31 extra miles on sportscar
jimu88
Submitted this review about
Specialty Mobile Systems
Review made Live: 7/6/2007 1:59:00 PM
Route: Philadelphia, PA to Oakland, CA
Cliff notes: Late pick up/delivery, had to pick up car 5 hours away, ding/scratches, company went for a 31 mile joyride in my sportscar, SMS doesn't give a crap. STAY AWAY FROM EASIER CAR SHIPPING
Like many of you here, I chose this company b/c of the overall good reviews here. I have a sports car that I take care of better than my wife and I only wanted the best and after several days doing my research, I decided to spend the extra money and go with this company. After the initial contact with SMS, where they gave me the good ol "that's a high traffic route" line, they called me back and told me that "EASIER CAR SHIPPING" would be picking my car up 4 days later than I originally asked for. They said if it wasn't acceptable, then they would try and see if somebody else would take the order on the date I wanted. I said yes and within 5 minutes, I recieved a call back and the operator told me that one again EASIER CAR SHIPPING" would pick up my car on the date I requested. Great. So I thought. I go to the BBB and do a search for "EASIER CAR SHIPPING" and to my surprise, not only was this company in Compton, CA but they had a "D" grade for customer service(http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=100015137). I've never seen such a low grade for any company nonetheless the company that was suppose to transport my baby across the country. I called SMS back and it sounded like I caught them by surprise so after a long pause, they started to reassure me that they've been with this company for years and that they haven't had any problems in that time. I figured a company with this reputation would be screening their trasnporters pretty carefully since it's their reputation on the line. Anyways, I stupidly went with it.
Four days after the car was suppose to be picked up, the truck driver finally showed up. I was okay with it b/c SMS states that there was a pick up window etc etc. So the truck driver looks friendly and asks me a few questions about my car like how many HP is it, what's the fastest I've ever take it, blah blah. On the sheet, I noticed there was no place to put the current miles of the car. This is where I made a mistake. Instead of writing it on the contract, I put the mileage in my PDA phone. I figured this car is going on this trailor and will not be taken off until I see it again in CA but JUST IN CASE, I took the mileage down b/c I just don't trust car companies. So the driver loaded onto the truck very professionally and told me he was going to take great care of my car.
So the car is suppose to be delivered in 10 days. 10 days later, I get no call or update so I call the truck driver since he gave me his phone number to see what part of the country he's in. He gets on the phone and tells me that he's in Los Angeles and that my car's been there since yesterday. He even jokes, so I thought, about my car being in his backyard and him taking extra good care of it. He then tells me to call the company headquarters to figure out what's going on. I do so and I find out that the car has indeed been unloaded in LA and that they are waiting for another truck to pick it up and deliver it to Oakland. Well since that was a Friday and they don't work weekend, I had to wait until Monday. They said they would leave on Monday morning and I'd get it later that night. Once again, I'm okay with it since it was in the contract but I had no idea they would be changing trucks. Monday comes and goes and still no car. I call them early Tuesday and they tell me the truck that was suppose to pick up my car broke down so they are having it repaired. He assures me that they will make it out later that everning and it would be delivered that Wednesday. Come Wednesday, I still hear nothing so I call and sure enough, my car's still in LA b/c they haven't fixed the problem yet. What I really think happened is that they hadn't filled all their orders on the truck so they were just delaying until they did. Since I really needed my car and I knew they were just jacking me around, my wife and I took her car down to LA the next day to pick it up down there as there was no telling how long they were going to dick us around.
We reluctantly drive to COMPTON,CA to pick up the car on Friday morning and we pull into this dirty junkyard looking lot with dusty cars everywhere. I spot my baby all dirty right near the "office" (a dirty old construction trailer). I look around the car and I see some minor scratches in the paint and a small ding on the drivers side. I'm starting to get upset but I'm still controlled. I then open the door and look at the mileage and I see that there's 31 extra miles tacked on and I finally lose it. I stormed into the trailer and started asking these guys about how they could have possibly put that many miles on my car. The two guys in there who can barely speak English look at each other and then to the ground and start making up some BS stories about how it could have happened. They tell me that b/c the car had to be taken off the truck and put back on another truck several times that the miles add up. I couldn't believe he tried to pull this on me. So we argue for an hour and they are apologetic and call the truck driver and berade him but at one point, they realized that the mileage was not officially put on the contract I signed at the time of pick up. So they pick there heads up and start calling me a lier and that since it's not on the contract that they aren't going to do anything about it (sounds like they have a little experience). Anyways, unfortunately they were right and there was not much we could do about it. They did give us $100 off the quote b/c we had to drive down here but that still does not excuse the fact that they took my car for a joy ride.
The only thing I can do is come on here and warn you guys about this company "EASIER CAR SHIPPING". I spoke with SMS and they assured me that they would never do business with them again but I pretty much have lost all trust in the auto industry and so just be careful. I asked to speak with the manaager "Amy" but I have yet to speak with her after several messages left on the machine and with the other operators. Anyways, I just wanted to warn you guys that looks can be decieving and I would take all these positive "reviews" with a grain of salt. These people probably write a lot of their own favorable reviews to pad their numbers here but in reality, they are like all the other companies and hire the lowest bidding transporters (BBB grade od "D" even) to make a few more bucks at our expense. I probably could have gotten the same "service" for a few hundred less dollars and had the car delivered to my front door. Learn from my mistake folks and don't take anything in this business for granted and don't believe anything you hear. Right down and document everything including mileage, condition of the car, etc. If it's not on paper, these guys don't give a crap. YOU DO NOT GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR WITH THIS BROKERING COMPANY.
