I contacted Cascade about shipping my vehicle in August 2012. At the time, I was out of the country with limited internet, so was not able to pay the deposit via paypal immediately. They refused to post my car on the board until I paid the deposit, although I later found out that this is not a hard and fast policy. This delay led to my car being picked up a week later than it was ready.
I was promised door to door service. The drivers came a day later than scheduled, on a Sunday at 7AM. By this time, I was already on the west coast, so they called me at 4AM my time even though I gave them the number of the person who had my car in GA (my sister) several times. When they came to get the vehicle from my sister's house (I had already moved), they wanted her to bring the car to them off a major road. She was home alone with a baby and if she dropped the car off where they wanted, she could not find her way back home (she was in the suburbs, with no public transit or sidewalks, even). So the driver and his friend took what was clearly another customer's car off of the truck and drove it to her house to pick up my vehicle. She woke up her sleeping child, and followed them to the truck (about 3 miles away) to watch them load both cars (mine and the one they drove over) onto the truck.
Delivery was scheduled for 9 days later, so I was surprised when I got a call that the car would be arriving 3 days early. I was given a 4 hour window in which to wait at home on a weekday, but the driver never showed up. I called Cascade, the driver's cell, and dispatch for the shipping company, but no one picked up their phones. Over the next three days of a long weekend, Cascade and I called the driver and dispatch several times and I left several messages to no avail. My car was lost. I waited at home for most of the weekend thinking I would be asked to be home to accept the vehicle at short notice and when I did leave the house, had to walk around with a $1000 money order in case they called. Alas, this was a waste of time because the car did not come all weekend. Suddenly, 5 days after I got the original call to "be ready tomorrow," I get a call from someone saying they had my car and could deliver it to me at work within 1-2 hours. Turns out the driver never even attempted to call me, he just dropped the car off at a local storage facility and went on his way. The local company delivered my car on a small tow truck to downtown Seattle where I work.
I have no clue why no one contacted me to say my vehicle was on some random lot somewhere in western WA. I would have happily gone to pick it up. Instead, I sat for 4 days thinking that my car had been stolen. No one would pick up their phone or return my voicemails, so I was literally one day away from filing a police report for a stolen car. I also cannot believe that there is no way Cascade could not tell me where in the continental US my vehicle was. There should be some sort of tracking system. It is 2012. If UPS can track my package, which can't you track my car?? Even when I called Cascade on the first business day of the long weekend to see if they found my car, it took several hours for them to return my calls.
Very suspiciously, the mileage on the car when I got it was 2 miles lower than what was written on the form when they originally loaded the vehicle. Obviously, they know that they sometimes remove vehicles from the truck to drive them around, and write down an inflated mileage as the current mileage in order to avoid suspicion. But I know that my car cannot go back in time or mileage, so they clearly lied on the form. I regret not taking a picture of my odometer in advance to document their lies further.
The kicker to this story is that even before I paid the deposit, even before my car was picked up and before I was assigned a truck/driver, Cascade asked me to leave a 5 star review on their website in exchange for a $20 discount. As I had limited email access, I could not get online to give a 5 star review, and I am glad I did not. I wonder if that is how they get so many great reviews- by paying their customers.
If I ever have to move cross-country again, I will either put a GPS tracker on my car or just ship my car with my belongings. I will give Cascade a 1 star review, however, because they (1) matched another "5-star" company's quote, lowering my price by $200, and (2) the car was extremely dirty, but not damaged when it arrived.
NEVER AGAIN.
