Man facing fraud charges following several Calgary moving cases
Posted Jan 24, 2014 2:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An Ontario man is facing several charges, including theft over five thousand, after the Calgary Police Service was tipped off to fraudulent activates of a local moving company.
Police constable Darrin Chaplin said an employee tipped them off and they have now charged 46-year-old Steven Blondin, also known as Steven Anderson, under the criminal code.
“He would solicit customers through his website and then make arrangements with them to move belongings like you would typically expect, but then what he would do is subcontract employees and other business to actually do the moves which made it very difficult for customers to track belongings,” said Chaplin.
Blondin was operating companies under the names SIA Transport, Steven’s Inc. and Anderson International.
Chaplin said these kinds of cases are not rare and usually are civil matters, but because of contracts and good organization from the employee, police were able to lay charges.
He warns deregulations for moving companies in the last several years has made it extremely important for customers to read the fine print.
“Take the time to shop around, Check online with the Canadian Movers Association, the Better Business Bureau, and a big one is to pay close attention to the finer details of the contract,” said Chaplin.
He also suggests checking to see if moving companies have their own fleet of trucks and a physical address.
