NEVER AGAIN. (Updated)

Juanita Submitted this review about AmeriFreight Car Shipping
Review made Live: 5/5/2014 8:48:00 PM
I am annoyed to even have to write this review. Basically, I am active duty military, on my way out to a one year deployment and I was in need of car shipping services. I confirmed my order on January 20 with Jessica, for my first available date for pick-up on February 23rd and last day March 1st, as I was only in the area during those specific dates. I understand the whole of idea of AmeriFreight not being able to guarantee a date that a carrier would be able to pick up my vehicle. Cool. So I didn't hear anything after a few days (5 days or so) into my window so I contacted AmeriFreight to see what was going on. George gave me the spiel about how South Dakota to Ohio is not a heavily travelled route, and I totally got that. I was contacted the very next day that I called, on February 28th and was told that a carrier had been found, and they could pick out the day that I was scheduled to fly out, but they wanted 1,000 verses the initial 795 that I was quoted. Ok, cool again, I was flying out in two days and I really didn't have any other options. So, I agreed to the 1,000 charge from the carrier and AmeriFreight took $250 out of my account for their service fee. But now, since I would be on my flight when the "driver" was supposed to be picking up my vehicle, I had to ask someone to take off of work in order to see to it that my vehicle made it onto the carriers truck, to basically act as my agent. I was given the carriers name and phone number and began thereafter speaking directly with him. Both myself and the person acting as my agent were assured that my vehicle would be picked up that Sunday. I had contact with the carrier on that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday rolled around and NOTHING. The carrier would not answer my calls or text messages anymore. We (my friend and I) both tried from different phone numbers, left messages, to no avail. By this point, THANKFULLY, my flight was cancelled due to bad weather in my layover location. By this time, it is Sunday, and I am livid. My flight was changed to Monday afternoon, so the first thing Monday morning, I called AmeriFreight and told them what was going on. After some digging around on their part, they were able to find out that the carrier had no intention of picking up my vehicle due to some asinine reason. I was then told that even though they could not do it, AmeriFreight was able to miraculously find another carrier that would do it for the same price the very next day (Tuesday, March 3).

I could not risk having someone else take off of work again and not have my car picked up, so I told Jessica to just cancel the entire order, and that I would figure something else out. To which she replied that she would cancel the order, and I received that confirmation via e-mail on March 3, 2014 at 1:34pm. I read very well, and I understand that refunds from AmeriFreight can take a million years (read 30-60 days). I received a phone call from a woman from AmeriFreight on March 21st inquiring if I still needed my vehicle moved, to which I told her that no, I did not, and that my order was canceled through Jessica, and that I was currently awaiting my $250 refund, for which I gave AmeriFreight and had received no services. The unidentified woman then told me that she would "look into it" for me, and send me an e-mail with her findings. I let two weeks go by, and NOTHING. I then sent Jessica an e-mail on April 3rd, more than one month after my order was confirmed to have been cancelled. I told her what had transpired on the 21st. She was quick with her response to my message and replied the very next morning: "It usually takes about 30-60 days for a refund. I will forward your message to her. Please let me know if there’s anything else that I can do." Fast forward to April 29th. I STILL have not heard anything back from either Jessica nor this imaginary woman that was supposed to had contacted me a month prior.

So, again, I sent an e-mail to Jessica, inquiring about my refund. I RECEIVED NO RESPONSE. I was never disrespectful, and I have tried to be patient. But now, the whole 30-60 days ridiculous refund period has expired (I am now on day 63) and I am to the point that I will just contact my bank and report that charge as a fraud, since no one wants to acknowledge the fact that AmeriFreight has $250 from someone which they did not provide ANY services. And furthermore, to have to deal with this crap while preparing for a deployment is absolutely ridiculous. I called AmeriFreight today, because I am simply fed up with being ignored and the run-around about my refund and left a message with apparently the only person that works for that company that can provide me information about my refund. Maybe, just maybe, I will get a response and some actual ACTION since this review will be open to the public!

UPDATE: After I submitted my review yesterday, within about 2-3 hours, I was provided a response via the site acknowledging my ordeal and I was assured that I would receive a response within 48 hours. I was then contacted around 7:30am this morning via telephone by Sondee Fong, the Finance & Operations Manager for AmeriFreight. Ms. Fong was VERY apologetic regarding my ordeal and informed me that I would immediately be refunded the money owed to me. She even went as far as to further compensate me for the mess up on their part. I hate that it had to come to my writing a bad review about a company, in order to get my money back, but I was frustrated. I cannot whether or not I would ever work with AmeriFreight again, as I may in the future, but I am very appreciative of the quick response after my issue was made visible to the one(s) who could provide some action, and AmeriFreight's attempts to make it right and offer me compensation for the trouble will not go unnoticed. The apologies seemed genuine and a majority of their reviews are great, so maybe my experience was just a fluke, who is to say.