My experience with Cascade was average to slightly below average.
I will say this - the car got where it needed to be, but the whole process could have been smoother. Malia was nice and tried to be helpful, however, I believe the Cascade "system" and broker/driver relationship is simply not ideal. I'd prefer to work with a broker that had a better line of communication with the drivers.
Some key points - positive, critical and indifferent:
1) My initial quote had several incorrect pieces of information on it. Even after two emails, the quote still didn't have the right information on it.
2) I was asked for my Drivers License number for a $245 charge preauthorization to my credit card. This is a little intrusive. I declined. Cascade ultimately was good with an email allowing a pre-authorization. Again, not a huge deal, but why would they need a drivers license number, as a Drivers license is not a prerequisite to use a credit card or ship a car....Just make it easy on me and charge my card...
3) On the day of the pickup I received a voicemail frm Malia at about 12:30 PM saying the driver was on his way to pick the car up. You may interpret this differently, but to me, this meant I needed to go meet the driver at my house. I left work. At 2:30, the driver wasn't there. My wife goes home to wait. At 3:45 - no driver. I finally get in touch with the driver via Cascade and he says he'll be there at 5:30 PM...It all worked out in the end, but the communication was poor. Give me a time and I will be there - it's that simple. We don't have any traffic. If you are 2 hours in any direction from my house and your GPS tells you that you are 2 hours away, you will get to my house in 2 hours....Now I'm making up those two hours due to poor communication.
4) The driver was not prepared to give us a receipt. I had to make a photocopy of his paperwork. What if we didn't have a copier?? Would we not have gotten a receipt? I believe Cascade should have made it very clear to the carrier that we expected a receipt when the car was picked up. Wouldn't you?
5) The driver left on Thursday and said the car would arrive the following Thursday. The car showed up Monday night. The driver called me when I wasn't available. One week prior, I specifically emailed Malia and said the receiver contact information was incorrect. It was never communicated to the driver. I was not the receiver, so I couldn't coodinate delivery. The driver was angry that he couldn't get in touch with anyone. He had the wrong contact information b/c it was never corrected despite me emailing Cascade and letting them know it was wrong. Again, I'm not rating the driver, but Cascade never communicated the correct information.
6) The driver tried to overcharge the recipient upon delivery by $75. Is this Cascade's fault? I'm not sure. But I think if Cascade had followed up with the driver en route and confirmed delivery time, delivery contact information, and delivery price with both the driver and receiver, this would not have been a problem.
7) Cascade set me up with a carrier that was hard to communicate with. I won't go into all of the details of this, as I'll rate the driver elsewhere, however, I wish Cascade would have set me up with a carrier that communicated better.
8) Almost every time I called, I was put on hold.
In the end, the system of broker and driver is flawed, as each group has a distinct task and set of responsibilities. Unfortunately, there is overlap in reality, and this overlab requires communication for the customer to be satisfied. However, if my communication is solely with Cascade on organizing the entire process, I want Cascade to offer customer service throughout the process. Just because a car made it on a truck, does not mean that customer service ends there. I expect Cascade to provide communication and accurate information throughout the process. It wasn't excellent in my case, but the car arrived...
