Moving Company Arbitration: When the Offer Is Too Low

A settlement letter from a moving company does not argue with you. It states a figure, attaches a schedule showing how depreciation arrived at it, and closes with a sentence about the enclosed draft being in full and final satisfaction of the claim. There is nothing in it to answer, which is the design. Deciding whether to take a low offer, or to put it in front of an arbitrator instead, means reading two documents that did not come with the letter.

What the letter almost never mentions is that a second procedure exists, that your mover was required to build it before a single box went on the truck, and that eleven features of it are fixed by federal regulation rather than by the mover. This page is about that procedure: when it is available, what it can and cannot decide, what it costs, and the one deadline in the statute that has nothing to do with filing a claim and quietly decides whether a court can make the mover pay your lawyer.

Scope first, because it decides whether any of this reaches you. Everything below governs interstate moves of household goods, meaning the shipment crossed a state line. A move that starts and ends inside one state answers to that state's regulator, and its remedies are its own. Section text quoted here is what the eCFR carried on 20 September 2026, pulled through the versioner API against the published title 49 issue dated 17 September 2026. Statutory text is the 2024 edition of the United States Code on govinfo, read the same day.

Where you actually stand when the letter arrives

A compromise offer and a denial look alike in the mailbox and are not the same event.

49 U.S.C. 14706(e)(1) starts the two-year period for a civil action "from the date the carrier gives a person written notice that the carrier has disallowed any part of the claim specified in the notice." Paragraph (e)(2)(A) then says an offer of compromise "shall not constitute a disallowance of any part of the claim unless the carrier, in writing, informs the claimant that such part of the claim is disallowed and provides reasons for such disallowance." So a letter offering $312 against a $2,840 claim, with nothing in it that disallows anything and gives reasons, has probably not started your two-year clock. It has also not ended the claim. The mover's own obligations under Part 370 continue running. The mechanics of those deadlines, and what a communication has to contain before a carrier treats it as a claim at all, sit in the two clocks that govern a damage claim.

The practical consequence is that you are not being forced to decide today. You are being invited to. Before you answer, it is worth knowing which of three routes you are choosing among, because they open and close at different times and one of them your mover had to build for you.

The arbitration program is your mover's, and eleven of its rules are not

49 CFR 375.211 is titled Must I have an arbitration program? and answers itself in the first line: "You must have an arbitration program for individual shippers to resolve disputes about property loss and damage and disputes about whether carrier charges in addition to those collected at delivery must be paid."

Read that sentence twice, because it is wider than most people assume. It covers loss and damage, which is why you are here. It also covers a fight about charges the mover billed after delivery on top of what it collected at the door. If your dispute is about a bill that grew rather than a dresser that broke, the same program is open to you, and which lines on a grown bill are actually due is the argument you would be taking into it.

The section then sets "the following 11 minimum elements." Treat them as an audit checklist, not a description. The program summary you were handed is the mover's document; these are the things it is not allowed to leave out.

• (a)(1) The program must be designed to prevent the mover "from having any special advantage in any case where the claimant resides or does business at a place distant from" the mover's place of business. If you moved from Ohio to Oregon and every step of the program runs out of a city near the mover's headquarters, this is the paragraph that speaks to it.
• (a)(2) Before the bill of lading is executed, the mover must give you notice that neutral arbitration is available, and that notice must contain three things: a summary of the procedure, any applicable costs, and "a disclosure of the legal effects of election to use arbitration."
• (a)(3) On request, the mover must give you "information and forms you consider necessary for initiating an action to resolve a dispute under arbitration." You do not have to find the forms yourself. Asking in writing for them is a small act that also dates the request.
• (a)(4) Each arbitrator must be independent of the parties, capable of resolving such disputes, and able to obtain relevant material from either side.
• (a)(5) You cannot be charged "more than one-half of the total cost for instituting the arbitration proceeding," and the arbitrator may reallocate that cost in the decision.
• (a)(6) The mover "must refrain from requiring the individual shipper to agree to use arbitration before a dispute arises."
• (a)(7) and (a)(8) The $10,000 line, which has its own section below.
• (a)(9) An oral presentation is possible only if all parties agree.
• (a)(10) A decision within 60 days of receipt of written notification of the dispute, and that decision "may include any remedies appropriate under the circumstances."
• (a)(11) The 60 days may be extended if a party is slow to supply information the arbitrator reasonably requires.

