Boring experience - which is a good thing
M Smith
Submitted this review about
AmeriFreight Car Shipping
Review made Live: 3/16/2013 2:43:00 PM
The short version is I was very satisfied with the service I got from AmeriFreight and recommend them.
The longer version…..I shipped a Lexus from Georgia to Washington state. I got my car within the time frame I anticipated (one month from initial contact to the car in my driveway; 16 days to pickup; 12 days in transit). There were no issues with the car when it arrived. I paid almost exactly what I estimated it would cost me to fly back east and drive the car out ($1350), assuming I didn’t put any value on my time.
Long version....Shipping a car is a leap of faith experience. There are a myriad of brokers all of which claim wondrous ratings on the various transport web sites. I spent a significant amount of time looking into Better Business Bureau ratings, transporter ratings, and reading ratings like the one you’re reading now. Even with all that, you’re left with an uneasy feeling disaster is about to ensue. I chose AmeriFreight because their BBB ratings were excellent, their transport ratings were good, and the reviews were reasonable.
When you look at the bids, you need to understand the broker is working to satisfy two conflicting desires. First, they need to bid high enough to get a driver to pick up the car (brokers do not own trucks). The broker only makes money if a driver accepts the load. Second, they need to keep the price low enough for you, as the consumer, to choose them. That’s a tough balancing act. At the end of the day, AmeriFreight didn’t get this quite right. Their bid was at the high end of all the bids I looked at, but despite that, no driver wanted the load. The drivers kept coming back wanting roughly $250 more for the load. I finally told the broker to offer $150 over the original bid, and a driver took the offer immediately. The lesson from this is that you can negotiate through the broker if the initial bid doesn’t seem to be enough to get a driver. This did not change the processing fee the broker took for the job. My broker at AmeriFreight was happy to do this and it worked fine. I have no complaints with this process.
I had two issues I needed to account for: 1.) The car was only accessible 8-5 M-F; and 2.) I would not be available for the pickup. There would be a proxy for me in Georgia. When I talked to AmeriFreight, I was assured neither of these would be a problem, and they weren’t. The driver coordinated with my proxy and worked within her limitations.
The reason I give them four stars rather than five are two-fold. First, almost immediately, the broker told me a driver had accepted the load and sent me an e-mail with instructions to contact the transport company. When I did, I was told they had talked to a broker about my car, but hadn’t accepted the load. This confusion was frustrating. After another nine days, that same transport company got the load, but also got $150 over what I thought was going to be the price. What this means is I got to see some of the back room negotiations that take place when I probably shouldn’t have. The second reason is I had to negotiate to a new price.
In reality, neither of these reasons are a big deal, just hassles. To me, five stars would have been warranted for pickup within a week of the original bid and at the bid price. You be the judge of whether this makes a difference to you.
I recommend AmeriFreight and would use them again.
