Ship A Car, Inc. Reviews

The Ford went smooth. The biggest challenge as a broker Ship A Car, Inc. face are the carriers themselves. They set a bar that was very high. The driver executed flawlessly everything, took his shoes off when he got in the thing to get it off the trailer. And everything done correctly. He communicated the entire time. I knew based on the pictures that he sent me that mine was on the tail. I agreed to meet him in the area where he would make the first stop. It wasn't that far from where we were. But just to avoid taking a vehicle off and putting it back on, because that's the highest risk that one would have transporting a vehicle. And he was more than happy to oblige that. It was a fantastic experience.

But the challenge that all the brokers have is that the hotshot industry, as it's known, that their guys with pickups that do carrier work are the amount of drivers in the industry that do not speak English. So, they rely on the occasional text message because they can translate the writing. But it's also why they don't call. I had zero comms with the driver. The carriers list the office number for the driver's phone number, and that's what they give the broker. And the broker can only repeat the lies they're told. But I had zero comms on the Ford.

And the worst part about the Ford was they were scheduled for a midnight delivery because that was when they told us they would be in. I've got an overnight sleep that I deal with, but being in the industry, I recognize the fact that if you' would be here at midnight, I would get it off your hand. I would free you up, get refueled in by 10:00 a.m. You can go wherever you need to go. You don't have to deal with me in the morning. I stayed at the arranged delivery point for two and a half hours until 2:30 in the morning. But no call, no show. No one answered phone calls at midnight. No one answered phone calls at 2:30 in the morning. And all of a sudden, at 8:30 in the morning, I got a call back from the carrier. Not the broker. The broker had been in contact with me already. We talked that night before.

My representative at the broker has been fabulous. And I’d do business with her again in a heartbeat. But the carrier called me and said, “He's ready to deliver. He'll be there at 8:30.” That's not how this works in the middle of the week. They had a 12 o'clock appointment with me. No call, no show. They expect me to drop everything that I'm doing. I've got things I do during the day and they don't involve taking delivery of an automobile.

So, we had to have a little come-to-Jesus on that. I said, “I'll be there when I get there sometime this morning. And I'll let you know when that is as soon as I can figure it out.” But no. The dispatcher got it, but it drove me nuts because I predicted it. I told the broker, “The odds of them being here, slim to none. I guarantee that they'll be ready to go somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning.” And lo and behold, that was when it was. And it was because the driver didn't have enough hours before he had to have to do a 10-hour reset. I knew that, and the carrier knew that.

We had an agreed upon price with the broker, but the carrier wanted an extra 50 bucks. But the catch was they could pick up and deliver same day. That's where the midnight thing came into play. So, for an extra 50, we would get it same day. I can work with that. So, I paid to have that service that I didn't receive. If I short the carrier, I gotta deal with all that nonsense. And the only person that gets penalized is the driver.

The carrier would tell the broker and customer, “We can deliver same day. We can do this for this amount of money.” Because the money is with the negotiation, you're negotiating the money in exchange for the service. So, they would pump up the service to be as fantastic as it could possibly be because they want to pump up the rate they need to. That was the experience with the Ford. I let the broker know. And the broker put the carrier on the black list so no one else would experience it and move on.

All you gotta do is communicate. When it comes to automobiles, people are just happy to get their car. As long as there's no other issue with the automobile, they don't give a lot of feedback. It's why certain carriers continue to get business when they shouldn't, because no one's willing to take the 5, 10, 15 minutes to explain exactly what happened to walk somebody through it start to finish. Because they got their car. They didn't screw it up. It might have been late by a day or two. It may have been dirty. “There was a miscommunication and we put it on an open carrier instead of an enclosed carrier. We apologize.” There's no miscommunication on something like that.

