Review Report Review
An Exasperating Experience!

Scott Ferguson Submitted this review about Express Auto Transport
Review made Live: 12/17/2005 10:26:00 AM
In September I purchased a 15 passenger van on eBay and chose Express Auto Transport (EXPRESS) to move it from Georgia to California. (Just so there is no confusion, this company’s address is 9772 Princeton-Glendale Rd. Suite T, Cincinnati, OH and their number is (513) 870-6670.) David, who took my order at EXPRESS, was very friendly and seemed knowledgeable. We agreed on a down payment of $195 and the rest was to be paid on delivery of the van. He said that it normally took 1-7 days before a vehicle was picked up. That was September 26, 2005.

I received a confirmation email that seemed to have all the details correct except for the deposit amount. They had charged my card for the full amount. I called and David nicely apologized and said that it was his mistake but that I would not have to pay the driver anything on delivery.

Two weeks went by and I did not get a notification of pick-up so I called and was told by David that it had not been picked up yet but that he would look into it. A week or two later I got the same story when I called. He told me that he had "just been looking at my order” since it showed as not scheduled for pick-up yet. He was not sure what the problem was but he would look into it. Another time his response was, well it’s easy to get a vehicle picked up in Georgia but nobody wants to take a load to California because the fuel prices are so high there. Time went on with no calls from David and no email to inform me of a pick-up schedule.

During one of my calls David referred me to Debbie (Ext. #28) who is evidently in charge of scheduling pick-ups. I called Debbie on multiple occasions and I would say that she was always courteous but that she never had a good answer as to why our van was not getting picked up. No one from EXPRESS ever called me of their own accord to let me know what was going on or to let me know that there was a problem. (On one occasion Debbie returned a call after I had asked for an update. All she told me when she called was that she didn’t have any information yet.)

Debbie told me at one point not to worry about it too much since, fortunately, my situation didn't involve an urgent deadline! A week or two later I had to tell her that I DID have a deadline coming up and that I would need a vehicle by that date (we had promised relatives coming into town that they could use our car for several weeks assuming that we would have our new van by then.) She acknowledged our situation and said she would do her best to take care of it. No van came – or even got picked up. We ended up having to buy another used vehicle temporarily so that we could keep our commitment to our relatives. (Anybody looking for a pretty decent 1991 Ford Aerostar?)

To make a long story short, 58 days of waiting and no van. I finally gave up and called Debbie to cancel my order on November 23. She apologized for not getting the van shipped and said that she would get a check sent out to me immediately (it was cheaper for them to send me a check than to refund my credit card she said.) I wanted to be sure I did not fall through the crack in “accounting” like I had in the other “department” so when I hung up the phone I sent them a fax [(513) 870-6674] confirming my cancellation of the order and requesting an immediate full refund. I then sent them an email with the same message.

Today is December 15th. It has been over three weeks since I cancelled the order and no check has come. I called Debbie this morning and she made no excuses for the check not being sent yet but said that she would get it sent right away. I asked her if there was any reason why they could not have my check here by Monday and she said that she thought that they could do that so I told her nicely that they had until Monday to get the check here or I would pursue other channels for getting my money back.

That’s our sad story. At this point I don’t know if a check will come or not. I do realize that sometimes people have a hard time doing what they said they would do for reasons beyond their control. So I am not going to say bad things about EXPRESS or pretend to know exactly why they did not ship us our van or why they have not sent us back our money yet. But I think that it is only fair that you know what we have had to go through so you can make a wise choice.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: As I was finishing writing this I got a call from Debbie. She said that someone at EXPRESS just went to the credit card machine to send us our refund. I’m not holding my breath…

A WORD OF THANKS. I just want to say “thank you” to, and put in a good word for, a third party that was involved in this bad transaction. We bought this vehicle from David Salmon at Salmon Superstore in Rome, Georgia. They treated us with respect and courtesy and they were very patient as we tried to work through the problem with EXPRESS. They kept the van that whole time without charge and their communication over the whole period was excellent. We finally flew out and drove the van back ourselves and were met in Atlanta at the airport by a driver from Salmon. The driver was on time and the fee was very reasonable. A big “Thank you!” to David and everyone else involved at Salmon.
Shipment Details
Origin State:
Georgia
Pickup:
Not Provided
Destination State:
California
Delivery:
Not Provided
Customer Service
Honesty:
Knowlegeable:
Promptness:
Customer Service:
Review Details
Quote or Order Id:
50922389
Quote or Order Cost:
$1220