{"id":87635,"date":"2017-12-20T19:28:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T00:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=87635"},"modified":"2017-12-20T09:04:39","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T14:04:39","slug":"schneiderman-announces-lawsuit-against-syracuse-student-storage-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=87635","title":{"rendered":"Schneiderman announces lawsuit against Syracuse student storage company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Brian Jagodzinski, Owner Of Not My Parents Garage, Transported College Students\u2019 Personal Belongings To A Syracuse Warehouse For Storage But Failed To Deliver Their Belongings To Their College Campuses As Promised\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Attorney General Seeks Court Order Barring Jagodzinski From Continuing Fraudulent Business Practices and Requiring Him To Pay Restitution, Penalties, And Fees\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Attorney General Urges Impacted Consumers To Contact His Office Right Away<\/em><\/p>\n

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a lawsuit against Brian A. Jagodzinski and Not My Parents Garage, LLC, a Syracuse moving and storage company that promised to transport, store, and deliver college students\u2019 household goods during the summer and semesters abroad, but failed to follow through on their contractual agreements. Not My Parents Garage was marketed as a \u201cDoor to Door student storage service\u201d that provided college students and their parents with an affordable alternative to transporting possessions back and forth each year. Jagodzinski also owned and operated Not My Garage, which offered similar services for residential customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents entrust storage companies with their valuables, expecting that their items will be protected and returned\u2014not mishandled,\u201d said Attorney General Schneiderman. \u201cWith help from my office, most of the impacted students have retrieved their possessions\u2013 and we are taking legal action to ensure those responsible are fully held to account. We urge any New Yorker who has not yet tracked down their belongings to contact us right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August 2017, the Attorney General\u2019s Office received over 45 complaints from students and parents who had contracted with Not My Parents Garage to transport and store household items in a warehouse at the Green Hills Plaza in Syracuse, NY. The consumers reported that they were unable to reach anyone from the company regarding delivery of their belongings to their college campuses, which was part of their moving and storage agreements. These students attended school at the State University of New York at Canton, Cortland, Geneseo, Morrisville, Oneonta, Oswego, and Potsdam, as well as Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Syracuse University.<\/p>\n

Having learned through social media that the company had gone out of business, consumers contacted the Attorney General\u2019s Office for assistance. Today, the Attorney General\u2019s Office seeks a Court Order prohibiting Jagodzinski from continuing to engage in deceptive, fraudulent, and illegal business practices, and requiring him to pay restitution totaling $3,431 to aggrieved consumers, as well as costs and civil penalties to the State of New York. Additionally, the Order would ban Jagodzinski from engaging in the moving and storage business in New York until he pays a $15,000 performance bond. The bond will protect consumers and ensure that they can file a claim against Jagodzinski to get their money back if he fails to provide the service.<\/p>\n

The petition filed today in Onondaga County Supreme Court alleges that Jagodzinski engaged in deceptive business practices and false advertising by promoting his business as a New York State Licensed Moving and Storage company. Jagodzinzki promised that his company would handle consumers\u2019 possessions in a professional, responsible, and secure manner, would contact consumers by email on August 10, 2017 to set up delivery dates at the campuses, and would provide automatic insurance against damage and loss \u2013 but failed to meet these promises. Additionally, Jagodzinski allegedly used an alias on his website, identifying \u201cMatthew C. Benjamin\u201d as the business owner, and inflated the size of the company, stating that there were 78 employees.<\/p>\n

The Attorney General\u2019s investigation revealed that Jagodzinski had been sued in January 2017 by the owner of the Green Hills storage facility, who sought to evict him from the premises. In February 2017, Jagodzinski signed a settlement agreement that required him to remove all stored items from the facility by April 30, 2017. Jagodzinski did not remove the stored items from the property. In May 2017, Jagodzinski transported additional students\u2019 possessions to the Green Hills warehouse. Onondaga Town Justice Kerr signed an Order of Enforcement requiring Jagodzinski to remove all stored property from the warehouse by July 15, 2017. Jagodzinski did not remove the property and never notified his customers of this Order requiring that their stored property be removed.<\/p>\n

After Not My Parents Garage shut down, the owner of Green Hills storage facility allowed students to retrieve their items. This arrangement presented a significant hurdle for many students who did not own vehicles and neither lived near nor attended school in Syracuse. The Attorney General\u2019s office reached out to each college campus to help facilitate efforts to retrieve the students\u2019 property and the colleges and universities assisted by sending staff and vehicles to retrieve students\u2019 items. However, some students incurred additional expenses retrieving their personal items. At least two students are missing some or all of the items they stored.<\/p>\n

Consumers who have not already filed a complaint with the Attorney General\u2019s office and believe Brian Jagodzinski may have defrauded them should file a complaint\u00a0online<\/a> or by calling the consumer helpline at 1-800-771-7755<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This case was handled by Assistant Attorney General Judith C. Malkin with the assistance of Investigators Andrea Hughes and Alexandra Pratt and Consumer Frauds Representative Jean Ryan. The Syracuse Regional Office is led by Assistant Attorney General In Charge Ed Thompson. The Division of Regional Offices is led by Executive Deputy Attorney General for Regional Affairs Marty Mack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Jagodzinski, Owner Of Not My Parents Garage, Transported College Students\u2019 Personal Belongings To A Syracuse Warehouse For Storage But Failed To Deliver Their Belongings To Their College Campuses As Promised\u00a0 Attorney General Seeks Court Order Barring Jagodzinski From Continuing Fraudulent Business Practices and Requiring Him To Pay Restitution, Penalties, And Fees\u00a0 Attorney General Urges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23813,32,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-crime","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-mNt","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Attorny_General_Eric_T_Schneiderman.jpg?fit=260%2C221&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}