On Friday, December 18, 2009, Jaedan Alexander with Your Choice Auto Transport quoted me by email a competitive price to move a car from Titusville, PA to Roanoke, VA. I informed him that this car needed to be picked up on or before Thursday, 12/24/09, in order to avoid incurring $25/day storage costs. I asked if he were familiar with the route, and if he were confident they could get it picked up by that date at the quoted price. He assured me that his company has trucks traveling through there regularly, that he is familiar with the route, and that he was confident that it would be picked up on time. I trusted him and said I’d like to place an order with him. He said there would be a deposit and I would have to sign a contract. The contract he emailed me said that there was no guarantee and that if I canceled the order, they would still keep part of my deposit. This is a lop-sided contract (they have nothing to lose if they make false promises except for potential future business from readers of their reviews) but I’ve dealt with long-distance car hauling brokers numerous times before and it wasn’t an unusual contract. They’ve always come through before.
I became concerned when the car still hadn’t been picked up on Tuesday, December 22 and I began receiving phone calls from Your Choice’s competitors who said they saw a ridiculously-low posting from Your Choice on Central Dispatch.com, the industry’s website where brokers locate the actual haulers. One of these competitors informed me that he is familiar with that route and knew my car would not EVER be likely to be picked up at Your Choice’s price, especially within the timeframe I needed. Another told me he hadn’t been familiar in great detail with the route but took the time to look it up on a map and realized it was not near a major highway, which made it unlikely to find hauler at the advertised bid. I have NEVER had a broker’s competitors call me up and tell me such things, so I became concerned. I began calling Your Choice to express my concern and received the run-around. I would be told I was being transferred to the person who could help me, then I would be put on hold, then after a few minutes I would be transferred to the voicemail of some other person. I left numerous messages at Your Choice, expressing my concern and relaying what their competitors had said, and none was returned. I wanted to discuss possibly raising the price if that would get the car picked up before the holidays and the storage charges hit. Finally, on Thursday, December 24, the last day the car could be picked up without storage fees, at around 3:15 PM, I reached Jaedan. He seemed to be caught off guard when I reminded him of the urgency of picking the car up but said he had a hauler lined up and was just waiting on insurance paperwork from the hauler. He needed to get off the phone to call and check on it so maybe it could still be picked up that day. I asked him to update me as soon as he knew anything. On Monday, December 28, when I still hadn’t heard anything from Your Choice, I called and got the same run-around: put on hold, transferred, on hold again, etc. On one attempt, I reached Jaedan, and he told me the dispatcher could help me and he transferred me to her before I could say anything more. She told me Jaedan would help me and transferred me back to him. He didn’t pick up. I called the dispatcher back and she said she had a hauler lined up and was just waiting on insurance paperwork. I asked if I could speak to her supervisor and she transferred me to Jaedan, who didn’t answer his phone. I called back and was told that the owner of the company was in Europe for the holidays, but she (the dispatcher) promised to call me back later that day with an update. She failed to do so.
The next day, when I waited until mid-day to call her after not hearing from her, she had two amazing stories. The first was that she hadn’t called me back as promised the day before because my first name is the same as some truck driver with whom she spoke, and she got confused and thought she had called me because she had talked to him! The second amazing story was that she wasn’t able to get the insurance paperwork she had mentioned the day before and we were basically starting from scratch looking for a new hauler. At this point I would owe over $100 in storage accumulating at $25 per day. It was time to cut my losses with Your Bad Choice Auto Transport. She said couldn’t issue me an immediate refund for my deposit because Jaedan was out of the office and he was in charge during the holidays, but when I asked for his cell number she said she had no way to reach him. How likely do you think it is that the person in charge of an office can not be reached during normal business hours?
Here are three specific things Your Choice’s employees did wrong that make me recommend you avoid this company like the plague:
1) Jaedan told me he was familiar with a pick-up location and delivery route with which it was later obvious that he was not familiar.
2) Jaedan failed to return any of my calls when I left messages expressing concern about what his competitors were telling me, when there might have been time to raise the price to get the job done before the holidays and the storage fees.
3) The dispatcher made a promise to call me back later the same day and failed to do so by mid-day the following day.
4) Jaedan and at least one other Your Choice employee apparently used transfers and holds in their voicemail system to avoid speaking directly with a concerned customer.
There is always a risk in trying to get a car picked up by a deadline. Factors such as bad weather, truck break-downs, the flu, etc. all risks. Incompetence, dishonesty, and avoidance should not be.
