FLORIDA AUTO TRANSPORT- WORST EXPERIENCE I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE.
Everyone beware of Florida Auto Transport. They will not transport your car on a truck as supposed, but will drive it by highway all the way to your destination. If I had known this, I would have driven it by myself. I paid $599 for a transportation of my car on a truck that never took place and I got a car 973 miles older instead, with serious engine and cooling system damage because of its bad use in the highway from Pennsylvania to Florida.
The reason I am writing this letter is to help other customers not to get ripped off by this company.
These guys are pretty smart though ; when they pickup your car they dont show you the truck but they will tell you that it is very close and that they will only drive the car a few miles to where the truck is.
And when they deliver, you will see your car parked on the ground next to a big truck and they will tell you thats our truck but you never actually get to see when they get it off the trucksmart ah ??? On early November 2002, I searched for an auto transportation company that could transport my 1994 Ford Taurus on a truck from Lafayette Hill PA to Deerfield Beach FL using the Keywords: Florida Auto Transportation on the Yahoo search engine and boom !!the first company I saw was www.floridaautotransport.com
I talked to Andrew Silverman from Florida Auto Transport at 1-800-696-2127 . The pickup was scheduled for November 18th.
Early Monday 18th November, I fueled my tank and I pressed the partial manual odometer meter button reading to zero (this is an old habit I always have after a fill up). Later that day, when they picked up the car from Lafayette Hill PA, I had already flown to Florida and t herefore my wife actually delivered them the car. My wife signed in, a bill of lading with all the details of the car to be transported but they maliciously left the starting mileage item unfilled on the form without she realizing that.
When they delivered the car to me on Deerfield Beach on November 22nd, they gave me a bill of lading to sign that had a starting mileage that was exactly the same as the destination mileage (34805 miles). So I erroneously said to myself great, they really put it over the truck and no miles were done to my car and since I saw the signature of my wife on it I didnt think of anything strange.
When I started the engine , I realized first, that the engine had very strange sounds the car never had had before, second, I realized that there was transparent water in my radiator reservoir instead of green antifreeze .
I had checked the reservoir level that same day they picked the car from Lafayette and the antifreeze reservoir was at its appropriate level); I immediately noticed that the partial odometer reading of my car that I had put to zero on the day of the pick up was reading 972 miles.
The first thing I did is call my wife and explained her all my findings on the car and when she pulled out the Bill of Lading they had given her on the 18th of November, she realized that the starting mileage space in the Bill of Lading was left blank. It is at this point that I had the prove that the starting mileage on the Bill of lading they gave me had been written after they had driven my car all the way from Pennsylvania to Florida and not in front of my wife when she delivered the car.
When I called Mr. Silverman, he said that he had subcontracted another company and that I should directly talk to them . However, the evidences are that there are 2 different bills of lading , the one they made me sign at the destination point when they delivered the car to me with a starting mileage of 34805 miles and the one they made my wife sign at shipping point in Pennsylvania which has the starting mileage information in blank ; there is a damaged engine and refrigeration system with strange sounds and an odometer with 972 additional miles from Lafayette Hill Pennsylvania to Deerfield Beach Florida.
Conclusion: Be very careful with this people because they might easily rip you off . I thank the the ripoff report for providing a great site so that we consumers can protect ourselves from untrustworthy companies that cheat consumers. Lets help each other by denouncing these type of companies.
Eduardo
Deerfield Beach, Florida
U.S.A.
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