Minivan transport not such a good experience
JD
Submitted this review about
Regal Auto Transport
Review made Live: 9/7/2010 11:50:00 PM
We purposely wrote this roughly a few days after getting our van just to ensure we do a very objective review. So here goes:
This is for Regal auto transport, with Ronnie as the main contact person, who is a broker/middleman.
we'll try to justify our ratings above.
1. We had asked for several quotes from several companies for the transport of a minivan from california to maryland. The price range we got was from 800 to 1200. Ronnie offered $850 and reviews for him and the company were good so we decided to go with him. He also told us that we could put anything we wanted, including extra tires in the van at no extra cost (we have email correspondence to prove it). However, we ended up paying 970 dollars (50 dollars upfront to Ronnie and 930 dollars to the driver(including $55 extra for the extra tires inside the van)). When we asked Ronnie about the price change, he said that he wasn't really earning much from the transaction. I'm not sure why that was supposed to be our fault.
2. On the day we arranged and paid the $50 dollar deposit, Ronnie told us that the van would be picked up either the next day (tuesday) or wednesday. When that didn't happen, he said for sure by weekend. And then the next weekend. And the longer it took, the harder it was to get in touch with him. When we managed to get in touch with him, it was excuses like "it was hard to get a company to the price we set". Again we don't get why he even offered the price quote in the first place if he couldn't keep his end of the deal.
3. Outright lies. We got the van from our cousin. Not wanting him to be staying at home all the time to wait for the pick-up, we asked Ronnie to get in touch with him to advise him of the pick-up date and time. Not only where there times when Ronnie told us that the van would already be picked up but no actual pick-up took place, he also told us that he got in touch with our cousin or that he left a message when he never did. And we have phone records to prove it.
4. When the pick-up finally took place, it was through our initiative. Ronnie told us that he would call us or our cousin regarding the date and time of the pick-up (a saturday). He never called. It's a good thing we got the contact number of the driver (a number which Ronnie refused to give in the first place). Calls made to Ronnie on that pick-up day were unanswered. And we thought he would be arranging the transport from start to finish.
5. As the final salvo to this ordeal, while in transport, we called Ronnie to clarify about the price increased. We also wanted to know where our van was at that particular time. He repeated his previous excuse (him not earning much), and he also asked why we had to call him about the location of the car when we could just ask driver directly. That did make sense except that early on he didn't want us to get in touch with the driver (remember the not wanting to give the driver's number). And apparently Ronnie did have conversations with the driver because the latter called us and told us that if there were problems with the new amount and if we couldn't pay, the van wouldn't be delivered.
In the end, we did get our van, it is intact, a bit dirty, nothing stolen, and it seems to be okay. If only Ronnie was honest about everything, we might consider doing business with him again. But this was one of those three-strikes-and-your-out kind of experience for us. By the way, we have never heard from Ronnie again. Last time we talked to him was about 4 days before our van arrived. I would have like to send this review to him before posting it, but after the initial email replies regarding the price quote and arranging the transport, he has never replied to any of our emails.
