DAS won't pay for damages
Jonathan S
Submitted this review about
Dependable Auto Shippers
Review made Live: 7/30/2009 1:39:00 PM
I had the car shipped from New Jersey to Arizona. I had noticed that on both the Better Business Bureau website and other Auto Transport review websites, DAS got lower ratings compared to others and were also more expensive. The shippers decided to go with DAS against my better judgment because they felt the extra expense would provide quality shipping and they would not have to worry about the safety of the car.
The car was supposed to arrive Friday but arrived Saturday. Since the terminal was closed, I had to wait until Monday to pick it up. I'm not complaining about that part since the total shipping time was relatively good. I went to pick it up with a co-worker and as we inspected the car, everything seemed fine. It was slightly dirty all over from the cross country trip, but was especially dirty on the hood of the car. When we asked if that could be cleaned, the person helping us ignored us completely. In fact, I don't believe he spoke one word the entire time, even when questions were directed towards him. Based on the fact that I trusted DAS, the rest of the car was fine, and that when I swiped my finger over the dirty hood I saw dirt coming off, I assumed the car was fine and signed for it. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. Perhaps it would have helped if the workers at the destination terminal actually talked to me or explained anything at all to me.
Looking back now, it seems like either a). he didn't know English and was just waiting for me to sign the papers or more likely b). they made the hood extra dirty in the hopes that I would not notice the damage and assume it was all dirt.
That day I took the car to the car wash, excited to get it washed and then waxed and fully detailed. Before going in the wash, the attendant took me around the car to tell me what the wash and detail would do for me. Once the dirt was off of the car, I finally realized what damages DAS did to my car. I immediately contacted the people who shipped the car out to me and confirmed that the damage was not there at the time. Even the people at the DAS terminal in New Jersey, who marked every little scratch the car might have had on their form, did not have this horrible damage noted.
I immediately took pictures and called DAS to start a damage claim. A week after sending them all the documents they required, including their forms, an estimate for ~$860 from a repair shop, and pictures, I called again to check the status. After a long wait I was finally told that they were still waiting for documents from me. After explaining to them that it was all in the email they asked me to send them, the representative said, oh here they are. Ok, now we can get started. The next day I called to make sure they still weren't "missing" any other documents; the representative couldn't even find my claim for the first 15 minutes of our phone call. Finally, today I received a call and was told they were denying my claim because they had no documentation on their end that any damage was done...how convenient, the auto shipping company didn't write down anywhere that they did almost $900 worth of damage to a car in their possession. Now I have to deal with calling the credit card company to deny the shipping charge, and waste my time writing a bad review everywhere including the BBB to try and fix this situation.
Thanks DAS for ruining my first new car experience. Maybe I should have my close network of film and music professionals put something together using the phone calls and my first-hand accounts and we can post it on Youtube. It worked against United Airlines (apparently they break guitars)
