Moving, scams and what junk to take

In my search to find a trustworthy source to move our goods from somewhere in middle America to Germany, I have discovered an indisputable fact: movers are big fat scammers. From completely illegal operators who hold your stuff ransom, to barely-legal freight intermediaries who will deliver your belongings 2 months late and in a condition so bad you wish you would have just left it in a dump somewhere in the U.S. and saved yourself $2000, these characters run the gamut.

I think I hit the jackpot, though. There is a great website, movingscam.com, written by someone who was a victim of, well, a moving scam. They have recommended movers, web-boards galore and you can search by company to see if they are "blacklisted" or to what degree of shyster a company is operating. Just in the nick of time, too. I was considering a company who actually stole another mover's license number and just slightly changed their name (legal company: shipex; illegal company: shippex). See what I mean?

Prime horror story example: One family contracted with movers who picked up their crap, put it in an undisclosed warehouse in Florida and promptly went out of business, while the moving company owners went to jail on fraud and various other charges. Said family had since moved abroad and had to track down their stuff, retrieve it (months later) and have another company move it (again). Apparently they were lucky to have tracked down their belongings at all, so I guess it could have been much worse.

This leads me to what junk to take. I have narrowed it down to a few select items that we really couldn't give a rip about but that are expensive to replace in Germany. It appears that the household goods chain, Ikea is from Sweden and as luck would have it, they are a landscape feature of much of the EU. This makes matters much more manageable as we can buy low priced crap to furnish our home. This is in lieu of yard sale shopping (my preference), since several German friends have told me that Germans don't yard sale.

WHAT?! No yard sales? I have to wonder what becomes of old puzzles, discarded Tupperware and that really tacky Christmas decoration that Aunt Betty gave you 10 years ago. I am hoping that no yard sales implies an even better scenario: really choice dumpster diving options. We'll see.