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Ripped off during a move

Electronics Technician 1st Class Jonathan Palmer watched as the Italian company packed and sealed his five crates of personal belongings for his move back to the States from Naples, Italy, in October.

In December, he watched another company unload six crates — containing less than half of his belongings — at his new home, Naval Submarine Base in New London, Conn.

What happened in between is something every service member dreads. Palmer estimates that about $8,000 worth of items, including a desktop computer and a laptop, were stolen, after someone “opened, pilfered and repacked the crates.”

The problem’s extent is unknown. And while service members can file monetary claims for their losses, there doesn’t seem to be much they can do to prevent such thefts.

Moreover, it’s unclear how such incidents are investigated.

“I haven’t seen anything like this for at least 20 years,” said Dean Cummings, owner of AAAA Forwarding Inc., in Clearwater, Fla., which hired subcontractors who handled Palmer’s move.

Cummings said his preliminary investigation indicates Palmer’s goods were stolen at the point of origin in Italy, adding that he believes the company, which his firm hired as a subcontractor, is out of business. “We have not been able to recover the money” paid to the subcontractor, he said.

A phone number for the company in Italy did not appear to work.

Palmer has filed a claim with AAAA Forwarding and says the company has been good about working with him. He has also contacted the local personal property office at New London, which is looking into the case.

Ed Buice, a spokesman for Naval Criminal Investigative Service headquarters in Washington, said there is no criminal case at this time.

The Pentagon’s Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, the executive agency for the household goods moving system, referred questions about the theft to the Naples personal property office, which did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails.

Mitch Chandran, a spokesman for SDDC, said service members whose property has been stolen should report the theft to their local personal property offices and ask for assistance.

But according to Naval Supply Systems Command, since late 2007 — when service members began receiving full replacement value protection for their lost or damaged goods — service members have been dealing directly with the transportation companies, not local installation personal property offices.

Under the old system, service members were required to contact the personal property office at their destination to report lost or damaged goods. Quality assurance inspectors would have been involved, and photos would have been taken to support violations of defense regulations, “which warranted immediate punitive action,” spokeswoman Debbie Dortch said.

In the new Defense Personal Property Program being rolled out worldwide this year, the quality of a company’s service is given great weight in deciding whether it continues to get military business, based on customer satisfaction surveys of service members.