Very deceiving shipping times unless in metro areas
Jesse
Submitted this review about
National Transport LLC
Review made Live: 1/11/2012 9:37:00 PM
I recently purchased a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid 4X4 on eBay. This was located in Watertown, MA (a suburb of Boston). I live in Wilton, ND.
When looking for car transport companies, National Transport LLC looked promising to me. Their website mentioned on their main page "Safe and Secure Vehicle Shipping in DAYS Rather Than Weeks". It was listed as a BBB A+ company. It looked like it had several positive reviews.
When I would use their instant quote tool on their main page, I entered Pickup Location of Watertown, MA and Delivery Location of Wilton, ND. On the next page, it said $1,195 for Economy shipping. Next to this, it said "Pickup window** takes up to 14 days*, Delivery is depending on the route".
I ordered on Friday, December 16th. After several days, I tried their tracking tool just curious to see if it had been picked up yet....here was one reply...........
From: National Transport LLC
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 8:21 AM
To: jessemcc@minot.com
Subject: RE: Order Tracking Request from nationaltransportllc.com
Website!
Good morning,
At this
time our dispatch department is currently in the process of scheduling an
available driver to transport your vehicle. When shipping with the economy rate,
the pickup window takes up to 14 business days from the ready date. As soon as we have a driver scheduled, we will
contact you with his pick up and delivery dates.
If you have any further questions, please contact us again. Thank
you!
Sincerely,
Ashley
Customer
Service
NATIONAL TRANSPORT LLC
Shipping
All Vehicles Statewide, Nationwide, Worldwide.
Internet: www.nationaltransportllc.com
Toll Free: 1-800-665-5022
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Here they mentioned again.....up to 14 business days in black and white.
If you did not include two extra days for Christmas and New Year's, the end of the 14 business days would have been Thursday, January 5th. At this point, I called and they mentioned that, yes, due to the holidays it would probably take a couple extra days.
I was still okay with this as it would still fall within the 14 business days which was promised.
Finally when I called on Monday, January 9th, their tune changed. They basically made comments like I was never guaranteed that it would get there by 14 business days.
Here was an e-mail I received later from them, basically saying they never told me up to 14 business days (as you can see this is from the exact same person who told me days earlier that it would be up to 14 business days)......
From: National Transport LLC
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:22 AM
To: Jesse McCormack
Subject: RE: Please Cancel Order
Good morning,
I have cancelled your order as requested at this time. Unfortunately,
we were unable to secure a carrier within 14 business days, however, both rates
for Priority and Economy do not offer guaranteed timeframes. These timeframes
are based on the majority of our vehicles movement, which is why we also offer
guaranteed rates on our website as well. I do apologize for any inconvenience
this may have caused you and your family, however, we have done everything
possible in order to ship your vehicle and even listed it out for more than you
were paying with National Transport paying the balance to see if that would get
a carrier. The price did not seem to be the issue, only the availability of
drivers heading to that location. We offered the option of adding an additional
amount in order to re-route a carrier into that location that was heading to a
nearby state, which is usually what they request from us. Once again we do
apologize for the inconvenience and hope you have a wonderful day. Thank
you.
Sincerely,
Ashley
Customer
Service
NATIONAL TRANSPORT LLC
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National Transport needs to be much more upfront about how long something will really take. It is unfortunate that consumers can not trust what this company says especially since they label their business as one who can ship in DAYS instead of WEEKS.
It is unfortunate that they string along consumers in this fashion. If they believe it is extra difficult to get a shipment to a certain part of the country at the beginning of the transaction, they should express this, not just hope that maybe someone will end up coming to this part of the country by chance....and then if they do, hope the customer will cancel.
There is no reason why their website should not be changed to say something other than "up to 14 business days" if this is extremely unlikely. They couldn't even tell me how long it would take at the end...whether it be two or three months.
Even if this company does ship out in time in many cases from metro area to metro area, this example shows they are quite dishonest in providing proper shipping times and are not afraid to use customers if necessary on occasion.
