You need to call the closest big city "7 On Your Side" type reporter. Tell your story. Show them the emails. Have the media bring so much heat on these people/insurance companies that they'll be begging for bankruptcy.

And yes I'm serious. ESPECIALLY if everyone involved denies coverage.
Someone must be held responsible for this. Their negligence enabled this low life to do what he did. The notion that these people think that they're just going to walk away from this without you being made whole makes my blood boil.

Obviously I am not a lawyer but here I go. Denial because of an intervening criminal act seems lame. Would the insurance have paid if the shipment just disappeared and no criminal act was determined? The guy who stole the item was working as a contractor for the broker. The item was never delivered and eventually was found to be stolen by the broker's contractor.The emails where the broker said that he is responsible directly link him to the driver. OP's contract is with the broker and the broker never completed the contract. Either his insurance should cover the loss, because that is why you buy insurance, or the bond should cover the loss.
OP hired the broker to do a job, he covered his bases as well as he could by obtaining an insurance certificate with him added as a loss payee and made sure the shipment was bonded. He should not suffer any loss.

The broker is responsible 100%, and although he majorly screwed up by not confirming that the driver's insurance was valid, he should not have to go bankrupt when he has insurance and is bonded to cover a loss.

Man. What a thread. I need to check Texags more often.

Unfortunately no update on the criminal front. Haven't heard from the detective since he got the phone info a couple weeks ago.

On the broker/insurance front, we waited about a week for them to finally send us over their insurance coverage so we can see the policy and a possible angle to get them to pay. They just sent it over Friday. My attorney is reviewing. The broker is still pushing the "let's work together" against their own insurance to make them pay route.

Next step will likely be filing on their broker bond. My attorney seems to think I'll need a judgment to do that but that's not my understanding (from Google and chat gpt) but he may just be looking at it from a "sure shot" standpoint, meaning if we take them a judgement the bond has to pay out right away instead of giving us the run around.

SteveBott said:

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I'm not an attorney, not even on the internet, but I agree with your attorney. A judgement would force the issue with both the bondsman AND your broker.

The broker could be put out of business if the bond company pays and he can't get another bond. So they may decide to cover the loss to avoid that situation.

I'm guessing the broker wants to play friends with you to avoid that problem

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Yes, I am just hoping to avoid litigation which will lead to more stress, money spent, etc.

I have already spent way more time and stress on this situation than I should have. The whole thing has sucked, a lot.

In a just world, that dude would be missing a couple hands.

Any progress on this?

Thought I would come back here and provide an update for all those who have been following along.

Long story short, the detective was not able to track the machine down and they are filing the case at this point.
He said that the serial number is still reported as stolen and if it ever gets run it will flag it. On a frustrating note, he did mention that someone else must have used the thief's truck and trailer to deliver it for the sale because he didn't see the thief's cell data, but we know that is not the case because we literally had a photo of the thief's face taking the machine Northbound at the check point, and then his truck and trailer empty headed Southbound again after selling it. Not sure why the detective would've back tracked on that when he was the one that shared the photo with me of him delivering my stolen machine to confirm. Gives me a bad feeling that they might be washing their hands of this deciding its not worth their time or resources to go after him...

As for the legal side, I hired a lawyer about two months ago who has been going back and forth with the broker's attorney (who of course has slow rolled us the whole time and has been stalling). They maintain that it's not their fault and even that they are co-victims with me because they lost $1,400 but even if we do sue and win, they will just file bankruptsy because they can't pay. I have really been trying to do everything in my power to not have to sue them and go to court. I really just want to be made whole and move on with my life. We even reached out to their insurance per the brokers request to have us go after the insurance "together" first and not them, only to realize the broker already had filed and been denied so that was a huge waste of time. I finally picked up the phone to file on their broker bond (that showed active on the SAFER WEB DOT website) a couple weeks ago and the number led me to a phone dating line... I went back to the safer website to see if I had the right info only to see that the broker changed to a BMC 84 and now has a legit bond as of 3/18/26. I can't file on that legit bond because the incident happened in December 2025.

What this tells me is that the broker had a shady or even fraudulent bond, or it went out of business and they did not bother to get a new/legit one until we started threatening to their lawyer that we were going to file on their bond. My guess is at that point back in February/early March their lawyer reviewed their bond and realized it was fraud or total crap and had them quietly change to a legit one. Needless to say that is infuriating and their bond likely wasn't even valid at the time of this ordeal even though it showed to be on SAFER Web (DOT website).

So it's looking like my only options are walk away and eat the loss, or sue them. Likely going to try and sue them in Texas first just to ramp up the pressure, if they argue the venue per the contract (although I would argue that this now falls out of the scope of a delivery contract as we are dealing with fraud/negligence) then I will have to decide whether to sue them in Nevada where they are based out of, or not. My attorney seems to really think we have even more leverage now to draw the owners in on personal liability with all the potential fraud and deception, especially in light of discovering their bond was fake/out of business at the time of the incident - that is a violation on a federal level.

Unbelievably frustrating. I don't even know what the takeaway from this situation is. Avoid outsourcing shipping if at all possible? Sue everybody immediately/don't allow yourself to get slow played? The dirtbags always win? Infuriating.

Sure hate this for you.
Thief's are thief's and the broker is paddling in the same boat with this guy.
It is a shame people cannot do the right thing.
And the driver needs to be hung because this ain't his first rodeo.
Hang in there sir

Yup, your last update is all I need to see to land squarely in the "sue them" camp. The bond thing is pure fraud. Bankruptcy is one thing but I'd nail them as hard as I could for criminal charges as well. Hell, At this point it wouldn't surprise me if they were in on this scheme.

The whole thing is just sickening. Time to start chopping hands again.

This is exactly the kind of case that needs the help and involvement from more than just local law enforcement.
These career thieves need to be put in prison forever. Texas Rangers, TSCRA Texas Special Rangers and The DAs office need to be called out by name and asked to Please Do Your Job.

I sent this thread to the local Valley area TSCRA special ranger Joe Aguilar, Jr. when it first started. He replied " Already On It". I'll send him a bump.