Long before Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott were signed up to give Academy Award worthy performances as two dolts who couldn’t find their car, my husband and I had the starring roles in this comedy. The movie story line was modified to attract a larger big screen audience, but the premise still remained the same, the story of two best buds desperately trying to find their missing cars. Which one of is Dude and which one is Sweet – you decide!! (Hint - maybe you’d better reserve judgment until the end).
Before I continue, let me say, this experience happened in September 1996, the account is as accurate as my memory because I am too lazy to unpack boxes looking for exact dates. I have no idea if this company is in business today. If they are I cannot speak about how they operate NOW, I can only talk about what happened THEN. They could be under new management and be run in a very reputable way (ha ha, oops sorry, it could be true).
Even if my accounting does not reflect the way they do business today, keep it in your mind as a warning and advice column for anyone you know planning to transport cars a long distance.
In July of ’96 we made a BIG decision – to move from Maryland to California. My hub got an awesome job offer and I wouldn’t have to work outside the home anymore. It was a hard decision to make and an even harder thing to execute. Hard because after going to Santa Cruz in early August, we only had four weeks to plan everything – get a mover, make arrangements, etc.
Harder yet, because remember that statement I made a few sentences ago about not working outside the home, well, that plan was quickly changed. Upon returning from my whirlwind trip to the west coast, I turned in my letter of resignation – my company wouldn’t accept it and devised this scheme to have me work at home – today they call it telecommuting, back then it was more like, let’s hope this works. Needless to say between organizing and gathering all the work I needed to take with me, I was maxed out.
Besides the hundreds of other decisions that we faced, one loomed large - how would we get our two cars to California? We were flying out there as we had three small children and a bunny and no desire or time to make the cross-country drive.
We interviewed many movers and each of them suggested an auto carrier who would give you a reduced price if you chose to use the mover and the car service. (It may not work the same way now). Eventually we chose Allied Movers and based on their recommendation went with All America.
There are others options like having the cars go on the moving van and that was expensive, plus we had so much stuff to move, that it wasn’t an option for us. Luckily for us the company was paying for the move, so we had a decent budget to work with.
We had moved locally in the past, but had no clue about car services and stupidly believed that if Allied was suggesting this place they had to be on the up and up. Ooops!
I admit it, I made the HUGE mistake of choosing this auto carrier to move my cars from Maryland to California and I swear they would have gotten there faster if I had pushed them across the country while they were in park.
Based on the moving estimate and car carrier price we would come in under the budget without a problem, but thanks to Allied and All America we went over budget by a few thousand dollars and that came out of our pockets (a cost we never anticipated or budgeted for).
Before we picked a mover, we called each transport company to get an estimate – the moving company estimator could only give us a ballpark estimate. For each, one thing was the same; the price was based on make and type of car, and distance of transport. Looking back, it definitely seems like a scam –lowball the moving estimate and up the transport fee – someone is helping the other one.
The first call is the worst, because I had no idea what to ask, by the last call I was getting the hang of what to ask, and began making second and third calls to the first ones on the list. Isn’t it amazing, how when they are trying to get a sale they can always answer the 800 number, but when they screw you and you have a PROBLEM, no one picks up the phone.
There are many variations and factors to consider when choosing a transport service – all did require half the money up front and then you could pay the other half by cash or certified check when the cars arrived. All said this was a non-refundable deposit (and now I know why – they screw you and don’t want to have to give back the money). Since all were asking for this half up front non-refundable deposit that didn’t affect our decision. All had about the same policy on inspections and how they weren’t responsible for lost (a nice way of saying stolen) items.
The way the services varied also impacted our decision. Some carriers would bring the huge open car carrier right to your street and load the truck, not a problem at my mom’s house her street could fit the carrier. We were concerned about the Santa Cruz end – we did live up a hill – not a steep “my house is gonna slide if it rains again” hill, but a hill nonetheless. We described the hill and how the cars would get to us if the truck couldn’t make it up the hill. Some companies said they would drive your car to meet the carrier – but didn’t reveal how far that drive would be and didn’t care to share driving records – they were out of the running fast. Yes, I’m going to all a complete stranger to drive my car an undisclosed number of miles.
We decided on Allied and All America. We paid the non-refundable deposit to All America and so began the fun.
