Reasonable price, but miscommunications caused issues
Seth
Submitted this review about
Domestic Auto Transport
Review made Live: 11/6/2009 4:58:00 PM
Overall, the service provided was relatively inexpensive, but hassles and miscommunications along the way provided some frustrations that impact my rating for the company. I was told by Casi at Domestic Auto Transport that my car would be picked up within 3 days of my "ready date" and that after that, my car should be delivered across the country within 10 days of it being picked up. Right off the bat, problems occurred. 3 days after my ready date, the car was still sitting in my driveway. I called and spoke to Casi and she told me something along the lines of "Oh, yeah, I'll call right now and try to get someone to schedule it being picked up within the next few days." What? What the heck is the point of the ready date if you're only going to start scheduling a pick-up 3 days after my READY DATE? And I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't called? Would the pickup have been delayed even longer? This is when I realized I'd have to be calling on a regular basis to ensure 1.) my car would be picked up at all 2.) I'd receive updates as to the status of where my car was in the country and 3.) my car would be delivered on a reasonable date after pickup. Luckily, there was a carrier that was able to pick up my car 2 days after I called the first time (with numerous subsequent calls), although the pickup didn't happen until after 9pm at night. I shipped the car from Massachusetts to California, so I assumed the travel time would be somewhat long. Casi told me it would be delivered anywhere from 7 to 10 days after pickup. I received an email when the car was picked up stating the car would be delivered 7 days after pickup. I'm not sure why Casi on the phone tells me 7 to 10 days but the email confirmation claims the fastest of the two estimates. Regardless, I do the drive from MA to CA myself on a leisurely road trip and it took me 8 days, including going out of my way up to Seattle and stopping along the way a few times. So I figured the 7 day estimate shouldn't be too tough to meet, but I wouldn't be too upset if it went 10 considering it is a large truck as opposed to my car. When I got to my destination in California, I called Domestic to get a status update on where my car was, and I was told it was stuck in Wyoming due to bad weather, but that the delivery date was still on schedule. This first update was 5 days after initial pickup. I called again the next day (the day before the scheduled delivery date) and Casi told me the car was still on schedule, then told me she'd call the carrier to check on the car and that she'd call me back. I never heard back that day, so I called the morning of the next day. I was then informed by Elizabeth that Casi had been let go from Domestic Auto Transport and she would be helping me with my delivery going forward. She called the carrier and later that day informed me the truck was still stuck in Wyoming in bad weather. She also gave me the number for the driver and told me I should call and try to get an update myself to hear it "from the horses mouth". I appreciated that, as most companies would rather be the middle man the entire way instead of letting the customer deal with the carrier. Well, my numerous calls to the driver went unanswered and unreturned after voicemails. So after more days of waiting and calling to get a status, I finally heard from the driver on the morning of the 12th day after pickup telling me he would be delivering my car in a couple hours. I was relieved, but still pretty annoyed that there was never any communication with the driver throughout the whole ordeal. I come to soon learn from the driver himself, that the number for the "driver" I was calling was actually a different truck and that if he had heard from me, he would have called me right away. He also claimed that he had spoken to someone at Domestic Auto numerous times with status updates and never once did they tell him that one of his cars' owners was interested in speaking with him. This was frustrating, especially because the driver was very nice and I didn't want to take out my anger on him.
So in conclusion, this business transaction was far from flawless. If I were to do it again, and I didn't have a strict schedule to meet, I'd still consider Domestic Auto Transport mostly because they gave me the best rate estimate out of any companies I looked at. But I would definitely not expect my car to be delivered on whatever timetable they gave as they are very aggressive with those dates. And from DAY 1 I would be much more involved in the process instead of being so naive in thinking that it would all get taken care of without a problem. All in all, the customer service from Casi was pretty awful, and she was let go from the company for good reason in my opinion. I actually spoke with Mike, the owner and he reiterated that Casi was not doing a good job for them and the service she provided is not the normal service given by other customer service agents at Domestic. The customer service from Elizabeth was decent as she tried to help me in my situation as best she could, but since Casi had begun the process, Elizabeth was at a disadvantage right off the bat. Without the miscommunications that occurred I would have been happier with the whole deal, even if the car had been delivered late.
Also something to note that I was unaware of when I was checking reviews on transportreview.com: a rebate is given to most people who leave reviews on this site. The review does not necessarily have to be positive in order to receive the rebate, but the review does need to be completed in order to qualify. I based my decision to go with Domestic Auto Transport on the fact that they had a number of positive reviews on this site, not realizing that most people gave reviews in order to get a monetary return. Maybe there's a place that notes this on other reviews and I missed it, but I think to be fair, that aspect should be noted to others.
