RV shipping scams almost never look like scams. Nobody calls asking for gift cards. The person on the phone is friendly, quotes a great price, and sounds like they've done this a thousand times, which is the entire point. The damage happens weeks later, when the truck doesn't come or the price doubles or nobody answers, and by then your money is gone and your RV is sitting where you left it. Everything below is a pattern we've watched play out on customers who came to us second, after somebody else had already taken their deposit.
The Bait Price, Played Out in Four Moves
This is the one that gets almost everybody, because it isn't a lie at any single moment. It's a price that was never real, released in stages so that each stage feels survivable.
The quote nobody else can match
You get a price several hundred below every other company. It arrives fast, without a single question about height or weight, because those questions would slow down the close.
The deposit, right now
The card gets taken before any carrier is assigned. Nothing has been booked. What was purchased is your commitment, and that was always the product.
The silence
Your shipment sits on a load board at a rate no real carrier will take. Days pass. Calls get shorter. Pickup week arrives and the truck is still theoretical.
The re-price
Now it's $900 more, and you have a buyer waiting or a closing date or a campground reservation. You pay it, because the alternative is starting over with your deposit already spent.
The defense costs nothing. Know what an honest price for your route actually looks like before anyone quotes you, and a lowball stops being tempting and starts being information. Our 2026 RV transport cost breakdown has the real per-mile bands from shipments we dispatched.
What They Say and What It Means
The vocabulary is remarkably consistent, because it works. Learn these and most of a first call decodes itself in real time.
| What they say | What it means |
|---|---|
| "We're fully insured." | A sentence with no policy, no limit, and no carrier attached to it. Ask whose insurance and for how much. |
| "I just need a deposit to lock in the rate." | There is no rate to lock. No carrier has accepted this load. The deposit locks you, not the price. |
| "We have trucks in your area all the time." | Usually said by a company that owns no trucks anywhere. Ask which carrier, by name. |
| "That price is only good today." | Real routes don't expire at midnight. Urgency is the close, and the close is the whole business model. |
| "We'll get you the carrier info closer to pickup." | They don't have one. You are allowed to know who is coming before the day they come. |
| "We've been doing this for 20 years." | Check the MC number's actual issue date on FMCSA SAFER. It takes forty seconds. |
The Other Three Plays You'll Meet
The lead harvester
You fill out one quote form and your phone detonates. Nine companies, forty calls, three weeks of voicemail. That site never intended to ship anything. Your information was the inventory, sold to whoever paid for it, and now you're in a bidding war between strangers who all learned about your RV from the same spreadsheet.
The phantom carrier
A real MC number appears on your paperwork. The truck that arrives has a different name on the door, or no name at all. Somebody sold your shipment down a chain, and the driver standing in your driveway has no relationship with the company that took your money. If the carrier on the paperwork and the truck at the curb don't match, that's the moment to stop, not after loading.
The clone
A legitimate company's name, DOT number, and reviews get lifted onto a site with a slightly different domain. Everything checks out because you're checking the real company's credentials against a fake company's website. Type the phone number from the FMCSA record into your phone yourself. Never call the number on the site you were sent to.
How to Verify a Company in Four Minutes
Four minutes of public records beats four hours of reviews. All of this is free and none of it requires talking to anyone.
- Look up the MC or DOT number on FMCSA SAFER. Confirm the authority is active and read the issue date.
- Confirm the company name on SAFER matches the name on the quote, character for character.
- Search the FMCSA National Consumer Complaint Database for that company's complaint history.
- Call the phone number listed on the federal record, not the one on the website you landed on.
- Ask for the assigned carrier's name and insurance limit, and listen to how fast the answer comes.
- Check that the physical address is a place and not a mailbox store.
What Real Vetting Looks Like
The opposite of a scam isn't a promise. It's a process somebody can describe to you in specifics. Below is what dispatch clears before any carrier touches an RV we move, and you should be asking all eight of whoever you're actually considering.
- Did they verify the carrier's insurance certificate is active and adequate for the load?
- Did they review the carrier's DOT authority and history?
- Did they review FMCSA safety records and out-of-service rates?
- Did they verify the equipment can actually haul this specific RV?
- Did they obtain truck and trailer photos before dispatch?
- Is the company name visible on the truck that shows up?
- Did they confirm the driver communicates clearly, in English, before pickup?
- Does communication continue after dispatch, through delivery?
Our guide to judging RV transport companies covers what the good answers sound like in full, and the way we structure our own RV shipping service exists because of everything on this page.
What to Do If You Already Paid
Move fast and move in writing. Call your card issuer and start a dispute while the transaction is fresh, because services never rendered is exactly what chargebacks exist for. File a complaint with the FMCSA National Consumer Complaint Database, which is the record that actually follows a company. Put your cancellation in email so there's a timestamp, and screenshot everything before anyone has a chance to take a page down. Then start over properly, and if it's your first RV move, our step-by-step guide to shipping an RV walks the whole sequence in order.
Questions About RV Shipping Scams
Is a low RV shipping quote always a scam?
Not always. Sometimes a carrier is heading your direction empty and prices accordingly, which is legitimate and great for you. The difference is whether the company can explain why it's low. A cheap price with a reason behind it is a deal. A cheap price with no reason behind it is a deposit request wearing a costume.
Should I ever pay a deposit?
A deposit after a carrier is assigned and named is normal industry practice. A deposit before anything has been booked is buying a promise. The sequence matters more than the amount.
How do I check if an RV transport company is real?
Look up the MC or DOT number on FMCSA SAFER, confirm the authority is active, and check that the name matches the quote exactly. Then search the same company in the FMCSA National Consumer Complaint Database. Both are free and take about four minutes together.
What if the truck that shows up isn't the carrier I was told?
Stop before anything gets loaded. Call the company and get the name on the door reconciled with the name on your paperwork. Once your RV is on a stranger's truck, your leverage is gone and so is the paper trail.
Are all RV transport brokers scams?
No, and the good ones are the reason most RVs get where they're going. A licensed broker carries a $75,000 federal surety bond and answers to the FMCSA. The label tells you nothing. The vetting behind it tells you everything.
Zach Asher owns and operates Amerigo Auto Transport, a veteran-founded, family-run brokerage in Fort Lauderdale. Working all over the country in this marketplace, he has cleaned up more of these situations than he'd like to count, usually for people who called him second.