Paragraph (b) adds that the mover must "produce and distribute a concise, easy-to-read, accurate summary" of the program including those items. And 49 CFR 375.213(b) puts that summary in a list of four documents you must receive before the bill of lading is executed, alongside the estimate, the notice that tariff sections are available, and the summary of complaint-handling procedures.

Go and look for that summary now. Not because a missing document wins anything on its own, but because whether you were told about the program is a fact the statute later attaches money to.

Ten thousand dollars is a line, and it runs one way

This is the part that surprises people who assume arbitration is something a company chooses to grant.

Under 375.211(a)(7), arbitration "must be binding for claims of $10,000 or less, if the individual shipper requests arbitration." 49 U.S.C. 14708(b)(6) says the same in statutory language. At or under that figure, the request is yours to make and the mover does not get a vote.

Above it, 375.211(a)(8) flips the switch: arbitration is binding for claims of more than $10,000 "if the individual shipper requests arbitration and the carrier agrees to it." The booklet codified as Appendix A to Part 375 puts the consumer-facing version plainly: "the mover is not required to agree to arbitration if the claim exceeds $10,000."

Two things follow that are worth thinking about before you write a number on a form.

The first is that the ceiling of what an arbitrator can award you is not set by the arbitrator. It was set on load day by the valuation you accepted or waived. An arbitrator working a released-value file is working at 60 cents a pound per article, and no amount of evidence about what the article cost changes the arithmetic. If you have not yet worked out which side of released value versus full value protection your bill of lading put you on, do that before you decide whether the dispute is worth a proceeding.

The second is that "binding" is a word with teeth in both directions. A binding arbitration you requested ends the matter at a figure that may be closer to the mover's letter than to your claim. The $10,000 threshold is often described as protective, and it is, but what it protects is your access to a decision, not the size of it.

Sixty days, half the filing cost, and the clause that stretches both

The timetable in 375.211(a)(10) is short by the standards of anything else in this field. Sixty days from receipt of written notification of the dispute, against a mover that under 49 CFR 370.9(a) has 120 days to "pay, decline, or make a firm compromise settlement offer in writing" — and which, if it cannot manage that, owes you nothing more than a written status report at the 120-day mark and every 60 days afterwards — is a different tempo altogether.

Paragraph (a)(11) is the fine print on it. The arbitrator "may extend the 60-day period for a reasonable period" if you or the mover "fail to provide, in a timely manner, any information the arbitrator reasonably requires." Assemble the file once and send it once, and that clause never gets triggered on your side.

On cost, (a)(5) sets a ceiling on your share of instituting the proceeding at one half, and lets the arbitrator decide in the award who ultimately bears it. What the regulation does not do is name a figure. The figure is in the program summary, which is exactly why 375.211(a)(2)(ii) makes "any applicable costs" part of the required notice. If the summary you were given has a procedure and a legal-effects paragraph but no costs, that is a specific, quotable gap.

Subsection (f), which almost nobody quotes

Here is where I would slow down before treating anything above as settled for your particular move.

49 U.S.C. 14708 carries a limitation at subsection (f), one paragraph before the section closes: "The provisions of this section shall apply only in the case of collect-on-delivery transportation of household goods." It limits the statute. The regulation at 375.211 does not repeat that sentence; its own text opens on "individual shippers" with no collect-on-delivery qualifier attached.

