Never arranged transport and refused to give refund
Felicia Branch
Submitted this review about
1 All Aboard Auto Transport
Review made Live: 1/10/2011 1:28:00 PM
This is an update and a response to Fletcher from Marino Green's wife. That's DR. Green, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Microbiology. As Marino said to Fletcher, feel free to google both of us. With that said, let me proceed to provide a review.
Yes, I am an attorney. I wish I had been in on the conversations and knew that he was requesting a deposit UP FRONT. I would have never agreed to that.
First, WE DID NOT SOLICIT A QUOTE JUST FROM ALL ABOARD. We have had a car transported before. We went through ONE site and that site sent our phone number and Marino's email address to ALL TRANSPORTERS WHO WERE SIGNED UP FOR NOTIFICATION. We did not go through his website at all.
Every other transporter knew EXACTLY WHERE THE CAR WAS. Fletcher wanted to be the lowest price and he initially thought we wanted the car shipped from Ocean View, DE to Durham, DE. According to Fletcher, he drives a truck as well as provides broker services. That much is true - he does drive a truck (I googled him after he refused to provide a refund). YET, he has NO idea that that there is NO SUCH PLACE as Durham, DE.
All Aboard wasn't even the lowest quote we got. But Marino spoke with him on the phone and he was nice, jovial, and very personable. If it weren't for this issue with wanting to get paid for providing NO services, I would say, according to Marino, that he has good customer service skills. HOWEVER, he had NO idea what he was getting himself into because he had the location wrong.
He then sent a REVISED QUOTE that had the car being shipped to the correct location. If All Aboard couldn't do it for the price quoted, then HE SHOULD HAVE NEVER TAKEN THE DEPOSIT. If All Aboard knew that a driver would not WANT to pick up the car for $200, he should have NEVER TAKEN THE DEPOSIT. But he did because he was relying on the fact that his terms and agreement which state that he would refund only HALF (which is $75) would actually pass muster. What he wasn't counting on was the fact that the other half to Marino is an attorney who assists small businesses with making SURE that their contracts enforceable. I asked Marino to relay to Fletcher that he needs to get an attorney to look over the terms and agreement and Fletcher admitted that he wrote it himself. As he said in his response to the first review - don't try to do something that you have no idea how to do.
Marino got COUNTLESS emails from transporters wanting to ship the car. We got MULTIPLE phone calls regarding picking up the car AFTER we had already contracted with All Aboard. Every single call got this response: We have already arranged shipping. EVERY call. What I did learn because one shipper REFUSED TO LET ME OFF THE PHONE (I couldn't be rude and hang up while she was talking) is that she didn't think that any driver would be willing to pick up the car that far off I-95 for $200. What this OTHER transporter could see was that Fletcher had posted the request for pick-up and the amount that would be paid the driver.
All Aboard was the first to call because unlike other brokers, he apparently, works through Christmas which is admirable. As they say . . . the early bird gets the worm. That is the ONLY reason we went with him. Because both of us have VERY FLEXIBLE schedules, we didn't want to pay an exorbitant amount because we could just as easily gotten a flight to Ocean View and driven the car to NC for a lot less.
But as soon as Marino got off the phone and he told me that he had given a deposit, my radar went off. And sirens started blaring when the other transporter called and wouldn't let me hang up.
The only threat we gave were the threats that you see in Marino's review. And I did tell Marino to inform Fletcher that I WOULD SUE HIM for the full refund because he did NOT provide ANY promised services: arranging for a driver to pick up this car. That's it in a nutshell.
If you don't provide services, you shouldn't get paid. It's as simple as that.
And for the record, when you do a search on BBB.org by inputting All Aboard's website name, only one thing comes up. HOWEVER, when you do search by it's name, TWO with the same address come up. One has an A+ rating and the other has a B- rating - yet it is the SAME COMPANY. So Fletcher provides misleading information. I'll make sure that I inform the BBB to combine the two separate entries to give a better overall picture.
I did NOT file the BBB complaint on the one with the B- rating because that one already shows a complaint being filed. I made SURE to file the complaint on the one with the A+ rating because Fletcher has BBB on his website though his company is NOT accredited by the BBB. Again, providing misleading information. I'm sure he does NOT have permission to use the BBB's trademark on his site since he is NOT a member of the BBB. Being a member of the BBB means that you will follow the terms of the dispute resolution that the BBB requires. NOT BEING A member means that Fletcher can do whatever he wants. Of course that means that if the resolution is not reached, his grade on the BBB will reflect that.
I guess "hounding" means calling to make sure that Fletcher lived up to HIS side of the agreement to provide EXPEDITED service. Expedited service was pick-up within 1-3 days. Expedited service meant that we should have gotten a phone call at LEAST on the date of pick-up that someone was picking up the car. I guess "hounding" means calling AFTER the pick-up date had gone by without a call.
It's not that we don't want to pay the "prevailing rate." The rate that we were quoted was the rate that we expected to pay. If that wasn't the prevailing rate, then Fletcher should NEVER have SENT that quote. The order was placed AFTER the revised quote was sent. If the prevailing rate was higher, Fletcher should have never sent a quote for $350 UNLESS he was willing to give up a portion of HIS fee.
Being a broker isn't hard work. There is nothing to it when you're in the business. YET, Fletcher's broker fee is DOUBLE other reputable companies. We have DOZENS of quotes to prove that. It is certainly DOUBLE the broker fee we paid for the first car we had shipped to us. And just further for the record, we paid MORE to have that car shipped so it's NOT about our not wanting to pay prevailing rate.
Again, the timeline was EXPEDITED service.
Order placed on 12/26. Pickup within 1-3 days by 12/29/2010.
Obviously we're down to the second level of service once that date has passed. Down to STANDARD service which was pickup within 1-7 days. HOWEVER, that is NOT what we CONTRACTED FOR. This level of service was quoted as $60 cheaper. So if the driver was going to be getting $200 (a driver certainly wasn't going to pick up the car for $140), then Fletcher's fee should have been decreased by $60 - warranting a refund of at least $60. That was NOT offered. Instead, Fletcher offered to INCREASE the driver's portion. That would have been fine. I would have been okay with that - if Fletcher was decreasing HIS fee and refunding it to us so that we could pay the driver.
Again, as far as I see it, he should have refunded AT LEAST $60 IMMEDIATELY to make that happen as we were already outside of the contracted service level. I can tell you that I was INCENSED that Marino agreed to increase it on OUR side. If you can't live up to your end of the agreement, then you should bow out and make the appropriate remedy - COMPLETE REFUND.
Fletcher can only see his point of view, and I'm thinking about it logically and according to HIS terms and agreement which state: All Aboard doesn't expect to get paid if we don't provide broker service. What is broker service - arranging for a driver within the allotted time. No service within that time - no payment.
It really is that simple.
