Turning your valuable vehicle over to an unknown company for a long distance move is an uneasy proposition. Here’s what happened to me. I contracted with Allegiance Auto ($195 deposit paid Dec 9, contract completed Dec 10) to pick up my vehicle on Dec 14, or within 14 business days thereafter. At first I received daily voicemails saying “we’re working out the details of your order with a couple of shippers.”
By the second week, the “courtesy calls” turned into excuses about winter conditions and the “remote” location. Apparently the transportation professionals at Allegiance Auto consider 36 miles from an interstate via US Highway to be remote. I’d have been happy to get my vehicle moved to the interstate if they’d asked (even though their sales department emphasized their “door to door” service). Of course they clearly knew the season and the exact location before they bid.
On 12/24, I sent an email, following up by phone, advising that I was dissatisfied with Allegiance Auto’s inability to move my vehicle and offering to release them from the contract with no hard feelings if they weren’t going to be able to perform. Allegiance Auto declined this offer and reaffirmed their intent to move my vehicle before the 14 business days ran out, which would have been approx Jan 4.
Finally on Jan 11, after dozens of phone calls over the course of four weeks, a young lady called to say that they had a carrier to pick up my vehicle that day, but it would cost me an extra $100 because “the trucker needed more money due to the distance.” Again, distance is a factor they knew before bidding. I told her we had a deal at the price Allegiance Auto had bid on, and I expected them to honor the deal, even if it meant taking a loss. She said that their company policy prohibited them from taking a loss, and unless I was willing to pay more, my vehicle would be further delayed. She added that as a broker, they have responsibility to present all offers, as though they were doing me a favor trying to squeeze more money from me after a competitive bidding process.
A few hours later I got a call from a second representative of Allegiance Auto with another attempt to get me to pay more. He said that after a 30 day search the only trucker Allegiance Auto had found to move my vehicle required an additional $200, and Allegiance (the company that five hours earlier had a policy not to take any losses) was going to pick up $100 of this. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book – enter into a contract, introduce a “straw man” at the final hour and offer to split the difference. This tactic targets consumers who lack negotiating experience and figure that when an issue arises, meeting in the middle is the fair thing to do. I firmly told the gentleman to ship my vehicle at the contracted price or refund my deposit and cancel the order (as we were now well past the 14 days). He gave me no decision and I never heard from him again.
With no further contact from Allegiance Auto, my vehicle was picked up five hours later at the originally contracted price. So either the trucker suddenly didn’t need an extra $200 after all, or the line about not taking a loss was just another negotiating tactic (I suspect both are true).
I have been negotiating on the phone on behalf of my primary business for 25 years. I have also been buying and selling motor vehicles and other items online nationwide for over ten years. This vehicle purchase was off of eBay, where I have a positive feedback rating of over 320 (100% positive feedback as a buyer, also 100% positive as a seller) dating to Dec 2000. I do not recommend doing business with Allegiance Auto unless you have a similar amount of experience in buying, selling and negotiating, and you don’t mind repeated last minute phone calls demanding more money while your vehicle is effectively held hostage. If they screwed up and underbid the job, that’s their loss, not mine. I had two or three other bids at very nearly the same price, so I didn’t buy the argument that they had underbid.
I will continue buying, selling and moving vehicles from coast to coast, but I’m all done with Allegiance Auto. I don’t blame the young lady who told me day after day for four weeks that her employer was “working out the details of my order” with truckers or offering transparent excuses. She did what she was paid to do. But the manager who called back later and spent over eight minutes badgering me for more money was over the top; I had to tell him no three times before he finally gave up. Read this site closely and you’ll see that Allegiance Auto is always “surprised” to receive negative feedback; no wonder, since they pay to get positive feedback! You have to wonder what would happen to their claim of “4 stars out of 5” if they stopped paying for positive feedback. Allegiance Auto responds to negative feedback with comments that blame the customer, or they say that the customer “made up a long story.” Now look below to see how “surprised” Allegiance Auto is to receive negative feedback from yet another dissatisfied customer.
