Moving is always a painful process and this made it significantly more stressful. I am not so much unhappy with the broker as I am with the carrier. Linda at evergreen was very helpful and did a great job arranging a short notice pick-up for two cars that were to be moved from California to North Carolina. She contacted me promptly with the carrier information. When I contacted the carrier, they told me that my pickup was scheduled with them the day after I was to fly out. I managed to get them to pickup earlier however. I contacted the driver to arrange a time for pickup and was met with barely understandable mumbling and repetition (about how "Safeway is the number 1 market for the produce in California" among other things).
When I finally figured out where and when he wanted to meet me (a very difficult process since he confirmed with me an address for a different market), our cars were loaded onto the truck and after giving him an additional contact number and telling him that our home number was now disconnected, off they went. Everything was fine until he called me on a Sunday to let me know that the car would be delivered on the next Wednesday. I watched as my girlfriend confirmed the day of the week and date 3 separate times with him. Great! The cars would be delivered as scheduled. Unfortunately, thinking that the delivery would be on Wednesday, I failed to check my phone and did not notice that the battery had died. He attempted to call that number about every 15 minutes Tuesday morning. He completely ignored the additional number we had given him and watched him write down, and instead called the disconnected number a few times (I only know because of voicemail forwarding to my email.)
When he was unable to reach me, he dropped my car in a storage yard 30 miles away that was run by seemingly inbred individuals (although they tried to be nice to the best of their capacity despite their propensity for attempting to scam their customers who never even authorized their services) and left a nasty message on my voicemail. When I found out that the storage fee was supposed to be $150 for each car, I contacted Linda at evergreen auto transport immediately and was told that she would try to work out the problem and talk to her dispatch about what happened and also contact the carrier to resolve the issue. I would hear back in 45 minutes. I didn't hear back so I called and was told Linda was on a call and would call me back as soon as she could. After another half hour to an hour of not hearing anything, I called back again and finally reached Linda who told me that Dorothy claims that she (the dispatch), and the driver (named Chris) tried numerous times to contact me the day before to tell me that plans had changed and that he had arrived on Monday and was trying to reach us for delivery that day and could not.
I told them that I have phone records that he never tried to contact me and sent them to Linda. They said they had phone records that he did try to contact me on monday and the carrier did as well, however, none of these has been produced because they don't exist. The carrier went as far as to accuse me of being a liar when I told her I could send her a record of all incoming calls right then. Linda did everything she could, but Dorothy apparently supported the carrier and joined in, lying about the window in which they attempted contact me to drop off my car before locking it up with extortion artists residing close to an establishment with the name "Blacknificent Books".
After getting no where with Evergreen, and Linda failing to call me back to update me before they closed, I decided to contact the carrier directly who just accused me of being a liar, insulted me, and repeatedly changed her story about what her driver had told me, what documentation she could produce, and what her responsibilities where (Apparently if they can't reach you on a single number, they're not obligated to attempt delivery). As she rattled off her own work of fiction, she "shh'd" me every time I attempted to correct her. She obviously did not want to take responsibility for the inadequacies of herself and her driver. I told her that she needed to resolve the situation as it was her driver's fault, requested their phone records, then hung up. In the morning I went straight to the Towing yard, which had been dubbed a "Terminal" thus justifying their outrageous fee and managed to talk them down to $100 total. Before paying, I called the carrier again, and as I am quite sure she realized she was in the wrong since she meantioned litigation, she agreed to drop the fee by $75.
Alright, so $25 more than expected isn't a big deal but 5-8 hours of my time to deal with them, the tow yard, and transporting the cars to their actual destination after a rather stressful move IS. The worst part is, there is significant damage to my girlfriend's car (A huge scratch running the length of the roof, going down to the windshield, and onto the hood with additional scratches on the rear spoiler). The damage to my car was minor and not worth arguing over, however present. I contacted the carrier to let them know and she stated "I knew there would be more coming from you". Trust me, there will be. Linda was kind enough to help me figure out with whom I need to file a claim. Just as a note, Evergreen has informed me that they have blacklisted this carrier. Whether it is true or not, I cannot say.
All in all, Linda from Evergreen was mostly prompt and as helpful as possible in a difficult situation. Dorothy, although indirectly, was useless, dishonest, and added to the problem. Evergreen did not adequately perform the service they were contracted to provide as the carrier they hired did not deliver the vehicles to me or attempt delivery. Lastly, they failed to assist in resolving problems caused by the carrier. I will not be using them again and I'd recommend thinking twice before anyone else uses them. While not really their fault, I am sure there are auto transport companies out there that provide a REAL contract and can be trusted (although probably few and far between). If they simply found a carrier for me that caused this many problems, I don't see how a $300 broker fee can really be justified. But I guess that's how it is...
I suppose they're probably better than another broker that told me "You're going to regret this" when I informed them that I would not be using them. The sad part is, he was correct.
Now I get to deal with the carrier's insurance. The good times never end!
Dear Evergreen,
I await my compensation for this gleaming review of your services.
