Hi, I am an active duty military member with almost 20 years of service under my belt. Due to a PCS my family and I had to relocate from Hawaii to Kansas. As the government will only pay for one vehicle shipped, we had to procure shipment for our other two vehicles, A 2008 Nissan Pathfinder & a 1969 Chevy Impala. We did some research on line, contacted several companies, and eventually settled with Cross Country Auto Transport.
My initial dealings were with Nate Brady. I was initially impressed with Nate Brady; he offered a military discount and competitive rates as his company had an agreement with Matson Shipping to ship vehicles from Hawaii to Long Beach, CA for $855 instead of the normal $1200 other companies charged. He said they picked up the vehicles within 5 days of Matson offloading them and would set up delivery to my new address.
After reviewing the contracts, we agreed to a total of $1755 per vehicle. Price was broken down into an initial $200 deposit per vehicle, $855 for Matson shipping, and the remaining $700 for the transport drivers. Nate mentioned a possible "fuel surcharge" but no other fees. I signed the contracts, made the deposit, and faxed the papers to Nate.
Reference #1486021 - This was for the 2008 Nissan Pathfinder. The drop off date for this was April 15th at Pier 25 on Oahu. We were given a delivery date of May 13th. We dropped off the SUV at the appointed time. After arriving in Kansas on May 6th, we attempted to contact CCAT multiple times to see where the vehicle was at. Turns out the SUV was offloaded on time but was collecting a "storage fee" as CCAT did not get to it in time as they assured me they would.
I contacted Stephanie at Customer service 5 separate times on this issue and was given the standard "I don't have any information on your vehicle, I will call you back with an update" Not once did we recieve an phone call from her. After having to rent a vehicle for 2 weeks that was not planned or budgeted ($600), we got a call from the dispatcher on May 18th that our SUV was en route.
We showed up at the scheduled place with the remaining $700 specified in the contract. To our surprise, the drivers had an invoice for $900 COD plus a storage fee of $240. They would not release our vehicle until we paid the additional $440. Needless to say we were very upset with this and tried to resolve this with Stephanie. After several arguements on the phone, I finally got instructions to fax all data to her to send to her CEO for review on May 24th. As of 28 May, I was told that the extra $200 not stipulated on the contract was the infamous "fuel surcharge" and that they were not responsible for Matson's storage fees even though they couldn't get to my SUV in time as agreed.
Reference #1498258 - This was for my 1969 Impala. We dropped the vehicle off on May 1st at Oahu as scheduled with a delivery date of May 21st. After the problems we experienced with CCAT, I was very aggressive on the tracking of this car. I started calling CCAT for a status update on the following dates:
May 13th - no status
May 19th - car delivered to Long Beach CA, awaiting release from Matson
May 22nd - Stephanie told me that they were verifying the truckers insurance and that she would call back on May 23rd
May 23rd - no phone call from CCAT, called and left message
May 27th - No answer at CCAT, left message, no call back
May 29th - Got ahold of Stephanie and was told that my car was stuck in Long Beach as "no driver will deliver to Kansas because of all the tornado's that were happening here and that no driver would come to Kansas because of the bad weather". I thought this was pretty funny as the rest of the country and all the interstate trucking/shipping companies were still delivering their normal stuff to Kansas.
This started off a heated discussion with Stephanie on the status of my car. She told me that my original contract was "null and void" because the pick up date was 4-29-08 to 4-30-08 and was in the past. I replied that of course it was in the past because that was the original drop off date in Hawaii and that she was confusing this with the delivery date.
We went round and round and I asked if there was any way that the vehicle could be delivered to a location close to Kansas like Denver or Oklahoma City. She said that she could arrange a delivery to Denver but it would still cost me $700 plus whatever storage fee Matson had tacked on my car because it had been sitting there waiting for a driver.
She offered me three options:
1) Refund of my $200 and I would have to arrange another company to deliver my Impala plus pay any storage fees due to their ineptness.
2) Delivery of the Impala to Denver for the original $700 and pay for getting the Impala back to Kansas out of my pocket.
3) Add my original $200 deposit to the original $700 COD fee to bring it to a total of $900 in an attempt to recruit a driver to deliver my car. This is in addition to whatever storage fees Matson has been tacking on my car while it sits in their yard.
As of 29 May my car is still collecting storage fees in CA while CCAT is attempting to find a brave enough driver to deliver my car to me here in Tornado Alley, Kansas. Stephanie is supposed to call me back on May 30th with information on shipping and fees Matson is charging me. And if I was a betting man I will get charged with another "fuel surcharge" as well. This situation is still ongoing and I will keep you posted.
I am warning all consumers to watch this company very closely as the are not the auto transport professionals that they claim to be. They talk a good game in getting you to do buisness with their company but fall severly short after that. They have cost my family over $1200 in additional expenses that were not planned and still have not delivered my other vehicle to me.
In all of my time serving my country, I have never been mistreated as badly as CCAT has done my family and I these past 2 months. I would rather go back over to Afghanistan and get shot at again than make another call to CCAT. It has caused a huge financial and emotional strain on my wife and 5 children dealing with them.
I am considering legal action against CCAT, notifying the Better Business Bureau, contacting my congressman, and getting the company black listed through the military. Unless CCAT can make good on this huge fiasco, I will have to do just that.
One way or another I will do my best to make sure that no other families get the shaft like we did.
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