Hays Marine Transport Never transported the boat never returned the deposit Portland Oregon
I had a similar experience as the gentleman from Canada. I had first contacted Dependable Auto Service, as they did a nice job of transporting my two trucks. Although they advertise marine transport on their web site, they couldn't do it because I don't have a trailer for my 25' sailboat. They recommended Hays. Since DAS is a reputable company, I took it for granted that Hays was too. Big mistake.
I bought the boat on eBay in February. Before I made the winning bid I call Hays to see what it would cost to transport the boat from Dana Point to San Francisco. He said about $2500, which seemed reasonable. I talked to Jim Hay a couple of times in March. He told me he had a truck coming to southern California, where the boat is still moored, in a couple of weeks. He also dropped the price to $2200 since the boat was not oversized. We agreed on a 3-day window at the end of March as I needed to have my boat out of the slip by then.
He wanted me to wire the $500 deposit to close the deal and firm up the schedule. I sent the money. As the pickup date drew near I tried calling Jim Hay repeatedly and all I got was either a busy signal or an answering machine. Leaving messages and writing emails was fruitless. He never EVER replies to either. The end of March came and went and I never heard from him I must have called him hundreds of times over the next few weeks.
The lady I bought the boat from was nice enough to let me rent the slip for one more month. After another couple of hundred calls I finally got him again. He said he was "working on it" and that all the trucks were on the east coast and nobody wanted to come to the west coast because of fuel prices. A few weeks went by, then I had to move my boat out of the slip at the end of March. This meant I had to move it to vacant slips or pay for a guest slip. Then I was able to rent a month-to-month slip. This was starting to get expensive.
Another couple hundred phone calls and I get a hold of Hays. This was April 25th. I said I was cancelling the deal, he said he didn't blame me. A asked about the deposit, he said he'd send me a check. At this point that didn't sound like a good idea, so he agreed to wire it. That was two weeks ago and still no deposit.
Since I'm attorney I'll be filing a civil suit, but I doubt even then I would see the deposit. But AH-HA! Since the transaction occurred across state lines over the internet I can file charges with the federal prosecutors office under federal internet fraud statutes. I'll keep you posted.
Rodney
South San Francisco, California
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Anthony
Rossville,Georgia,
U.S.A.
I Know You Have Your Money Back...But...
#3Consumer Comment
Thu, May 15, 2008
I'd urge you to contact the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to report this man.
The FMCSA involuntarily revoked his operating authority over two years ago. He is very likely not insured for any public liability, much less for the value of any marine vessel that he contracts to transport.
The unfortunate thing is that this man's unlawful company is listed repeatedly throughout the web on sites related to marine sales and transporting options, which is a shame, because he's probably ripping off other people as we speak.
A couple of points to remember when dealing with any business that you have never dealt with before;
NEVER pay any deposit or up-front fee in cash or by any method in which you cannot retrieve it if the business defaults on their services. Pay by credit card or arrange an escrow transaction through an agreed upon neutral source, such as a bank local to the other party. When you pay by credit card, you can dispute the transaction. When you set up an escrow transaction, the funds are not released until you give the third party authorization to do so. A decent trucking company will not require or request any funds up-front, but may request information from you to check your credit before agreeing to haul your property, or require a COD transaction at the point of delivery. A company that requests money up-front is probably financially unsound, or worse as you have experienced, setting up the potential customer for a rip-off.
When dealing with any trucking company, you have the right to request and receive all information in regard to the company's operating authority including their US DOT Number, insurance company(s) and all policy number(s), and bond information. Bonds are not always required, but when transporting personal property of the value that yours represented, I would never deal with any company that did not have a bond in place, and for enough to pay for the item or items being transported in total if a loss occurs. I would further decline to do business with any transport company that did not immediately provide such bond information upon request.
Along with verifying their business credentials, you should always request their D&B Number (Dun & Bradstreet), and pull a credit report on them through the D&B website. It will cost you around $30.00, but it's the best $30.00 you will ever spend, because on that report, you will know if they are legitimate and firmly established as a business enterprise, and whether or not they are financially sound.
You can verify all of the company's authority and insurance information on the SaferSystem dot org website, which is accessible by the public, and it can be found by clicking on the 'Licensing and Insurance' section of the site, once you have found their business listing either by the company name or US DOT Number. The US DOT Number for his company, although defunct, is 1106763.
This guy is making us all look bad, and he needs to be stopped.
Rodney brown
South San Francisco,California,
U.S.A.
Hays Marine Transport Update
#3Author of original report
Wed, May 14, 2008
I left messges letting Hays know I was going to file charges for internet fraud. I gave him until Tuesday. For the first time ever, Jim gave me a call on Tuesday and wired back my deposit.