19 Troubleshooter: Moving company threatens to hold senior citizen’s property hostage until she pays extra fees

LAKEWOOD, Ohio (WOIO) - Barbara Godfrey says it was not supposed to be this way: living in an empty condo away from her things for months and trying to get them back is costing her a small fortune.

“This move is gonna cost me $9,347 and I was quoted $6,425,’ she said.

The 75-year-old retired senior citizen moved back to Lakewood permanently from Lincoln, Nebraska and hired ‘All Mighty Relocation, LLC’ a company she had used previously.

But she said the company sold her contract to another company, ‘Carefree Moving & Storage, LLC’ out of Ames, Iowa and that’s when the headaches and the bills started piling up.

Ms. Godfrey tells 19 News on Friday evening she got a call from a worker threatening to hold her property hostage if she didn’t pay up another couple thousand dollars in cash and money orders.

“She said if you don’t pay up your stuff is going to go to Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, who the hell else knows where it’s gonna go? So I probably would never see it,” she said.

Feeling helpless, she reached out to the 19 Troubleshooter for help and she showed all her documents, including emails, receipts, transcripts and quotes dating back months.

A 19 News crew showed up to meet the movers Wednesday morning and cameras were rolling when they told Ms. Godfrey that she would have to sign and pay for costs that were out of their control.

After a lot of back and forth on the telephone with a “boss” named Steve who offered to take her take her things to a storage unit, Ms. Godfrey felt she had to pay up in order to get her property back.

So with 19 News cameras rolling, she sat down with the movers and counted out the cash and money orders to pay the extra fees to get her property released.

If you have a problem that you would like us to address, call our 19 Troubleshooter tipline at 216-250-1618.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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