Priorities of Cascade do not include the customer
Kevin
Submitted this review about
Cascade Vehicle Shipping Inc.
Review made Live: 8/8/2009 1:47:00 PM
According to the contract, I made my vehicle available for pickup after June 30. It was made clear to Cascade that my vehicle needed to be picked up BEFORE July 9. There was a scramble as we neared the final date, and I wound up paying $150 more than the original quote. Ultimately, my vehicle was picked up on July 9.
Only July 21, I received an email from Kimberly@cascadevehicleshipping.com which clearly stated that my vehicle "was ready for pickup". When I called Kim to arrange my pickup in Anchorage, she informed me that my vehicle was delivered to the Port in Seattle, not Anchorage. As such, it would be at least one more week before I was to receive my vehicle.
When I was finally allowed to pick up my vehicle, I was told by Horizon Shipping that my vehicle was indeed delivered to the Port in Anchorage on July 21, and that Cascade did not pay Horizon for the shipping until the morning of July 31. Kim kept telling me that it was the "accountant" and the "dispatcher" that failed to coordinate properly. But, 10 days sitting in port, waiting on Cascade to "authorize" payment?
When I picked up my vehicle, the Horizon employee commented on the thick black oil-based residue coating my vehicle being the worst he has ever seen. While a dirty vehicle is not a real issue, I asked Cascade for an explanation - they told me to read their terms and file and that any issues should be directed to the insurance company of the carrier, not to them.
Then, I made the mistake of asking for an explanation as to the 10-day delay. This created a HUGE problem with Cascade - the "president" was on "vacation" and Kimberly informed me that she does not have the authorization to do anything except "understand" our issue. I was told that "dispatch" and "accounting" suffered from a communication breakdown in my case, and that Kim was indeed sorry that I feel as though I was lied to - but since they delivered my vehicle, they have lived up to every responsibility they have as a broker. In short, I was not (and still have not) been provided an acceptable response to my question: "What happened."
I sent an email to Kim letter her know that I was less than satisfied with brokerage of my vehicle transport and that I believed it to be appropriate for them to refund a portion of the "management fees" portion of my charge. I never heard back from her, so I sent another email letting her know that because of the SNAFU that took place, I did not believe that the brokerage service was satisfactorily provided and as such would be contesting that portion of my the charge with my credit card company.
As a courtesy, prior to contesting this portion of my charge, I called her again to afford Cascade one additional opportunity to live up the customer service level stated on their website - and I was placed on a conference call between the owner (Terry I believe is his name), Kim (the Vice-President) and me.
As soon as the owner picked up the phone, he confirmed that Kim was indeed on the line, introduced himself to me, then began berating me, telling me that I had committed a felony and that he would HAVE ME ARRESTED if I proceeded with contesting the management component of my charge. He kept yelling at me (and I unfortunately was yelling back). He "attempted to get his attorney on the phone" to confirm the legal status of my customer service issue - unfortunately, he was "not available". He kept repeating "WAS YOUR VEHICLE DELIVERED?" This seems to be his only concern - the letter of the contract, not the intent of the contract. After some time, he hung up on me and instructed the entire staff of Cascade that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they would no longer take calls from me.
After many unsuccessful attempts to find out what happened, I finally convinced Kim to speak to me again. She was very understanding, and listened to my grievances. She made a significant effort to understand my concerns and talked about it for almost 45 minutes, but unfortunately, as vice-president, does not have the authority to do anything other than simply understand.
All of this could easily have been avoided had the communication channels within Cascade (from dispatch to accounting to the vice-president to the paying customer). But alas, resolving customer complaints is not a priority for Cascade. I believe this to be the case because Cascade cares very deeply about customer service until they are paid, at which time their level of customer service provided falls short of their website representations.
To this day, I still wonder why Cascade took 10 days to pay Horizon once they received the invoice. While this does not seem like a long period of time for most businesses, Horizon would not release my vehicle until the invoice was paid. So, my vehicle sat on the docks of Anchorage for 10 extra days accruing storage fees (Horizon told me that because of what I told them about what happened with Cascade, they waived the storage fees for me). It will be interesting to see their response to this post.
In short, I hired Cascade to be an agent for ME, and they wound up being an agent for themselves.
