professional, reasonable... easy deal
terry
Submitted this review about
Dependable Auto Shippers
Review made Live: 10/2/2007 12:35:00 AM
I read a lot of opinions before even choosing a car carrier for my brand new Toyota Tacoma 4wd Pickup. Seeing the large number of negatives, I expected I would be adding my opinion, and I actually expected a good experience. After all, I was shipping a rugged new vehicle from NYC to LA, terminal to terminal. There shouldn't be anything too difficult about that. And that is the way it turned out.
I bought the pickup online, and Ebay recommends DAS, quoting for them a low price, as these things go. I called DAS and that was biggest negative of the whole deal; the first three times I spoke to them they hung up on me! The service staff seems harried and a bit grumpy. I suspect they are given strict guidelines on what to say. They are not customer-oriented; if you want anything from them you have to pry it out of them.
The first time I called I told them I needed to ship a vehicle from NY to Hawaii. They told me I needed International. I said we in Hawaii don't think of ourselves as "international." That is when they got grumpy... and they wanted me to call their international division at 3AM my time, to get service. I tried to get a rate for NY to LA, as I figured my son in LA could receive the vehicle for me and take it to Matson for trans-shipment to Hawaii. But the guy hung up, insisting I needed international and not listening to what I wanted from him.
I called back a second time, trying to rush through my statement that I needed to ship a car to Hawaii so I could get to the part about needing a quote from NY to LA, but they just told be "international" and hung up real fast.
I called a third time, I asked them "Please listen! I called twice before and no one is listening!" and tried to tell them that I needed a quote and that their previous service people - of course I waited 20 minutes each time for a "representative" who was "busy serving other customers" - had not listened to what I was saying. This "representative" hung up immediately, not saying a word.
At this point I was tired of being on hold 20 minutes each time for a quick brush-off. Of course, being from Hawaii I am not unused to this sort of treatment from mainland operators, we must be kind of slow and round about for them, I guess; or maybe it is just me (ya think?).
I called a couple of other shippers, who all quoted me $1200 or more, far higher than the $766 Ebay said I could expect from DAS. They were nice, though. Not nearly so busy and harassed. Perversely, this made me think that DAS was the really busy shipper and that there must be a reason they did all that business. And maybe their volume would make them quicker from coast to coast.
So the next day I finally got their international division, and their quote was way too high, as I expected. I called DAS again, and this time I never said the word "Hawaii." I just asked about shipping from terminal to terminal, NY to LA. Things went fairly smoothly after that. Except that the guy quoted me a much higher rate, at first. We straightened out that it was terminal to terminal, but his rate was still way to high, and I told him again I expected much less. Only then did he tell me I could use my own insurance instead of theirs, which would bring the rate down to the $766 that Ebay had first told me. Knowing by then I wouldn't get a better price, I give him all the specifics and got a shipping number, though I didn't yet pay.
As far as insurance goes, I had already learned that your personal insurance is nearly always better than their third party carrier, who will give you a high deductible and then jack you around. Don't even consider using the car carrier's insurance, it is a waste of money and sanity.
At this point, everything was five stars all the way. I had the dealer drive the rig into Linden, NJ, where DAS received it. I paid automatically by credit card, and then waited for a representative to confirm that everything was good.
They told me October first but it actually came in September 26. My son picked it up the following Monday to deliver it to Matson, just ten miles away. He used to sell cars so he knows all about them; he found a small scratch on the passenger side wheel well and made DAS acknowledge it. But he told me if that was all they did shipping a black pickup truck across country, they did very well.
So, if it wasn't for the initial problems on the phone, and the attempt to hide their extra charges and overcharge me, I would have given them 100%. And I will use these guys in the future anytime I need a car moved about the mainland.
Mahalo and aloha!
