poor and slow service, but van arrived okay
Derek
Submitted this review about
Specialty Mobile Systems
Review made Live: 5/18/2007 5:24:00 PM
Summary:Received Van 24 days after ordering shipment. Would never use them again due to horrible customer service, kept feeding me "we'll know more in 1 or 2 days" for weeks on end. Forced me to pay $50 more 2.5 weeks after ordering transport. Van finally arrived, undamaged.
Details:From phone quotes, I felt more comfortable with Angels, they seemed more sure of everything and more open to my questions, but I chose Specialty only due to their higher ranking on transport reviews. They both quoted me just under 1100, 1095 from Specialty. I ordered transport on Monday 3/19/07 from Specialty, they took the 195 deposit then from my charge card. They told me that the route from TX to Oregon was a high traffic route and they should be able to find a transporter very quickly. They would not give me any firm dates, but they estimated it would be 2 to 3 days before pickup and 3 to 5 more days for delivery, which would mean delivery in 5 to 8 days. Turned out to be 24 days! They said they would call once they found a shipper. I called a few days later, they said they had a shipper that wanted to transport it, but they didnt have the details yet and they would call me back in 2 days. They did not call me back, I had to call them back 2 or 3 days later. They told me the same exact story again, they have a shipper who wants it, but they dont have the details, they will call me in 1 to 2 days later. Different variations of this story continued for approx 15 days after original order of shipment. A few times, they told me they were waiting on a fax from the shipper, a few times they gave me very vague excuses, a few times they told me the shipper was "on the road" and they couldnt reach him, etc. They were never the ones to call me, I was always having to call them. This whole time, Im having to tell the auto dealer what they were telling me. I was very embarrased that iw as draggin on and on and was not able to give him any real date for pickup. 15 days later on Tuesday 4/3/07, they call me at around 3pm west coast time and out of the blue say "the shipper wants to pick the van up tonight, as long as you increase your fee by $50" At that point, I was totally sick of the whole situation and said, fine, I'll give you another 50 bucks. I was so frustrated, I just wanted it to be over with. I also tell them that the auto dealer is likely closing soon for the day, but said he might or might not be able to deal with it tonight. I finally got the shipper's name/number. The shipper wasnt going to be able to make it to the dealers before closing, so he ended picking it up the next day. The Shipper, Banyan Transport was very nice to deal with. He told me that while he is on the road, feel free to call him as much as I wanted to get an update on where he is at and when he thinks he will be delivering the van. I called him a few times, and did not have any problems getting ahold of him, which further upset me since Specialty used that as one of their excuses a few times. Van finally arrived on Thursday 4/12/07. Van was in good shape, no damage. I was very unhappy with Specialty, but was pleased with Banyan.