Being the micro manager that I am had this move planned down to the last detail – can you say Franklin Time Manager. Our packers would come for two days, two days to load the truck and then a day to rest before we flew to San Jose. The cars were supposed to be picked up during the last three days we were in Maryland. We had a rental car for my husband and my mom lived near, so she dropped me off at my house each morning and waited at her house for the cars to be picked up.
The first four days of that week went fine (except for when my 1 year old son got stung by a bee for the first time and we realized he was allergic) – I had no car so mom had to come stay with the movers while I ran him to the doctor. Our belongings were packed and loaded on the moving van and it headed off to Santa Cruz, and yet no word from All America.
We knew we would get there before the stuff and cars, and would have to rent a minivan for about a week. (I stress the expected maximum rental time should have been and was budgeted for one week).
Our last day came and we sat around my mom's house saying our goodbyes and waiting for the car carrier to show up. Our four-hour window came and went and so began our nightmare. They were supposed to call to let us know they were on their way – they had my mom’s number, my old number, my new number and the number at the hotel in Santa Cruz. They could have always gotten in touch someone.
Always keep in mind why we didn’t cancel and switch carriers, they already had half our money as a non-refundable deposit so even if we decided to ditch them and find a new carrier at the last minute we would have been out $750.00. We started calling the 800-number and got no answer. They never called us to say they would be late.
Finally we got in touch with someone who told us that the carrier had a problem and they would be ONE day late. Well lucky for us we had relatives who could keep the cars at their house for one day and hand the keys to the driver. Since we had a flight the next day we would have had to reschedule it and pay the fee to change flights.
Of course had we delayed the flight one day we still would have been hosed, as the All America truck did not show up for one week after the scheduled date. My poor parents had the burden of having to sit around their house 24/7 in hopes that the carrier would show up. Again you wonder why use them if they don't show up? Just always keep in mind that big non-refundable deposit.
Now even my seven year old can do this math - if the carrier is one week late picking up the car and has a week long drive to get the car from point A to point B, how long will mom and dad have to rent and use that very expensive minivan? Not the week they planned on but at least two weeks.
So just about two weeks in my minivan rental I begin to get calls from All America - at least they had the "decency" to call.
The first set of lies revolved around a broken belt and the car carrier needing to be fixed before it could continue to California, they claimed it was in Tennessee. Now if this was such a professional company shouldn't they have a back up carrier that could go get my car from their "broken" truck and bring it to me? After all it's not my fault about the belt breaking and we did sign a contract with a delivery date.
It was amazing that this truck took about a week to get fixed, so I'm still renting that expensive minivan and having to drive my hubby to and from work each day because we only have one auto. Then I get a call about severe storms that have caused the truck to have to drive slowly and delay my delivery even further. Funny thing is these severe storms were never reported on the news or weather channel.
To put an end to this saga, my cars arrived almost one month later with no apology from the company and no offer to reduce the delivery charge. In fact we were threatened that if we withheld the remainder the contract price due to our unhappiness with the delay in getting our car, they would impound the cars until we handed over the money.
So is there anything else to add? Yes, my cars arrived filthy, just about anything that wasn't nailed down was missing (or should I say STOLEN) - things as petty as an ice scraper, a tire iron, box of tissues, and loose change were all taken out of each car. They also stole items locked in a trunk (a boom box and other electronic items that missed the moving van and had to get to our house). They had no reason to open the trunk and of course claimed that they don't ensure the safety of any item left locked in the car - why not just say "ALL OUR DRIVER'S OUR THIEVES."
My husband's air conditioning unit was in perfect working order before we left but was completely dead after it got there and I don't think it could have just died if it sat untouched on the car carrier.
This was the worst experience we had with our move. We paid an extra thousand dollars to rent the minivan for one month and All America offered no reimbursement on top of demanding their fee for getting the cars to us one month late.
Want to know the really funny part of this? As soon as my wagon got there and was detailed, we traded it in and bought a minivan. Not because I was dying to become a soccer mom, but because between the time I left Maryland and got to Santa Cruz, I found out I was 2 ½ months pregnant. My car wouldn’t fit all my kids so I had to get a new one. Had I taken a pregnancy test in Maryland, we could have saved half the hassle, sold the wagon in Maryland and bought the van as soon as we got to Santa Cruz and avoided part of this expensive nightmare.
I'm sure there are reputable companies out there - do your homework and always ask questions about what will happen if the car doesn't get there or get picked up on time - we didn't because we had no reason to believe this wouldn't be anything but smooth. We learned the hard way and you can use our story to help you make a better choice than we did.
Review from Epinions.com