How a court reconciles the two is beyond what a reader of public documents can tell you, and the honest answer is that they differ on their face. One thing in the regulation is worth noticing before anyone treats the omission as deliberate breadth: the disputes 375.211 sends to arbitration are about loss and damage and about "whether carrier charges in addition to those collected at delivery must be paid" — wording that presumes something was collected at delivery. That is an observation about the text rather than a holding, and it points the same direction as subsection (f) rather than against it.

What is worth doing, then, is establishing which kind of move you had, and the bill of lading answers it without anyone's interpretation. Two of the seventeen items 49 CFR 375.505(b) requires exist only for collect-on-delivery work: item (5), the person to notify about the charges "when you transport on a collect-on-delivery basis," and item (11), "the maximum amount you will demand at the time of delivery to obtain possession of the shipment, when you transport under a collect-on-delivery basis." If both fields are filled in on your copy, your own paperwork is treating the move as collect-on-delivery. If they are blank because the bill went to an employer under a corporate relocation agreement, that is the case in which everything on this page is worth confirming against the relocation contract before you rely on it.

The 120-day deadline that is not a claim deadline

Now the part that is hardest to find and easiest to lose.

49 U.S.C. 14708(d) awards a shipper "reasonable attorney's fees" in a court action against a household goods carrier if three things are true. The shipper prevails. One of three situations in (d)(3) applies, the first being that "the shipper was not advised by the carrier during the claim settlement process that a dispute settlement program was available to resolve the dispute." And, first in the list:

(1) the shipper submits a claim to the carrier within 120 days after the date the shipment is delivered or the date the delivery is scheduled, whichever is later;

One hundred and twenty days. Not nine months. The nine-month figure that everyone works to is a floor on what your bill of lading may impose, from 14706(e)(1), and a claim filed in month eight is perfectly timely. It just is not eligible for fee-shifting under 14708(d). Two claims can be filed on the same facts, both inside every deadline printed on the paperwork, and only the earlier one carries the possibility of the mover paying your lawyer.

I searched the whole of 49 CFR Part 375, appendix included, for the word attorney on 20 September 2026. Zero hits. The phrase dispute settlement program is likewise absent. The booklet your mover is required to hand you tells you that arbitration exists, tells you that you may sue instead, and tells you how to find the mover's process agent, but the fee-shifting condition attached to a 120-day submission is in the statute and nowhere in the consumer document. That is not a conspiracy. It is a regulation and a statute written at different times and never reconciled in the plain-language layer. The effect on a household is the same either way.

If you are reading this inside four months of delivery and have not yet filed a written claim, that is the single time-sensitive thing on this page.

What the STB actually regulates, and the lever it gives you

The Surface Transportation Board turns up constantly in moving disputes and is almost always described wrongly. It is not an appeals body for your claim. Its own household goods page is unusually blunt about the boundary, read 20 September 2026: "the STB's oversight is limited to reviewing household goods carriers' tariffs ... and developing rules on how a moving company can limit its liability."

That is two things, and the second one you already know as the 60-cents-a-pound released rate. The first is where the usable lever sits.

49 CFR Part 1310 is the STB's tariff rule, and for someone holding a settlement letter the paragraph that matters is not the one about getting copies. Section 1310.4 permits a mover to fold its tariff into your bill of lading by reference instead of printing it, and paragraph (a)(2) picks out three categories of term that need more than a passing mention. The second one is about you:

(ii) Claim restrictions, including time periods within which shippers or consignees must file a claim or bring an action against the carrier for its acts or omissions or those of its agents.

Where an incorporated term falls in that category, the notice on the bill of lading "must indicate that such terms are included," the shipper "must be provided with a brief summary of the principal features of such terms on or with the document," and the shipper "must be able to obtain a more complete explanation of such terms upon request." A restriction on your claim is not supposed to arrive by cross-reference alone.

