car transport

L Submitted this review about Mercury Auto Transport
Review made Live: 9/18/2010 8:04:00 PM
If you want your car in a timely fashion, I would highly recommend NOT going with this company.

After submitting my name on a website to give me quotes from various transport companies, I was contacted by the company within a couple of days by E. He was quite the salesman: he gave me the spiel of how Mercury Auto Transport did door-to-door pickup, transport from Illinois to California would take 3-4 days, the virtues of his company compared to others in the business, and told to look at the company's stellar reviews online. I was originally told by him that picking up the car in Normal, IL would be no problem. I was also assured that length of time for transport to Mountain View, CA would be 3-4 days. A quote was given, I thought about it for a couple of days, and decided this would be the best company for my needs of a 3-to-4 day car transport across the country with a pick-up date about two weeks away.

Not so.

Pickup scheduled for Tuesday, August 17, 2010 turned into Saturday, August 21 instead. The carrier was not on time and pick-up was late. Because of the difficulty in finding a driver to pick up in Normal, now considered an "out of the way" pick-up spot, the price increased from $741 to $800. E explained that getting a driver to pick-up in Normal, IL ended up being more difficult than he expected, despite the fact he assured me this would be okay originally. The price change was because they, as a brokerage, had to go through ANOTHER company to find a driver for the pick-up. It also involved needing to get a new money order from the bank. Because I had already flown out to California to set up my new home, I had enlisted my father to be the point person for the pick-up. However, because of the late pick-up DAYS later and his plan to attend his once-in-a-lifetime 50th high school reunion out of town the day before the new pick-up date, we had to leave the key in a hidden spot for the driver to obtain. Not exactly my idea of a great handoff.

After conversations with the driver Stephan, he estimated drop off at 4PM on Wednesday, August 25 (yes, even LATER). This ended up being after 7PM because he was GIVEN THE WRONG CITY AND NO ZIP CODE for my new address by Mercury (it was correct on the original contract I was sent). Mind you, this is a well-established building that has been here for 30 years. He was basically set up to NOT deliver on time, which I find lazy on the part of Mercury Auto. After talking with Stephan on his cell phone and his diligence in reprogramming his GPS while en route, he did find the address.

The silver lining in all of this is that the driver, Stephan, was incredibly polite and helpful on the phone and at delivery. Overall, I would recommend going with another company with equally friendly drivers AND a sales pitch that encompasses timely delivery.

Company Response
Matthew Sandomir from Mercury Auto Transport Submitted this response.
Response Date: 9/19/2010 3:17:00 PM
Of course we always strive to do our best to find reliable auto carriers for all of our clients. We apologies to L as we should and would like to be anonymous. we are sorry the inconveniences this person had with their shipment being late and any of the miss-communication and/or errors on our part that could have added to this being an not so great experience. As for the price changing by $60 or so, that was simply a request the driver made as an offer to ship their vehicle. We simply display that offer and give our customers the choice to accept it or have us continue to look for carriers that would have the shipment be more convenient for them at a lower price. Our company makes the same rate for each shipment regardless of what a carrier asks for. We do make sure the customer gets a reputable carrier and in this case you can see by our clients own words that the carrier was polite, the car arrived clean, in one piece and no damage. So all in all it was simply picked up late and delivered late which isn’t great but is a common phenomenon in vehicle shipping and we do our best for that to happen as rarely as possible. Even though this person remained anonymous I would have liked to speak with him or her personally to apologies in person and thank them for helping us use their complaint as way to make our company stronger and better which this did. If anyone who reads this has any questions please don’t hesitate to call our management team and/or even call Eric Rezner 954-239-1780 ext. 23, who has tons of 5 star reviews from his customers (this is his first negative one in years) and he is willing to speak with you and have a conversation so you understand our values and principles which guide us to having happy customers, at least 95% of the time. Thank you for your time and attention in reading our response, Management