Company Response Review Report Review
Magic Carpet Auto Transport

Brian Submitted this review about Magic Carpet Auto Transport
Review made Live: 8/27/2011 3:37:00 PM
I have never written a review on anything, but am writing this one because I am getting reimbursed by the broker for posting a rating. In order to post the rating, I must also write a review that is at least 200 words in length - thus, the motivation for the following review.

I gave Magic Carpet Auto Transport a 5 star rating herein because for a broker they probably are a 5 star rated company. The 5 star rating indicates that I would use them again and this is true to a degree. If I were to use a broker again, I would most likely use Magic Carpet Auto Transport again; however, this begs the question of whether I would use a broker again.

Given my experience with the shipment of my car, I would most likely not use a broker again. The reason is that a broker does not have control of the trucking company that actually picks up and delivers the car. A broker’s quote is just a wishful estimate as to what the broker thinks the going rate will be to entice a trucking company to take the job. In this case, I had to pay around $300 more than what the broker quoted me because it was going into the second week and there still was no response from any of the trucking companies to the initial quote that I was told it would cost to ship.

The broker also does not have control over the delivery schedule or the behavior of the dispatcher of the trucking company or the actual truck drivers. In the case of the shipment of my car, I called the dispatcher of the trucking company several times requesting that they call me back to let me know the arrival time and to let them know my availability to receive the car since I had paid for door to door delivery. The dispatcher of the trucking company never returned any of my calls.

For instance, I called the dispatcher of the trucking company on the Monday prior to the Monday that the car was supposed to be delivered. I also called a few times that same week all with no answer or return of my phone calls. I then called the dispatcher of the trucking company on the Friday morning of that week with again no answer so I left a message to let them know that I would not be available in the afternoon or evening of that Friday, but would be available on Saturday and Monday, which I did not think would be a problem since the arrival date was supposed to be the following Monday. I never did receive any phone calls back from the dispatcher of the trucking company.

The only phone call I did receive was from the trucker at 3 pm Friday afternoon asking me if I was going to be available at my house in a half hour. Since I had already left the message for the dispatcher of the trucking company that morning that I was not going to be available and since the delivery was 3 days sooner than the scheduled delivery with a mere 30 minute warning and since I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on I-5 going about 5 miles per hour a good hour away from the house and heading in the opposite direction of the house to attend a wedding that night that was 120 miles from the house, I did not feel out of place in informing the truck driver that I could not make it to the house in 30 minutes.

The solution was not the ideal, but worked out to a degree. The solution was to drop the car off at a “yard.” I was never told where the “yard” was but I suspect that it was someone’s driveway. The first proposal was for someone associated with the trucking company to drive the car to my house the next day. This was unacceptable to me since the “yard” was almost an hour away and I did not want to risk the chance of the vehicle getting in an accident. So I scheduled with the “driver” to pick up the car at the “yard” on that Saturday at 1 pm.

The “yard” turned out to be a convenience store parking lot. A problem developed with this scheduling since the 1 pm Saturday pickup time slipped to 2 pm and with a few more slips in the schedule I ended up picking up the car nearly at 7 pm. Since the car was nearly an hour a way it greatly interfered with other plans. I had planned to go into my office in the afternoon to catch up on some work but never made it in since I had to wait around for the next time I was going to leave to pick up the car. The “driver” had a phone messaging service with a greeting that my call was very important but when it came time to leave a message I was informed that the phone mailbox was full so the “driver” was almost as hard to reach as the dispatcher had been thus the pickup of the car was a big hassle and wasted a good portion of my Saturday.

The broker was apologetic and all that, but really was at a loss in doing anything at the time since the delivery was out of their hands once the trucking company was selected. I asked the broker whether they had used the particular trucking company before. The lady at the broker company looked up the records on the computer and informed me with somewhat surprise that the broker had used the particular trucking company on many occasions.

I had subsequent discussions with the broker about the trucking company after the vehicle was delivered to let them know how displeased I was with the unprofessionalism of the trucking company. They informed me that I had not been the only one that had had this sort of experience with the trucking company and just the prior week, the management of the broker had informed the management of the trucking company that the broker would no longer use the trucking company if the trucking company did not reform their unprofessional behavior.

So my car arrived safely and in good shape, but I wasted time and experienced a less than stellar behavior from the trucking company that delivered the car. The broker still gets 5 stars given that the broker can only do so much. So if I have to do it again, I most likely will not go with a broker. Instead I will go with a fully integrated carrier that owns their own trucks and I only have one set of cooks in the kitchen to deal with.

When I was shopping for a delivery company, one broker, that was not the broker I ended up using, informed me on the phone that there were only brokers to look for and so this website was the place to find the best broker. In my research afterward I discovered that there are also fully integrated delivery companies in addition to the brokers and at least one of these companies has been around for 60 years or more delivering cars for folks like me so must be doing something right.
Shipment Details
Origin State:
South Carolina
Pickup:
Late
Destination State:
Washington
Delivery:
Early
Customer Service
Honesty:
Knowlegeable:
Promptness:
Customer Service:
Review Details
Quote or Order Id:
1514773
Quote or Order Cost:
$1681

Company Response
Terry Williams from Magic Carpet Auto Transport Submitted this response.
Response Date: 8/31/2011 1:45:00 AM
Thanks very much, Brian, for the 5 star review. I'm glad you were over-all happy with the end results of your transport. I understand your claims about using brokers vs carriers, but want to add that either way you choose, the auto shipping industry is simply not an exact science. It was my pleasure working with you and I really do hope you reconsider using me...a broker if you need transport service in the future. sue@magiccarpetautotransport.com 503-882-4996