Damaged vehicle and undelivered vehicle

Ron Submitted this review about Suncoast Auto Transport Inc.
Review made Live: 3/20/2012 3:18:00 PM
I contracted with Suncoast Auto Carriers out of Florida. They in turn sub-contracted with Finish Line Auto Transport in Apple Valley, California. I will make this brief. I believe both companies are a rip off. Finish Line is a bogus company. Their address is non-existent which I confirmed with the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department. The phone numbers for the company are "ghost" numbers. When I researched one of the numbers it came back to Southwest Airlines in Nevada. After having my car for a over a month they never delivered it. I had to fly to California to pick it up. When I picked it up it was damaged and it had 3000 miles more on the odometer than when I purchased it. They never refunded my money. I made complaints with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation. They have not helped me at all in recovering the money I paid to transport my vehicle or for the damage.

Suncoast Auto Transport was extremely uncooperative in helping me. They sub-contracted the transportation of my vehicle to Finish Line Auto Transport. They failed to check Finish Line to see if they were a responsible company. I relied and trusted Suncoast with the transportation of my vehicle, even paying up front in full for the transportation. The dispatcher at Suncoast was rude and had no knowledge of where my vehicle was and gave me misinformation about it. I rarely got a return phone call from Suncoast and had to constantly call them. Suncoast reimbursed me the $150.00 booking fee I paid to them only after I complained. I'm sure they refunded my money to shut me up. They have basically washed their hands of this incident. I don't care what their contract states. They were ultimately responsible for my vehicle.

I can get no help from any agency I have contacted. Basically I am told there is nothing I can do.

This company is run by scam artists and thieves. DO not use Suncoast Auto Transport. For all I know both companies are working together.

Company Response
Becky from Suncoast Auto Transport Inc. Submitted this response.
Response Date: 3/22/2012 12:37:00 PM
This is a ridiculous claim and this entire review is completely inaccurate and untruthful. This vehicle was not even ready when the driver arrived on pick up because of the negligence of the customer. The driver waited around for 2 days to load this vehicle and because of this, got stuck in a snowstorm which caused delays and damage to carriers truck. We refunded the customers money AS SOON as the carrier was delayed which we did not have to do and still maintained contact with this person and the carrier. This review states that 3000 miles were put on car when the entire route (which carrier was not able to complete due to damage to carriers truck from storm) was only 1000 miles. The carriers leave with full loads which usually consists of 8-10 vehicles. There is only 1 driver (unless there is a team of 2 drivers to speed up the transport time- which in this case there was not) per truck which would make it quite impossible to drive any vehicles unless loading or unloading. The carrier (Finish Line) had a 5 star rating on the national network when this vehicle was dispatched to them. We were in contact with the driver and customer and the driver spoke to customer directly to arrange the pick up of this vehicle so obviously there are no 'ghost numbers' as this person claims. The carrier agreed to refund the total amount back to this person because of Suncoast. It is unfortunate that the carriers truck got seriously damaged in the snow storm and that this caused delays in the vehicle being transported and Suncoast worked diligently to rectify the situation by rescheduling another carrier once weather permitted but this person declined.