Two sentences carry the consequence. Section 1310.2(c) says a carrier "may not enforce the provisions of the tariff unless the carrier has given notice that the tariff is available for inspection in its bill of lading or by other actual notice to individuals whose shipments are subject to the tariff." And 1310.4(b):

A carrier may not claim the benefit as against a shipper or consignee of, and a shipper or consignee shall not be bound by, any tariff term that is incorporated by reference under this section unless the carrier has complied with the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section.

How a court would apply that to your paperwork is past what a page like this can say. What the text does support is narrower and still useful: if the figure in the letter rests on a tariff term, the disclosure history of that term is a question to put in writing rather than concede. Note the scope limit too, at 1310.1(b). Where the move was arranged and paid for by someone other than the householder, Part 1310 reaches it only if it was not provided under a contract entered into pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 14101(b) — the same employer-paid case that complicates subsection (f) above. The mechanics of requesting tariff pages, what a mover may and may not charge for them, and the 20-day outer limit are set out in the line-by-line reading of a moving quote.

The STB's own tariff guidance recommends that a tariff include, at item 6, "Instructions for the filing of loss, damage, and overcharge claims, including a description of the moving company's arbitration program." So the tariff request and the arbitration request are one letter, not two. Rate and tariff questions go to the Board's Office of Public Assistance, Governmental Affairs and Compliance, listed at 202-245-0238 on the STB's assistance page, read 20 September 2026.

The complaint database is not a claims office

There is a place to report what the mover did, and it is not the place that pays you. The National Consumer Complaint Database takes complaints against "Moving Companies and Brokers" and gives a consumer example in exactly those words: "A moving company or broker failed to provide services." Its contact number is 1-888-368-7238. Read 20 September 2026; note that the 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern window the home page prints is attached to its instruction for non-English speakers filing by phone, not advertised as general support hours, so treat the web form as the reliable route.

File it. A complaint is how one household's bad month becomes a pattern an agency can act on. But be clear about what filing does for the number in your letter, because Appendix A is: "The FMCSA cannot settle your dispute with your mover. You must resolve your own loss and damage and/or moving charge disputes with your mover." Enforcement and compensation are separate tracks, and only one of them ends in a payment to you.

Choosing between the arbitrator and the courthouse

Laid out by what each route costs you in time and optionality:

Appendix A sets out the court route in its own words: "Legal action may be initiated by filing a claim in your State and serving papers on the mover's process agent in your State. You may file in State court or (if the amount of the claim is more than $10,000) in Federal court." It then gives the lookup for the process agent, which is worth doing early because service on the wrong entity wastes weeks: go to li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov, choose carrier search, enter the USDOT or MC number, open the HTML view, and follow the blanket company link at the foot of the page to the list of process agents by state. FMCSA also gives that information by phone at 800-832-5660.

Note the asymmetry in 14708(e) while you are weighing this. A carrier can be awarded its fees against you "only if the shipper brought such action in bad faith" after arbitration, or after starting arbitration but before the decision period ends. The bar for the mover is bad faith. The bar for you is the 120-day submission and one of the three situations in (d)(3). Neither side is exposed casually, but the conditions are not mirror images and it is worth reading both before deciding that court is the aggressive option.

What decides most of these files is not which forum you pick. It is whether, on the day the offer landed, you could put your hand on the program summary, the tariff terms the offer relies on, and a claim that was submitted early enough to keep every option attached to it. Two of those three are documents the mover was obliged to give you, and both can still be demanded in writing today.

Regulatory text above was pulled from the eCFR versioner API on 20 September 2026 against the title 49 issue dated 17 September 2026; Part 1310 and Part 375 were read in full rather than summarised, and the counts of the words attorney and dispute settlement program in Part 375 are searches of that text. Statutes are the 2024 edition of the United States Code on govinfo. The links point at current text, so where a linked page and this one disagree, the linked page wins. Nothing here is legal advice: no licence to move, broker, advise or adjust stands behind it, no carrier pays me, and nobody here has seen your paperwork.