Good Service.

Satyam Submitted this review about AM Express Auto Transport
Review made Live: 10/3/2009 12:41:00 AM
My overall experience of my car transport from Albany, NY to Seattle,WA through AM Express was satisfying. I received multiple quotes for my car transport and majority of the quotes were above 1000$. The quote i received from AM express was not the lowest i received, but seemed reasonable. They gave me a quote of 950$ with a 50$ discount. I looked around the other quotations and also read the reviews for the various companies in this site. They sent me a couple of emails like the other companies before i made my decision. Think mike also left me a Voice Message. I called back Mike on a Sunday afternoon around 11AM EST and frankly was not expecting him to pick up the call on a sunday. But he did pick up the phone and answered all the questions i had. I have done a lot of research until that point and talked to a number of people inclusing mike about my Car Transport. From what i understand, following is a brief description of how the whole process works.

1) Customer places an oder for x$ with the shipping company. Credit card details need to be given with the order. They should not ideally charge anything for placing an order. I know there are some companies which charge straight away, but that is not needed.
2) The shipping company then puts up the car for transport on the national carrier board or something.
3) The price they put up on the board will be x$ - commision of shipper. For Ex: If you place an order for 1000$ and the brokerage for the shipping company is 100$ they put in the price 900 on the national board. This will be the actual amount the carrier gets.
4) Irrespective of the Shipping Company you use to place the order, all the carriers look into a National Board for all the vehicles in a particular region. The carrier then decides if he is gonna transport your car based on the price, his availability and other factors.
5) Once the carrier decides to transport your car, they will contact the shipper. Shipper will send us the detail of the carrier and their contact information. Once this is done the role of the shipper is pretty much over.
6) The carrier or the truck driver will then contact the customer for a pickup.
7) After the driver picks up the car, customer will be charged for the brokerage by the shipping company.
8) After the driver delivers the car at the destination, the remaining amount has to be paid in Cash. I am not sure if the other carriers accpt other forms of payment.

I have decided to put my order and called Mike back again that Sunday evening. I have in my pick up date for the car for Tuesday. Mike called me back on Monday enquiring if my car can be picked up on monday itself. I agreed and my car has been picked up on Monday evening from Albany, NY. I received my car the following wednesday night (9 days in total), which was a day later than the date promised by the driver when he picked up the car.

The pros and cons of my experience are listed below:

Pros:
1) Mike was very helpful and the response was very good.
2) Speed of the pickup was great. My car was picked up one day after my order was placed.
3) Economical.

Cons:
1) Trouble in communication with the truck driver. He did not always answer the phone and i had trouble hearing and understanding him. This is not a major cons, but just wanted to list.
2) They put in my pick up address wrong in the invoice, and so the driver did not have the correct address to pick up my car. After about 5 phone calls and going around for 30 minutes, he finally picked up my car in a Gas Station, a couple of miles from my house. He offered me a ride back home in the big truck!!!! Luckily i had some one who could pick me up.
3) Delivary date extended by a day.
4) The delivary address was given as seattle, wa when we booked the order. I called up the driver to give my actual address and the driver was not too happy to deliver it to my actual address. I had to do this because i had no definite delivery address when i booked the order, as i was relocating to seattle.

Hope this review helps.

Thanks,
Satyam.