"I paid someone to be robbed"; Aurora moving company customers vent as owner faces charges
The owner of an Aurora moving company, charged with felony theft in Denver and Weld County, appeared in court this month as some of his alleged victims recounted how they said David Zoda deceived them, collected thousands of dollars in moving charges, then allegedly dumped their belongings in storage lockers in Aurora.
"I've lost all my savings on this," said Chrystal Porter, who said she paid $12,000 to have her belongings moved in March 2022 from Bayfield, Colorado to Spiro, Oklahoma. But her belongings were never delivered and were instead found in two storage lockers in Aurora. "Bad enough to be robbed but to pay someone to be robbed, that's hard."
She said after her possessions were loaded on moving trucks, Zoda demanded $2,000 more than the agreed-upon price. Later, he is accused of demanding another $6,000 to deliver Porter's property. Porter called the demands "ransom" and said the mover held her property "hostage."
Mark Anderson told CBS News Colorado a similar story.
In 2021, he and his wife were relocating from Greeley to Bloomington, Indiana. They contacted a moving broker who sent Zoda to move them and they were told they would need to pay $8,000 upfront, which they did. But when Zoda, whose company, H & M Relocations Services LLC showed up, Anderson said the mover demanded another $8,448.93 after the Andersons' belongings were all loaded up.
"He had us over the barrel," recalled Anderson, who paid the full amount.
But two months later, their property had not shown up in Indiana and they said Zoda had stopped communicating. They filed a police report and the Weld County District Attorney has filed two felony theft charges against Zoda, who is also known as Huseyn Nemat- Zoda.
Like Chrystal Porter, the Andersons' property was also eventually found in a storage locker in Colorado, far from Bloomington, Indiana, where it was supposed to have ended up.
"Clearly, their gambit was to collect the money upfront and dump the stuff into a storage unit," said Anderson. "Their full interaction with us was to collect our things, collect our money, put it on a truck then dump our stuff.No way this was a legit operation. I would say it's a scam, it's certainly fraudulent."
Anderson said through their experience, they now know at least 20 other families that have had the same thing happen to them in the last two years at the hands of Zoda and his company.
Indeed, the Denver District Attorney's case against Zoda cites numerous customers, who said Zoda took their money but never delivered their possessions.
In one case, Denver prosecutors say Zoda held one woman's belongings for three months without revealing where they were "and at one point threatened to donate her belongings to charity. This is not an isolated incident with H&M Relocation Services," wrote the Denver DA's Office.
At a court appearance in Denver this month, Zoda declined to answer questions from CBS News Colorado, but his attorney Kevin Farrell said, "He's accused of a crime, he maintains his innocence. He had a legitimate reason for everything he had done- he's innocent of the crime."
The attorney went on to say customers' property ended up in storage units, "for reasons related to business and also because the clients required that because of their contract. These charges are simply wrong and he is innocent of them."
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration received 23 complaints in 2020 and 2021 against Zoda and his company. Nine of the complaints said Zoda never delivered the owners' property.
A detective with the Longmont Police Department is quoted in legal documents as saying "he had compiled a list of 27 victims who had similar complaints about H&M Relocation Services and David Zoda." The victims were in various locations around Colorado.
The Better Business Bureau has given Zoda's moving company an "F" grade, noting a pattern of complaints.
For Chrystal Porter, her heartbreaking saga also continued this month as she returned from Oklahoma to Colorado to recover her belongings. Porter, who now works at a WalMart store, said she had to take out a loan for $5,000. for a moving truck to retrieve her possessions. Members of her church in Oklahoma drove with her to Colorado to help her load her possessions for the move back to Spiro.
"It's crippled me," said Porter.
Mark Anderson also had to return to Colorado to reclaim his possessions from an Aurora storage facility.
"At that same storage facility there were 20 other units belonging to 20 others who had the exact same experience as us," said Anderson. He told CBS News Colorado he was able to recover virtually all of his belongings.
Zoda is due back in court in Denver in March and is scheduled to appear in court in Weld County on Feb. 27.
Additional Resources:
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration provides numerous ways to prepare for a move, how to spot a bad operator, and how to file a complaint:
File a Moving Fraud Complaint | FMCSA (dot.gov)
Consumer Reports provides tips on how to protect yourself when moving:
How to Protect Yourself from Moving Scams - Consumer Reports
