I originally contacted Magic Carpet on 3/25/09 and spoke with Malia. On 3/26 I agreed to have them ship my car (2003 MB SL 500) from California to New Hampshire at the cost of $1050 at the end of April (the 27th to May 1st was the window I gave). Malia said $150 was the fee for Magic Carpet and $900 would go to the driver. That day, I got notification that the car was to be shipped at the end of March, Malia entered the wrong dates. I called and corrected her and she said she changed the dates and I would be contacted when a new transport was arranged. I didn’t hear anything, and so a week before I was to be in California and have the car shipped, I called and asked to speak with Malia. “Oh, she has been transferred to another department”, is what I was told “Your account is being handled by Nicole now”. OK, fine. The woman I talk to says she put my car back in the queue. I call Friday, 3/23, and speak with Nicole who says they still don’t have anyone to transport the car. She says she will work on it on Monday, and that they will decrease their fee to make it more appealing to the transport company. On Monday she said the driver would be there Tuesday. Late afternoon Tuesday I called Nicole and she said he would definitely be there on Tuesday to pick it up and that she would call to make sure things went OK. He never showed up, and she never called. I called the next morning and she was busy so I left a message. Next thing I know the driver calls at 9:30AM, he is in Sacramento, and says he will be in Menlo Park by 2:30PM. He called at 3PM and said he was in Menlo Park, and that he would pick up the car in Gilroy by 7PM. He showed up at 8:30PM and left at 10:50PM. After two hours of unloading and loading cars to get my car on the carrier, he told me my car couldn’t be held down with chains, only straps. (Now picture this, my car is sitting in the position over the top of the cab, first position on top, three cars are now behind it). He then told me he didn’t have straps for the front of the car just the rear. He said he would drive to the next Pilot truck stop, which he claimed was 15 miles away and put them on. “I think it will be fine”, he says. I am standing there in disbelief at the whole experience. This car was left to me by my dad who died two years ago, of which Magic Carpet was aware, and now I am watching it pull away on top of a truck only half tied down. Prior to leaving the driver also asked for payment. I told him it was my understanding he would be paid when the car was delivered. “Oh, that’s fine”, he said, “I have enough money to get across the country”. He told me he would be in New Hampshire by Tuesday, May 5th. On May 4th, I called Magic Carpet to confirm what I was to pay him. Nicole said they charged me $200 and I was to pay the driver $900. I said I was previously told and sent an invoice for $1050. They said they had to raise the price to get the transport company interested. They said they also lowered their price by $20. What they did was charge me an extra $50 dollars and the transport company is getting paid exactly the same amount that I was quoted by their representative Malia, $900.
Communication has been abysmal with this company. They charged me $50 dollars more than they said they would. Yes, it is in their terms that they can increase their rates (which they all too happily pointed out to me) but common sense says that you will inform your customer, no? Nicole kept repeating the mantra that “…she would never charge extra without getting prior authorization”, well apparently you would, Nicole, you also had told me on Tuesday you would call me right back, and didn’t. (I paid with my checking account which was STUPID, but they charge a 6% credit card charge fee. If they ask you what you want to do, pay with a credit card, at least then you will have some recourse). The long and short of it is that they lied about why they increased their rates. They said it was to entice a company to take my car, but then they pocketed the extra cash. Nice.
Magic Carpet failed to perform to the level that they promised. I had to call far too often to remind them about me, and they charged me more for my effort. Other people write how they were called and received frequent updates regarding the whereabouts of the car during transport. I never heard from Magic Carpet in this regard. Sawgrass Auto transport called on the Friday the car was supposed to have been delivery and asked how I was going to pay the driver. I said I was going to pay with cash. They said they wanted me to pay with a cashier’s check, or money order, because the driver hadn’t been with them that long. Translation, “They didn’t trust their driver”. At that conversation they said the car would be here Sunday or Monday. I called Sawgrass (I had given up dealing with Magic Carpet at this point and decided to call the shipper directly) Monday and asked when they thought the car would arrive. They said the Department of Transportation wouldn’t release the truck because the driver only had a copy of the registration, not the original. They said they had to overnight the registration, and that the car should reach me by Tuesday night or Wednesday. On Wednesday I called in the morning and the guy at Sawgrass said that he was in West Hartford, CT, and he should be to me today. At 4:50PM I called and he said he was in Boston and said he would call me back after checking with the driver. He never called back. On Thursday morning I called Sawgrass and I initially got a message that their number had been number had been disconnected. When I finally got a hold of them they said the driver was in Everett, MA (outside of Boston) and he should be to me in three hours. I am an hour and a half outside of Boston, I told him. The dispatcher said, “OK he will be there in that much time”. This was 9AM. I finally heard from the driver at 2:30PM, and he said he would be to me around 4:30. He showed up around five. He explained to me that the truck had broken down for 4-5 days and was being repaired. I said his dispatcher told me he was in Boston yesterday, he said “yesterday I was in New York!”, and shook his head. They had been lying to be about the whereabouts of the car for a week. I don’t understand why they didn’t just tell me the truth.
The car was, as expected, dirty when it arrived. It had a number of paint chips.
Pick up was late, delivery was late, and I was overcharged by Magic Carpet. It isn’t the fifty dollars, it is the fact that I was lied to, repeatedly. I am sure when you ship lots of cars, a number of transports go bad. The right thing to do in those situations is to acknowledge you messed up, take responsibility and be honest; this is not what I experienced.
