A new state audit says Georgia’s Public Service Commission does a poor job licensing in-state moving companies and doesn’t enforce safeguards designed to protect customers from getting ripped off.

As a result, fly-by-night movers can lure customers with low prices and later demand more money once they have the customer’s furniture on their trucks, according to the Georgia Movers’ Association and the Better Business Bureau. Unlicensed companies also have damaged property, then couldn’t be found later by frustrated customers, according to complaints filed with the state.

Auditors, legitimate movers, the Better Business Bureau and burned customers say the situation is a mess.

“The activities of the Public Service Commission do not adequately protect consumers,” according to the report, adding the commission does little to ensure movers are “financially viable, technically competent” and “providing safe and reliable service.”

The PSC, headed by five commissioners elected to six-year terms, is the state’s consumer watchdog agency for various industries, including utilities and transportation. Regulating in-state movers is a small part of its duties. The federal government licenses movers who cross state lines.

During a routine audit, the state Audits and Accounts Department found:

• 47 percent of the in-state moving companies advertising in metro Atlanta did not have the required state license;

• The commission has only one full-time position devoted to licensing and monitoring an industry that the Georgia Movers’ Association said handled 77,000 moves last year;

• The commission does not do enough to punish unlicensed companies or to investigate complaints. It has imposed some fines, but not enough, auditors say.

• Enforcement is so weak that getting a license — in which companies complete state safety training, pay a fee and provide proof of insurance and bonding — is “essentially voluntary.”

• Applications that are submitted, including proof of insurance, are not verified.

“They don’t really have the resources at this point to track down the unlicensed movers,” said Leslie McGuire, who oversaw the audit. She described the moving business as “one of the more problematic industries.”

Eloise Drane, 33, of Grayson said she and her husband hired movers last fall. She said the company was listed in the telephone directory and she just assumed they were licensed. The company offered a quote over the telephone and assured her there would be no extra fees. But when the movers showed up, they tacked on extra fees. They also damaged a railing in the house. The movers were so slow and so bad that her frustrated husband finally told them to leave, Drane said. They had to pay the movers and later had to pay for the damaged railing.

“We thought hiring movers would save us headaches,” she said. “It ended up costing us more money.”

The company could not be found in current telephone directories or on the commission’s Web site listing licensed movers.

“When I tried to get anybody to speak to me about the situation, no one called me back, nothing,” Drane said.

She filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Atlanta, which sent the complaint to the state. The commission has listed the company on its illegal movers list.

“We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have,” PSC Commissioner Robert Baker Jr. said. “If we had more full-time, budgeted positions or more money, sure we could do a much better job. … But we don’t have those resources.”

Baker said part of the reason there are so many unlicensed movers is that until 2007, Georgia law allowed movers operating in only a single county or municipality to be exempt from PSC regulation.

The audit report called for changes in how the commission handles licenses and how it investigates complaints. The report called for a crackdown on unlicensed movers, using existing penalties in state law. Auditors reported that the commission posts companies and complaints against them on its Web site, but does not check if complaints are valid.

Lee Lemke, who heads an association that represents about 125 moving companies across the state, said his group wants the state to go after unlicensed moving companies because they hurt the industry’s reputation and undercut licensed businesses. The commission has about 290 companies licensed statewide.

“They are giving us all a bad name,” he said. “If they do not have a license, if they do not have insurance, they should not be operating.”

Gary Puntasecca, president of Premium Moving & Storage in Marietta, said his licensed business has to compete with “price cutting of the rogue movers.”

He said the commission could go a long way toward reducing the problem by meting out some fines.

“If you nail a few of them, it would scare a lot of them off.”