Damaged Vehicle - Slow Service - Bad Customer Care

Michael Horning Submitted this review about A1 Auto Transport
Review made Live: 9/7/2005 8:22:00 PM
I was given a recommendation from a friend to choose A1 Auto Transport to relocate my vehicle on 5/12/05. They charged my credit card $985 (thank goodness it was on card) and told me it would tak 3-5 business days for them to pick it up, until those days passed, then with was 5-10 business days. They finally came to pick up the car, but not until I talked with Mark Procopio (manager of customer care). Once they did come however it was at 11:30pm. The driver told my wife that he was exteremely overworked and the drivers cover too much area. While the car was in transit, Mark Procopio told me that A1 had 4 trucks break down and that I was lucky my car was on a truck, so be patient.

When the car arrived on 6/4/2005, the car had major problems. They are:
First - The car was damaged on the front and back bumpers by the chains/straps used to strap it to the truck.
Two - The rear bumper had holes in it where another vehicle smacked it.
Three - The Vehicle had animal urin and feces (yes feces) inside the car!
Four - The roof had permanent dents from footprints..somebody walked on the roof. I could tell because there were footprints on the window sill that stained the door matting.

I of course filled in the proper paperwork and over-nighted it to them. You can't discuss it on the phone with them. I sent them pictures, two estimates (average of both was $2300), and the proper paperwork. You only have 30 days to do all of this by the way. This I did within that timeframe.

Roughly 30 days later...I received a settlement offer for $1900 minus the $500 deductible. They said because I had a scratch on the front bumper that they wouldn't fix the strap dents and they didn't even address the interior animal feces. They demanded I return the forms to them within 15 business days. I promptly sent them a rebuttle letter back (overnighted) and after no timely response, I then signed the forms (within the required timeframe) agreeing to the settlement and submitted them to A1.

After about 30 days from the rebuttle letter, I received a response saying that the offer was fair and stands as is.

It is now 9/6/2005 (roughly 45 days since my last correspondence with them) and all the manager of customer care, Mark Procopio (mark@a1autotransport.com), can tell me over the phone is my claim is denied, but they can't tell me why.

That was not all. On 6/16/2005, I recieved an email from Nataly Quintero (Nataly@a1autotransport.com) of customer service asking me to take a customer satisfaction survey. Nataly sent my contact information to the entire distribution list and everyone else's to me. I quickly submitted my survey and chastising her for giving my name out to the world. Her boss's boss Tracey McCoy (Tracey@a1autotransport) tried to tell me she made a mistake and she was sorry.

Don't trust this company! They do no correspondence over the phone, they insulate managment, and really don't care once they get your money. They play dumb when it is convenient and simply aren't honest. I have now cancelled my credit card in hopes of getting some action, but I fear the best I will do is get my original $985 back.

What is potentially worse is that they don't protect your identity from somebody even more dishonest than them taking even more.