With the carrier, you know where your equipment is. You know what equipment's where. That's your responsibility. You have to remember the carrier can say and claim anything. There's always issues. “The driver ran into traffic. Driver ran into the weather. Driver ran into this and that.” Reality is driver ran out of hours or driver overslept, 9 times out of 10. Hate to break it to everybody. Dirty little secret of our industry again. I got no problem with the driver oversleeping because I don't want a driver out there who's fatigued. They're transporting it along with others, but they could kill somebody. I'm not worried so much about my vehicle as much as I am worried about the consequence. I deal with this on a daily basis.

But the broker can only repeat the lies they're told. So, if the carrier told the broker, “There was a heavy track. There was this, that or the other,” the broker has zero visibility on the asset. They don't have access to their ELD or GPS systems or anything else that we put in commercial vehicles. So, they can only repeat it. And if the carrier refuses to engage with the customer in a timely and meaningful manner, the customer is left in the dark with zero recourse until the thing arrives because the carrier holds all the cards. They have all the information and your asset, so you are at their mercy no different than the broker. However, communication is key.

Ship A Car, Inc.'s rep is the queen of communication. She did everything she could as a broker. But since I understand the industry, I know Ship A Car’s just the broker. They have very little control. The control they have is the selection of their brokers, of the people they broker out the work to. But Christina’s communication was fantastic throughout. I could call her up and she would know exactly who she was talking to.

We had very good conversations. Plenty of emails. When the issue came up with the black Mercedes, she immediately sent over all of the carriers’ cards for both cargo and auto insurance, because if the cargo insurance claim got denied, we would have to run it through the liability part of their auto policy to get it covered. I notified her around noon. And by 2 o'clock that afternoon, I had everything I needed from her end as far as the certificate of insurance go on that period. She did everything that she could within her power to be considered reasonable.

I lived in a gated community and I explained this to the agency that they connected with, which they gave me the number a day or two before the car was shipped. They had a company, they said, but it seemed to me that it was an independent driver out of Miami. He was very nice. He didn't speak English. So, I told his dispatcher that I lived in a gated community. I told them where to park their car, and that when they notified me they were there, I would bring the car out through the gate. That didn't happen.

Somehow, this non-English speaking individual got through the gate with his truck. He charmed the guards and came through. It was a little unsettling to see him coming with this big truck, but they permitted it. They let him in. I think he was the only transporter ever to get in, so he must have been courteous or spoke their language.

There was a minor issue that the people that received my car did not notice it. I didn't call them because I was so happy with everything else they did for me. I would not complain about something so petty. They came on time. They delivered the car. As a matter of fact, it was a little bit earlier than they said. So, I was very pleased with my experience.

I was very satisfied with the experience but the latest one that's coming up, they dropped the ball on it by accident. I bought a truck down in Marco Island and got the shipper to confirm and got them all their stuff. They must have given him the wrong bid, so the shipper went to get it this morning, and they wouldn't release it. They took off. Ship A Car called me because the guy left and went to his next pickup instead of calling, which he should have done. They could have taken 5 minutes and figured it out. So, I'm a little disappointed in the shipper that they subcontracted with. I've got a date of tomorrow as the latest that I can get this truck to the dealer or I lose $25,000. I'm a little bit anxious right now. Other than that, the guy I work with all the time on all my shipping is working really hard. So hopefully, we'll get it done or I'll owe a lot of money.

I did put the deal together and the car got picked up and delivered here to Milwaukee. But the car that I got was a piece of junk. I fought with the dealer for a few days and they agreed to take it back. I called Jonathan again and he immediately said that he has a driver in the area. He said he'd contact me. I wanted to get the car back to the dealer right away and Jonathan called me back about 20 minutes later. He said the driver that delivered the car was in Milwaukee. He asked how soon is the car ready and I told him I could get to the pickup in about an hour. He was right on top of it and took marvelous care of me. He kept me apprised of everything, including the driver situation. We got the car shipped back and I had a follow-up email from him letting me know that the car had been delivered. Jonathan is amazing. I wish when I had my business, I had five or six guys like that.