Terrible Company to hire for Auto Transport

Rachel Submitted this review about United Freight Of America
Review made Live: 9/30/2010 11:04:00 PM
United Freight of America (UFA)– Do NOT use them!
They seemed nice enough and were confident about transporting my cars; but they are a BROKER – Do NOT use a broker if you can help it.
Take Away: Brokers DO NOT own the trucks and have no control over the transport.

UFA lured me in with a low price and said that if I gave them a $350 deposit immediately that I could “lock in” that rate. I paid them the $350 in June for my Maryland to Texas move in early September. UFA promised to call if the rates changed or any issues arose before my move, although I never heard from them in the months leading up to my move.
As the scheduled pick-up date approached, I began to get nervous since I had not heard from them. UFA did a VERY poor job scheduling a truck driver to pick up both of my cars. I literally called continuously the week prior to my move, which was very stressful.
Only a day before my flight left, they admitted that the $350 deposit they took was really just for their “services” and it was the remaining $900 that would be used to pay the drivers that transported my two cars. Since they quoted me such a low price and had me pay to “lock it in,” no truck drivers would pick up our cars. I was getting desperate so I agreed to pay an additional $300 in order to get them picked up. They knew I was desperate and they seized the opportunity to get more money.

Finally someone picked up the cars AFTER I had already left for the airport, even though they were supposed to come beforehand.
UFA set me up with “Global Business Management Corp” who was TERRIBLE. They operate out of Ashburn, VA.
Take Away: Even after a broker sets you up with someone – find reviews of THAT company as well.
I agreed to pay the extra money to have my cars picked up the Friday before Labor Day weekend with their assurance they would be delivered by the following Tuesday. I received a call from the driver who told me their truck broke down in Alabama. The part that was broke would take 5-7 days to fix. Long story short, they abandoned the truck in Alabama to get the part fixed back in Baltimore. The broker (UFA) assured me that our cars would be off loaded and secured in a lot and not on the side of the highway somewhere. It wasn’t until after our cars arrived 11 days later that we were told by the truck driver that if the truck is broken, the cars can’t be off loaded. Throughout the process the broker (UFA) told me several lies in an attempt to appease me.

Finally, 2 weeks after the original delivery date, I got my cars. One of them was delivered with a broken side mirror hanging off the side of the car. When I asked about it – the driver showed me some falsified paperwork from the other truck driver that said the mirror was broken when he picked it up. It wasn’t! In fact, the name of the man who filled out the paper wasn’t even the man who picked up the cars. My family inspected the cars with the driver who actually did pick them up and there was no such damage. Furthermore, I found grease on both the driver and passenger seats and doors, cigarette burns in the upholstery (I have never smoked), coffee and soda spills, chocolate on the seats, empty soda cans and paper towels on the floor. One of the AC vents in the dashboard was also broken, a brand new tire was completely flat, the battery was disconnected and a hub cap had been pried off and improperly shoved back onto the wheel. One of my cars had about 500 extra miles on it; but I never documented the pre-transport miles so I can’t prove it. I was told over and over that the cars never left the truck and that no one was in them except for the 15 seconds it takes to load/unload them. Obviously this is completely false and the company did all they could to deceive me. I honestly believe the drivers were sleeping in my cars. I also found scraps of paper with notes and phone numbers on it that the drivers had left in one of the cars.

I will NEVER allow a company to take my car across country again. They were completely abused. I had to argue vehemently with driver and his boss via cell phone for 1 ½ hours before they would consider reducing their price at all.

Never do business with either of these companies.