copies of the complaint via certified mail to Thompson Nation Holdings registered state address, 2814 Silver Star Rd., No. 219 in Orlando, and to Thompson’s lawyer, Fort Lauderdale’s Gawane Grant. No one at the Silver Star Road address accepted the complaint or scheduled a U.S. Postal Service delivery. Why became clear when a state investigator went to deliver the complaint by hand on July 8.
The leasing office said Thompson had moved out.
When the investigator called Thompson later that day, the Agricultural and Consumer Services’ final order said, “Thompson informed the investigator that he was not going to sign for, or accept any paperwork from the department, and that he was no longer in the moving business as his license had been denied. Thompson also refused to disclose his location.”
That doesn’t change that he’s been fined $110,000 or $5,000 for each of the 22 state statute violations.
Despite Thompson’s claim of being out of the moving business, some of his moving trucks were at 6742 NW 17th Ave. in Fort Lauderdale in July, and a Mercedes seen there previously there Friday.
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Thompson lives in unincorporated Palm Beach County, west of Boca Raton. That’s where Orange County court documents say a process server got a rather primitive greeting.
A rocky reception
Thompson unsuccessfully tried to avoid service in the August 2023 Orange County Civil Case that Scott Meyer filed against him, employee Renee Carter and Thompson Nation Holdings doing business as Moving Giants. Meyer got a $669.50 estimate for an Orlando-to-Oviedo move of 19 miles, then was charged $1,801 when Moving Giants got to Oviedo. Thompson and Carter threatened to hold Meyer’s possessions unless he paid.
After December’s $60,150 default judgment that included Meyer’s attorney’s costs, Orange County Circuit Court Judge Jeramy Beasley wanted Thompson to appear in his court with filled-out paperwork spelling out his personal finances. Thompson had even less interest in that than he did in the original case, as process servers found.
A process server went to 6742 NW 17th Ave. in Fort Lauderdale, home of several Thompson companies, on Sept. 20. “I spoke with an individual who identified themselves as the employee, and they stated subject is unknown. There is a storage facility company at this address. I spoke with a black male 60 years of age, who stated he may have been a previous employee, but he does not know him.”
Another process server went to 22285 SW 57th Ave., the Palm Beach County home that property records say Thompson has owned since October 2022: “There was no answer at the address. There were four cars on the driveway. Server will never return to this address. This is the address previously where somebody had thrown rocks at the server, threatened him. This needs to be a sheriff service.”
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office stopped by the house on Oct. 13: “Family member refused to accept for defendant...(Thompson) advised he is refused to be served as the LLC is to be dissolved, and I should not be serving his home address.”
The next day, Thompson, “via door camera, does not wish to accept service.”
State records say Thompson closed down Thompson Nation Holdings and several of his other companies as an LLC on Sept. 15.
Still active on paper under a fictitious name — but, again, not licensed to move anybody — according to state records, are: Thompson Nation of Movers, All American Relocation and Storage, Moving Giants and Fresh Start Moving and Storage.
This story was originally published November 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Fraudulent South Florida mover fined $110,000, banned from business in Florida."
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