Breach of contract, fraud and false advertising by Honesty First

Mary Jo Venditti Submitted this review about Ship a Car Direct
Review made Live: 4/21/2010 6:50:00 PM
Contract entered into on 1/5/10. On 3/2/10 Nicole says company can't fulfill contract for agreed-upon price and that it would be upwards of $900 to ship my vehicle. At this point, I didn't trust anything that Nicole said and I cancelled the contract.

Company Response
Michael Strickland from Ship a Car Direct Submitted this response.
Response Date: 4/23/2010 3:10:00 PM
The story behind Ms Vendetti's experience with us is a good one to learn from in your research of auto transport companies. But her complaint is in greatly generalized as well as inaccurate so here are some facts and clarifications; to begin with, her move was FL to NY, not NY to NY as she says here. She put in her request for a price quote from FL to NY in January and that price at the time was indeed $525. (The prices we give are always the current rate and honored for 7 days) However, when she placed her order on January 5th, she gave April 2nd as her requested pick up date in FL. Upon seeing this, Nicole (nice as they come, by the way, seriously, she's so sweet you could get cavities just talking to her) immediately informed Ms. Vendetti that that price would certainly not be the same in April due to the increase in 'snow bird' traffic, but that we would stay on top of the changes and notify her beforehand of what to expect. Then, when Nicole called Ms Vendetti at the beginning of March just as she had promised, well ahead of Ms. Vendetti's ship date, to inform her that the price had come up about $50 at that point and might sneak a little higher by April, Ms. Vendetti did freak out, started making hateful accusations, canceled her order request and contacted the BBB (who, by the way, agreed that we were acting well within our contract terms, which I still believe Ms Vendetti has never even read. ALWAYS read your contract terms folks) Wait, I left out a key point, it needs to be noted that Ms. Vendetti was never charged a single penny by our company. You see, we don't charge a fee until we get you set up with a carrier, which at $525 for this move at the beginning of April we never would have been able to do, so it really wouldn't have done either of us any good, which Nicole tried to explain to Ms Vendetti but to no avail. Keep in mind also, that these changes in price are not changes in our fee, that stays the same, but rather changes in what the carriers charge. What I don't know, is where Ms. Vendetti is getting the figure of $900? We certainly never quoted that amount. In fact, even at it's peak this snowbird season our price on her move never rose above $688. SO, two things for you to take away from her experience are this: 1) Don't book your order weeks (or Months) in advance, it just simply is not necessary. A day or two notice is plenty, believe it or not, and a week notice is WAY more than enough. And 2) Prices fluctuate on 'snowbird' moves. They go up if you are moving in the same direction (south in the winter and north in the spring) and they go down if you are moving against it. The reason is Economics 101, the law of supply vs. demand. When there is a huge supply of cars moving in one direction (i.e. FL to NY in April), the carriers can and do charge more money. Why? Because they have so much to choose from. The flip side is that if you are moving against the snowbird traffic we can get you on a carrier for a steal of a price. Why? Because they have to send their trucks back, and most of them go empty, so they are desperate for any cars to move that might help cover their return costs. I hope some of this helped you in some way. Thanks for reading.