Truck Never Delivered- but I was charge anyway!
Kevin
Submitted this review about
Mercury Auto Transport
Review made Live: 12/30/2010 10:13:00 AM
I see a lot of good reviews here, so that tells me that either I am the only person that received the absolute worst honesty and customer service (in my life), or there is some fabrication to their onsite review board. I’m not saying which is correct, but obviously one is. I’d double check other independent review sites before putting faith in this one alone.
Now, my experience with Mercury Auto Transport and their highly referred delivery company “PK LINE”. I blame most of my troubles on PK LINE, which is the absolute worst company in communication I’ve ever dealt with. But, Mercury didn’t take their level of ownership in the multiple failures, and the biggest problem of lapsed time was a huge part of Mercury’s.
Long story short- I was in the Marine Corps, separated and moved to the east coast for a new job (from Camp Pendleton California). When I moved the truck was an extra vehicle so I left it parked at a Marine buddies house on base while I found a way to have it delivered to the east coast, DC. Here it was incurring no storage fees and my buddy was able to drive it occasionally to keep it mechanically sound while I moved and found a way to ship it out.
I found Mercury, gave them all needed information, and they set me up with PK LINE. Mercury took my deposit and a date was scheduled for pickup. The original quote from Mercury was $900, they called saying they found someone for $1100. I accepted the increase. All was going peachy.
I had a friend meet them at a local grocery to drop my truck off, because they couldn’t drive into a standard subdivision. They picked up my truck on a flatbed single truck carrier (which should have fit into any subdivision), and toted my truck off base to their home site, about 1 to 1.5 hrs away.
That evening my buddy (not me) got a call from PK LINE saying my truck wouldn’t fit on their carrier, and wanted to charge me for 4, yes 4 car spaces. So now I’m looking at $4400 if my original price stays the same. My truck has a small lift with 35” tires, but I gave Mercury full specs on truck. Scott and Clearance (at Mercury both admitted to getting full specs from me, and they both admitted that the specs wasn’t passed to PK Line from them. An admitted mistake on Mercury’s (Scott particularly) part. My buddy told them the obvious for me, that wasn’t going to work. PK LINE said they could bring it back to base and drop it off. My buddy explained that since I was now out of the Marines, my base tags were expired, and they would most likely have trouble getting it back on. So to avoid dropping it off at a local storage and incurring storage fees, PK LINE offered to store it on their secure site (where it was currently) until we worked something out. And they informed my buddy to tell me to contact my broker (Mercury).
I called Mercury right away, they admitted the mistake and said they would fix it. They asked me to raise my price again and they would try to offer PK LINE more money and shop for other carriers. I raised my price to $1300 ($400 more than original quote). They said they would call me back.
A week and a half went by and I haven’t heard anything from anyone. I called Mercury. They said they are working on it and asked me to raise the price again. I said no, $1300 was my limit. They said they would call me back. Another week and a have went by and while I was at work I received a voicemail from PK LINE, note this was the first time I have ever spoke to anyone from PK LINE, ever. My buddy talked to them on delivery and when they called that day to say it wouldn’t fit, but no one has heard from them since. My voicemail from PK LINE (Bobby) said “your storage fees are stacking up, you may want to give us a call…”. I called immediately and they said they were charging me a $5.00 fee for storage. This was never mentioned to my buddy by PK LINE when they offered to hold it while we worked something out, and this was never mentioned by Mercury during the several weeks we spoke. PK LINE told me they informed Mercury of this, and that I needed to call them.
I called Mercury right away. Clearance (dispatch) said he knew nothing about the charges (I spoke to Clearance almost every time I called) but he said he thought Brian told me. I called Brian, and he said that he just learned of the charges, and said it was “PK LINES fault for picking it up” after they saw it in person. So he said he never told me. So both guys from Mercury that I had been working with said they never told me.
Later that night, Lisa (the owner’s wife- Mercury) called me. I explained everything, and she told me that she spoke with PK LINE and they said it’s my fault for letting it sit that long. And Lisa said that she doesn’t know if I actually knew of the charges or not (I only assume that her guys didn’t admit to not telling me to her), even though both Clearance and Brian (only people I’ve spoken to since pickup) said they did NOT tell me. So she said would call the owner of PK LINE and call me back that night.
I never received the call. I called Lisa back the next day and she said that PK LINE will work the storage fees out with them, but I needed to pay for my truck being picked up and then dropped back off. So now I am paying out of pocket for pick up and delivery. I was told I could call the owner of PK LINE (Jack). I called several times, every time I was told he was busy and that he would call me back. To this day I have never talked to the guy.
After two or three days of negotiating, and PK LINE threatening to sell my truck for storage fee costs, I located off base storage and agreed to pay the pick up and drop off charges for my truck, jus to resolve the current issue before it worsened. Even though the truck couldn’t be delivered due to mistakes on both their parts (Mercury didn’t report the lift on the truck, and PK LINE saw the truck and picked it up anyway). I did everything asked on my part, paid the deposit, gave all specs, and even raised my price by almost half when asked after pickup was made.
So, I ended up losing my free storage on base and had to pay $200 out of pocket to have my truck removed from my storage and dropped off at outside storage. Nothing to do with any mistake on my part.
To finalize the issues, I called Lisa (Mercury owner’s wife) and asked for my deposit back, which they had never offered to refund. And I asked her if she thought it was morally right for me to be stuck with a $200 pick up and drop off fee, when it was an included service of the original deal, that fell through due primarily to their mistake (which they admitted). She agreed it was NOT morally right, but added that I agreed to the deal to pay for it so it was my decision, even though I did it to lessen the immediate issue. But, after talking it out she said that she would pay half and would mail me a $100 check. Needless to say, it’s been about 3 months and I have yet to see a check from Lisa or Mercury…or anyone.
Summary:
So in trying to get my truck moved through Mercury, it never left Southern California, I was charged $200 for pick up and to drop it back off, lost my free storage I had set up before leaving the state which resulted in several hundred additional dollars out of my pocket. So basically I got nothing but evasiveness and deception for my money, and received absolutely no service at all.
Through Mercury Scott was my broker (supervisor I think), which failed to give full info to PK LINE. Clearance and Brian are dispatch workers, the job of finding drivers and talking with clients, and tasked to inform me of these alleged storage fees that caused the big issue. And Lisa is the ower’s wife. Jack is the owner of PK LINE and Bobby is his “right hand man”. I have emails to back everything up if anyone would like to read them, from both Mercury and PK LINE. I left a lot of back and fourth calls out in this review, to shorten it up a bit (even though it doesn’t appear shortened).
Maybe I was the ‘one’ with the only bad experience, I’m not sure. But personally I wouldn’t rely on their personal site’s reviews. It appears very beneficial in their favor, and my personal experience doesn’t reflect their overall average. I only suggest looking into it beyond their site before using them…. Good Luck!
