Ship a Car Direct
Loyal Davis
Submitted this review about
Ship a Car Direct
Review made Live: 2/4/2016 12:11:00 PM
I had some experience shipping a car and knew what to expect from brokers. In this case, I put my name and car info into an online bulletin board which contacted many brokers to get a quote. This particular website stated that the quotes would be emailed to me, which was the case for a lot of the brokers, however, I received many phone calls for weeks afterwards.
I was transporting a non-operational car from North Platte, NE to Nashville, TN. The highest quote I received was about $950 and the lowest $495. Many broker's quotes stated that they had a truck in the area and that my car would be picked up within a couple of days. The broker takes their referral fee out of the quoted price and then lists your car on an online bulletin board, that is available to all trucking companies, for the balance. So, for example, the brokers that lowballed the quote at $495, would list the car on the bulletin board at maybe $250. No matter who you choose, they all use the same board and no broker can do more than that. But at $250 there isn't a trucking company that will waste it's time and your car will sit where it is. Eventually the broker will try to up-sell you on their quoted price to encourage a trucking company to bite.
I reviewed the quotes I received and read detailed reviews on each and everyone. Without exception the reviews were very poor, one or two stars and the broker rarely made the complaints right.
Eventually I began looking toward finding a 5-star rated broker through the Better Business Bureau and Ship a Car Direct was at the top of the list. I googled other reviews about the company, always checking to see if the reviews were scams (another thing you need to watch for) and, the best that I could tell the reviews were legitimate and mostly 5 stars, so I called them and got a quote of $930. This was, of course, at the high end of the quotes that I received, which makes sense because the brokers have access to the "typical" rates charged by the trucking companies and the legitimate brokers are not going to low-ball the quote and have your car sit there for weeks.
So, my story isn't the full on success story, the car did sit for a couple weeks and I became a bit disappointed. I asked my contact, Emily, if I should throw some more money at it to get it to move faster and she said no, that the car was listed for the going rate for the route but there simply weren't any open trucks with room on them that were traveling that route. Emily offered to put in about $100 of Ship a Car Direct's commission. I did some further research, and, although I would have expected there to be a lot of traffic along the route, apparently there isn't. In fact, I called a number of trucking companies direct, not an easy thing to find, and none of them could help me along that route. I was satisfied that Emily was telling the truth, and I have trust issues, so that is big.
Also, really important is that Ship a Car Direct will not use any trucking company. Over the years, by process of elimination, they have created a list of truckers that they will use, because ultimately it is the trucking company and the driver who make or break the delivery. When I received the email from Emily stating that the car would be picked up, I called the dealer where the car was to inform them and learned that the car had been picked up about a half hour before and this was before I ever paid the commission fee to Emily. I contacted the driver and he gave me an approximate delivery date/time, he thought he would be in sometime in the evening, but ended up getting there in the morning. The weather during mid January 2016 was really bad, lots of ice and snow, caused the delay. The bottom line is that I would absolutely, positively, recommend this broker for their honesty and integrity. You will end up paying the "going" rate, but it is completely worth it not to deal with the low-ballers. If you do, you will regret it. One final note, on top of the great service, they offer a $30 rebate for writing this review. I could have checked whatever number of stars or said whatever I wanted and still received the rebate. In this case, because they threw in part of their commission, were in constant contact and treated me squarely, I won't be taking that $30. This is an honest review and anyone reading this can feel free to contact me on my cell line 707-480-0160, 9-5 pacific time, for more information.
