- Craig and Linda Wright trusted a company with their belongings as they moved from Kansas to Mississippi.
- Weeks later, they still doesn’t have their possessions and allege they’ve been “scammed.”
- “Everything is gone,” Linda Wright shared. “Photos, videos, family heirlooms.”
TOPEKA, Kan. – Almost everything Craig and Linda Wright owned was packed into the 26-foot U-Haul trailer that left June 21 from their Topeka, Kansas, storage unit, ostensibly en route to their new home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
A man who identified himself as the owner of “JM Moving Company,” left driving the trailer after accepting an upfront payment of $3,500 from the Wrights, who had lived in Topeka for almost all the 50 years they’ve been married, they said.
Jean St. Felix and an employee promised to take the trailer and its contents to the couple’s new home, the Wrights said.
But 27 days later, the couple still doesn’t have their possessions.
‘We’ve been scammed’
After the U-Haul trailer left, Linda Wright said she consistently touched base with St. Felix every third day to get a progress report.
“He’d always have a job that came up that was on his way to ours and so he was always delayed,” she wrote Sunday on Facebook. “Excuse after excuse! One time he texted that I was texting and calling too much.”
Finally, St. Felix promised to bring the trailer and its contents the next day to the Wrights’ home in Ocean Springs, where they have lived since July 6, Linda Wright said.
But he never showed up, she said.
Linda Wright has finally come to accept that “we’ve been scammed,” she told The Topeka Capital-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.
USA TODAY has reached out to St. Felix for comment.
Those belongings hold a lifetime of memories for Linda Wright.
“There’s some very, very, beloved priceless things in there that I’m sure these guys do not want, but we’d really like to have them back,” she said.
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The Wrights say they have reported the theft to the Topeka Police Department and are using social media to try to gather information about the movers and get the word out about what happened.
They sold their Topeka home in March.
Linda Wright said she learned online about Miami-based JM Moving Co., which she said has legitimately moved property for other customers.
“We did all the due diligence that one does when entrusting a stranger with your things,” she wrote Sunday on Facebook.
“We asked him all the pertinent questions,” she wrote. “It just all seemed on the up and up.”
St. Felix, the Wrights and Linda Wright’s sister, Jeanna Puett, loaded between 60 and 80 boxes of items in the trailer, Linda Wright said.
‘My husband says he wouldn’t be that nice’
“Everything is gone,” Linda Wright wrote. “Photos, videos, family heirlooms, my copyright works, our computers, personal documents, anything from drawers, cabinets, closets, things from every room of our house and the garage … are gone.”
The main thing Linda Wright wants is her keepsakes and mementos, she told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Sunday.
“If he would give me that stuff, I would hug him and stay ‘Thank you,'” she said. “My husband says he wouldn’t be that nice.”
Tim Hrenchir can be reached at threnchir@gannett.com.