Broken promises

Varun Chakravorty Submitted this review about Beam Me Up Auto Transport, Inc
Review made Live: 11/24/2018 9:39:00 PM
My experience with Beam Me Up Auto transport was a nightmare that Joshua Konsker, the owner and operator, tried to make seem like a fantastic experience because he is polite and available. Unfortunately being polite and available doesn’t make up for multiple delays, unreasonable requests and threats from the trucking company he chose to use, and finally a broken promise from Josh himself to compensate me for the admittedly terrible experience I had. Here is a synopsis of my experience with Josh and Beam Me Up. After Josh gave me a “guaranteed” quote and paying Josh a deposit for shipping my car from New Jersey to Arizona he found a trucking company to take my car. When he found them, he told me that even though he had given me a “quote”, that the trucking companies were all more expensive than he thought they should be and so my total cost would be $100 more than he had quoted. I reluctantly agreed because he promised that he would continue to try and negotiate with them in order to try and bring the cost back to the original quote. The day came for my car to be picked up. I waited and waited at home all day for the truck to arrive. They never showed up. I reached out to Josh a number of times and each time he just said he was going to call them. Finally the trucking company called me and explained that the truck was in the shop and that they didn’t know where the driver was, so they wouldn’t be able to pick up my car that day. They promised that it would be picked up the next day. The next day, the same thing happened! Josh was available on the phone and scrambled to find a different company to take my car that day since I was leaving for Arizona the next day and it couldn’t be delayed any further. The new trucking company was supposed to arrive no later than 8pm. They finally arrived at 10:30pm. Despite calling me and telling me that my street was too narrow for the truck to pull into, the truck driver still pulled in and was then unable to turn around. In the process of trying to maneuver, he hit one of my neighbors’ cars. For the next 2.5 hrs, the truck driver negotiated with my neighbor about how much money they would pay them in order to avoid calling the police and making an insurance claim. At this point the truck driver and his boss told me that they’d like me to pay them my fee upfront so they could give this money to the neighbor. Josh was available on the phone at that time, and to his credit, advised me that I should definitely not do that. Somehow, with a lot of difficulty, we were finally able to get the truck out of my street and I loaded my car on the truck at 1:30am. My car was supposed to arrive 5 days after it was picked up. I received a call from the trucking company on that day and was told that it would arrive around 8pm. This did not happen. At 11pm, the driver called and said that he was 30 minutes away. That was the last time I heard from him that night. Multiple calls and text messages to Josh went unanswered. I finally got a hold of the truck driver who said he tried calling me but had the wrong number (despite calling me before!!) and that he had fallen asleep. He said that he would only come the next morning (the day I was supposed to start my new job). Throughout this whole fiasco, Josh kept telling me that he would negotiate with them and that I’d get a discount based on all the inconvenience that I’d been put through. When the car arrived, I had to go to a nearby Walmart parking lot in order for the car to be unloaded. When I arrived there the driver unloaded the car and Josh asked that I call him when the driver arrived so he could speak to them to negotiate the discount. Josh’s attempts to negotiate did nothing except make the driver and his boss angry and they actually attempted to try and load my car back onto the truck! I literally ran and sat in the car so they wouldn’t. I had to threaten to call the police in order to stop them. We were at a stalemate. They wouldn’t give me the keys to my car and I wouldn’t pay them the full amount for obvious reasons. Finally Josh told me that he thought that I should pay them the full amount and that he would return some money to me over the next 2 months. He told me that since he was unable to negotiate with the driver or his boss to give me a discount, he would return money to me himself. He even went as far as to “promise” me this. One month later, I contacted Josh. I had trusted that he would follow through on his promise. In response to my text message I received the following response: “Hi Varun, I was unable to get the transport company to discount the job at all. I tried my hardest for you and they wouldn’t budge they apologized about all the confusion and late night pickup. I did my job completely for you everything I was contracted to do I did and more. I apologize for the trucking company’s late night pickup and any other inconvenience they gave you though like I said they wouldn’t give a break on the transport so unfortunately there will be no discount.” I understand that things may not always work out the way they are supposed to. But a good, honest business man stands by his service and understands that the people he chooses to work with reflect on him. I chose to work with Josh and Beam me up auto transport. I didn’t choose the trucking company. He did. Yet he doesn’t realize that he took on a certain amount of responsibility in making that choice. Being polite and available sometimes isn’t enough when you can’t deliver the service that you promise. I hope anyone that is reading this will choose to use a different company than Beam Me Up and definitely avoid working with Joshua Konsker.

Company Response
Joshua Konsker from Beam Me Up Auto Transport, Inc Submitted this response.
Response Date: 11/25/2018 5:12:00 PM
Hi Varun, Thank you for this teachable moment for future customers. There are many moving variables when it comes to the car transportation industry. When things unfortunately happen on the road with truck drivers/companies (i.e. delays, breakdowns and other restrictions like allotted drive time) you or any customer needs the broker to provide updates and keep you abreast of any situation(s). I have no control over the moving variables - I only have control of providing the best service I can. I apologize that there were so many issues that came up with the transport of your car. When the first trucking company didn't keep their estimate regarding pickup date/time, I secured another. When they too couldn't keep their estimate regarding delivery I answered all of your calls and texts accept a few that came in between 1 and 4 am. I held up my end of the deal as a car transport broker.