Scott N
Visalia,#2Author of original report
Thu, April 25, 2013
Our car also arrived with scratches and pieces broken off it. But they only do anything about this if you buy their ridiculously expensive insurance - which has a $1000 deductible.
Thank goodness I was smart enough to call my auto insurance company (USAA - the Best!!) and found out they would cover the shipping at a much more reasonable rate and with a much lower deductible ($100.)
Like it says on the homepage of this site, you can get an idea of a company's quality of customer service by how they handle complaints.
This company is still denying that it was their own incompetence that lead to the massive delay and damage. Instead they try to blame everyone else.
I'm sure a lot of their customers get lucky as evidenced by their testimonials page. Interesting that NO negative reports can be found there. And even if it is a majority, that could still mean 49.9% of their customers are not happy.
Think about that and find another company, unless you like gambling with your prized processions at stake.
P.S. Not only did they not offer us a discount they ignored us when we asked for a partial refund on this transaction after 8 weeks had gone by and our car had not even been loaded yet. That's when you know you've been screwed...
Diana D
Gardena,#3UPDATE Employee
Thu, April 25, 2013
We have a policy that all shipments are prepaid, so the delay was the real issue here, not paying the invoice on time. For which we are always thankful.
I did offer our client a discount on any future shipment to which he refused any idea of ever shipping again. We do not think any of our customers are stupid.
We work within a specific service industry with a few variables that are out of our control, that the guarantee of sail dates and delivery dates when cargo is being consolidated can lead to frustration against expectations with some clients from time to time.
We have an industry leading customer service program in place and are always here to answer questions/ assist when needed. Please visit our website to review what the majority of our clients say about us on our testimonials page.
Damien- Sales and Marketing Manager
Scott N
Visalia,#4Author of original report
Wed, April 24, 2013
The fact is we made the company 100% aware that we were only shipping one car at the dropoff point on August 4th, 2012. On August 14th we again made it 100% clear that we were only shipping one car to the shipping agent in charge, one Joey Smit, by email.
Yet the car still did not ship out until October 2nd!
Diana D
Gardena,#5UPDATE Employee
Wed, April 24, 2013
Per Damien, The Sales Manager at Schumacher Cargo
This shipment did have an unnecessary delay that was related to two things.
1. Initially, there were 2 cars to be shipped and the client made us aware that it was then only one vehicle, shortly after dropping off his first vehicle.
2. This was logged in the system, but operations did not know that the second car was not shipping until sometime later. They assumed that we were holding off processing the first car until the second arrived.
3. Once we rectified this within our procedure, we loaded in the next container leaving for Holland.
4. We apologized to the client and offered discount on any future shipment he may have.
Some of the time that is accounted for within the 77 days from booking to hand over at final destination is a normal part of consolidation.
The process once a booking is made and we are ready to load, can take up to10 days of the process. Then sail time on the ocean was 17 days/ usual lead in time for a consolidation from the US to Holland, which means we load multiple cars into one 40 container can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks from drop off before it hits the ocean. Therefore, we did lose about 3 weeks on this.
We ship from 5 ports in the US to over 80 destinations around the world. Most clients want the most competitive rate we can offer, which is in a shared container. This means we cannot guarantee the sail date until we have a full container t load.
90% of our shipments leave with 2-4 weeks of drop off and then the sail time is variant, depending on the destination.
We ship 18000 vehicles a year and sometimes, certain files are delayed for very specific reasons. We do strive to deliver our promise to each client.
For more information on what the process involves for your shipment, please call us at 800 599 0190 and ask for our Export Department.