This is a long review, but I feel it's important to share the details as it reveals a lot about this company, both the process before the car was sent, and after. The long and the short if it is - stay away. Polar Express Auto Transport appears to be systematically engaged in fraudulent business practices and over charge for their services.
I needed to move my Camry from Oakland, CA to Montgomery, AL. My contact at Polar Express Auto Transport was Austin Kelley. He promised to pick my car up within two days and asked for a down payment -"for my request to be taken seriously". WARNING 1: never give out any money before you have a driver assigned that you've talked to over the phone, and have confirmed a shipping date.
After Polar Express Auto Transport and Austin Kelley had taken my money the service level dropped considerably. Austin Kelley offered no proactive information. After several attempts to contact him I got a response after threatened to cancel the order. My father in California made himself available for several days waiting for Austin to give us some info as to when the delivery was going to take place. The car was eventually picked up about a week later than promised.
Door-to-door was not possible due to the size of the truck which is something I didn't think of as a lay person, I naively figured they would arrange for the vehicle to be delivered since they said they would. WARNING 2: Don't expect door-to-door service.
The driver was new to the Bay Area (California), and my father spent several hours on the phone calls assisting the driver to navigate in and out of the city, helping him to find a nearby Walmart parking lot where they could meet, and arrange for the vehicle to be picked up. Once the driver was on his way, he checked in with me on a regular basis. But again, I had to arrange to meet him about a mile from where the car was to be delivered. If I hadn't had a GPS (I was new to the area too) and a family that could loan me a car, it would have been pretty difficult. Dealing with all these logistics is something I would expect Polar Express to do. WARNING 3: Don't expect any service from the broker beyond arranging the pickup. After that, you might get connected with en experienced transport company, or an independent driver you know nothing about. You would think that the broker would screen its partners to verify that they in fact can do what they set out to do, but in the end they're just interested in that first down payment which is their commission. After that you're on your own.
Despite the written e-mail confirmation that the total was to be $799 ($150 to Polar via AMEX, and $649 to the driver in cash), Polar Express Auto Transport and Kelley Austin over charged me $25. The driver requested $700 to give up the car instead of $649. WARNING 4: Before the car moves, get the broker and the drive in a conference call and check notes. I was over charged by both, and both the driver and the broker blame each other. I ended up in the middle with a higher bill.
After I had received my car, I contacted Austin Kelley and Polar Express and made them aware that my credit card had been over charged. As far as I was concerned, any misunderstandings between Polar Express and the transport company has noting to do with me, and I naively expected a prompt refund. Two e-mails and several phone calls late I realized that nothing was going to happen. I eventually found this site and shared my experienced of Polar Express business practices (this is an updated version). This is where it starts to get really interesting.
My review came down almost immediately due to a Polar Express "challenge". Polar claimed I was not a customer of theirs. I shared my order # and e-mail correspondence, and the review came back up. Within 10 minutes I received a call from a Polar Express rep. who called himself Bob who did his best to sound apologetic, and told me I had to take down my negative review or Austin Kelley would loose his job. In a series of phone calls he continued to state the Austin Kelley was on a two week suspension, that he just had a baby and was stressed out, and would I accept their apology and a $300 gas card (yes, the same gas card used as a hook that everyone who receives a quote is offered). He also promised to refund the $25 to my credit card, that he was seemingly unaware of despite the two e-mails (?) - and would I please take down my review.
Bob was good, and I realize in retrospect that this wasn't the first time he had had this conversation. I vaguely agreed to his wishes initially eager to get my money back and leave this behind me. But after I hung up I realized I'd been tricked again, and that my review was the only leverage to maintain their attention. So I kept it up, waiting for my money and my voucher. Nothing arrived, despite that Bob e-mailed me everyday for several days, and called me, repeatedly lying about the compensation being in the mail prompting to take the review down. During this my e-mail inbox started to fill up with new auto transport quotes, like somebody had used my e-mail for a new auto transport quotation request. Waow.
Through this site I've made contact with other people that have similar experiences, the negative review challenge, the over charging, the promise of a gas card, being condescendingly talked to over the phone, down to receiving auto quotes for a vehicle that is not theirs. I'm not alone (and feel free to contact me if this happened to you).
This led me question the legitimacy of Polar Express numerous positive reviews. What I found, and feel free to check yourself, is that the negative reviews are full of detail and has contact information available, whilst many of the negative reviews are one two sentences with similar wordings and resemble fake infomercial condonations, many are without contact info. I made an experiment and very politely wrote to a number of people who had posted negative reviews asking to discuss their reviews, all within this site's guidelines for sending messages. Within 3 hrs I received a threatening phone call from Polar Express that I was harassing customers and that I would be contacted by an attorney. A person who presented herself as Gina ended the call saying "Get a life" and slammed the phone in my ear.
It's not likely that the 4 different people in different parts of the country and from different time zones had chosen to contact Polar Express within such a short time frame to complain that I harassed them when my messages were brief and polite, as opposed to contacting this site where their reviews are hosted. Instead I think these messages ended up with Polar Express which would prove that the reviews were in fact false. I guess they thought they could scare me. I have no proof that what I'm saying is correct, I'm just sharing what happened and my personal thoughts about it. In the end, being a person who works with customer relations myself, it's fascinating to me how much energy this company spends on being dishonest, engage in shady/criminal practices, and then try to cover for it. And not really being very good at that either.
