Complaint Review: Safe-Direct Car Shipping

I just wanted to congratulate Mr.Strickland on the rebutal that was written....you are truly a man of great stature,and i applaude you dearly...i was brought to this site after "EXTENSIVE RESEARCH"..of trying to select a transport company to ship my 2000 cadillac esacalade, i received a quote fron safe direct and did more research....which lead me to 'RIPOFF REPORT"..I BEGIN TO READ TOM F. AKA MARK (lol).REPORT..I BECAME LEARY ABOUT SAFE DIRECT...BUT THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY..AND "TRUST"(this is a story). after the whole rebutal was read..i knew the company i chosen,  i needed ,wanted was SAFE DIRECT!!!!..MR.strickland was more than willing to explain the situation throughly (like a owner should)..i applaude you sir!!!!...P.S...I JUST BOOKED WITH YOU GUYS 15 MINUTES AGO :)

The following is our rebuttal from Mark's other post, if you haven't read it already:

*This whole rebuttal needs to be prefaced by the fact that Mark is not in good health. We care very much about him, wish him the best and hope that he gets the medical attention that he needs.*

Not to divulge too much of his personal info, but Mark was unfortunately the victim of a terrible accident a couple years ago where he was run over by a car and that has greatly affected his physical and mental health. This was prior to his employment with us and only divulged after his hiring.

This did not present a problem for us, as the job with us enabled him to work from home and therefore his physical disabilities would not be an issue.

Mark was very pleasant to speak with on the phone and always available when the phone rang. It has only been since the bizarre events of march 23rd, 2012 and the subsequent handling of his orders by our other staff members that we have become aware of serious underlying mental health issues as well.

In his defense, he received some form of medication about two days prior to the 23rd which seems to have greatly altered his behavior.

But, as for the events of the 23rd and what the police involvement was, here is the story:

Prior to the 23rd, for the first few weeks of his employment, Mark was always up and working on the leads he was provided bright and early in the morning. However, on the 23rd, around 10am PDT, it came to our attention that he had not logged in to begin work. After repeated attempts to reach him by his work email and phone, we eventually tried, around 11am to reach him on his personal cell phone as well as his home phone, and received no response there either.

It's important to note that we are a California based company and Mark was our only employee in the state of AZ.

After approximately another hour, we all became concerned. Knowing Mark's poor physical health and inability to move around freely, added to the fact that he lived alone, we feared that perhaps he had fallen or had some other form of emergency at his home.

We then searched the white pages to see if we could perhaps find a neighbor willing to check on Mark, but were unsuccessful.

As a last hope, we called the front desk of the Tempe police department and asked them their advice, explaining the situation, of course.

They were extremely polite, professional and responsive. (Hats off to the Tempe police. If you live in Tempe, you are in goods hands) they said they would be happy to have someone check on Mark. Which they did.

The police checked in and found Mark alive, thank goodness but displaying bizarre behavior. Their appearance set off a profane tirade by Mark and started his behavior off attempting to disparage our company, unfortunately.

All I can say is that, having it to do over again and having the same information I had at the time, I would have done the same for any one of my employees. When you become a part of our company, you become family.

For better or worse.

I guess this case is turning out worse. But we really do continue to care for Mark and hope that he is able to regulate whatever is causing this change in behavior.

As for the 'reputation' of our company, I would suggest that you turn to any number of other sources, be it http://www.transportreviews.com/company/safe-direct-car-shipping.asp (as Mark mentions), or any of the following:

http://www.la.bbb.org/business-reviews/Automobile-Transporting-Services/Safe-Direct-Car-Shipping-in-Toluca-Lake-CA-100063372
http://www.transportrankings.com/Safe-Direct-Car-Shipping.html

These are just our 'reputation', as I have said, which is very good, but I have always operated by Coach Wooden's credo: "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is who you *are* while your reputation is merely who people *think* you are.

Anyone who questions either is welcome to contact me directly with their concerns at 818-284-6640.

Michael Strickland

This report is not from a customer, it's from an unstable former employee named Mark Knauf, from Tempe, AZ (not Tom F. From Cleveland)

We regret and apologize for Mark's behavior, he is legitimately not well.

As for our rebate program, we do offer rebates to actual customers who take their own time to post their experience online, and we do so whether they write something good or bad.

Our apologies again that Mark is taking these actions, and our best wishes for his mental and physical health.