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Yes, we still have tons of snow but it looks like the nice weather is coming. Therefore, all the snowbirds will be heading back. I usually stat my snowbird prices at the end of march and runs April, May and last year into June. I have a lot of customer locked in at prices so have to honor them as fuel prices are starting to go up. I have my regular customers that I have had for years on board but always looking for more. Actually price are a little higher going back but shorter amount of time then going down. My snowbirds start Oct 1 and run all the way into Feb. so a lot more months. Supply and demand will see what happens this Spring. Yes be careful when yo are getting those quotes a lot of bad brokers out there.

I get this question all the time. Instead of spending 15 minutes on the phone trying to explain it I decided to write a post on it. Why do the quotes vary so much. There are good brokers out there that want to get car s moved for a fair price and quote what they think will move it. That is what American Transport does and always will do. Then there are other companies that do low ball quotes. The contract they send you in fine print you have to look there is a clause that states the following if you cancel your contract there is a 50 dollar fee or whatever  it is charged to your credit card, so the broker makes their money and knows the price they gave you will never move the vehicle. They baited you in with the low price. Another thing may happen called a bait and switch a carrier will call saying they want another 150 dollars to move the vehicle. The broker is not going to give up their broker fee so they call you back and tell you to move the car you have to pay this amount. If it close to the date you have an option on what to do pay or find another broker and go through the whole process again. Most carriers only look a day or 2 out because so much is involved with moving a car.

To be honest if you cancel with me  there is no fee. However, if i have a carrier is assigned and you cancel there is a 125.00 fee. This is because i put my time and searched for a carrier for you and my time was involved setting it all up. I don’t work for free. I will show you the print out date/time when a carrier was assigned. A lot of companies say they assigned a carrier  but really they didn’t and charged you a fee.

 

Most of the brokers that charge a fee to cancel are out of business in a year or 2 anyways because people get mad and do a chargeback on their credit card  and credit card companies don’t like too many of those and end up cancelling the broker’s acct.

 

 

Yes, the holidays are behind us. Therefore, the number of snowbirds has increase. The number of people looking to move their car south has tripled in the last week. Therefore, more cars means limited space for everyone. what this means is price increase on cars heading south. There has been an increase of 100 dollars  or more

since the 1st of Jan. All must customers are locked in so I can’t raise he price so I stuck with it. I had a number of people call me last week their car was suppose to be picked up and had no shows brokers not answering their phones or e-mails. Why because they book a month of two ago for a low price of 700-750 then broker has to take their  fee of 100-150 dollars which brings it down to 600 dollars. That vehicle is not going to move in a million years right now as cars are going for around 800 dollars posted loads. So their is going to be a lot of people out of luck and will have to drive or pay more money.

I tell my customers your car will get their I have never asked for more money ,never not showed up, took a deposit and didn’t give back, run a credit card before the vehicle was on the truck, never not answered a e-mail or phone call.

The one thing I ask my customers is to have patience you will get your car. This week I had an incident with one of my trucks he was in PA heading to Mass on the way side of the road getting his trucked fixed and a lady driving a ford explorer plowing right into the back end of the trailer. The vehicle flipped over and the driver help the lady out of the car.

 

As you can see there was damage. Therefore, we are behind schedule. Remember this is after a holiday so people are taking time off which will cause a delay.

Then the other day we had temps  at minus 8 with the wind chill it was something like minus 28 these big trucks don’t like cold weather  and sometimes the trailer don’t go up and down to load cars(things freeze will cause a delay). Then the next days we get 2-3 inches of snow which can cause issue moving a 10 car rig around all it takes is someone to crash into you or the driver slides  into a telephone pole then their is big trouble. As you can see things happen in this business. IF A BROKER OR CARRIER CAN GUARANTEE YOU A PICK UP OR DROP OFF DATE IN THIS BUSINESS. I WOULD HANG UP THE PHONE AND NEVER CALL THEM BACK. They will take your deposit and you will never hear from them again.

The bottem  line is that if you don’t have patience I’m not the company for you so please keep on looking as I don’t want your business. thanks

A lot of broker buy leads and end up fighting against  9 other brokers and I don’t low ball quotes or liar to my customers so this idea doesn’t work for me. The amount of vehicles on the centraldispatch.com  board varies at times. The problem is companies post loads without having a sign contract so when you call they always have to check with the customer and you never heard back from the broker because they don’t have the load, or sometimes they post the load at a higher price then the customer is willing to pay just to get calls and maybe get the load from the customer the problem is both of there are against centraldispatch.com policy but very hard to prove so tons of companies are doing it. That is why using one of the transport quote pages is sometimes not good (YOU ARE GIVING OUT YOUR E-MAIL AND PHONE NUMBER). Sometime there is 3 brokers posting the same load and a lot of carriers don’t even bother with it because he doesn’t  know who has the real load as a lot of brokers will liar to you. The carrier goes to location no car or calls and the car is already gone.

Today, it happen I got a lead and looked it up on centraldispatch.com and see if it is posted (yes it was), so I call the customer because I have her number ask her about the car. I mention to her that the car is posted and see if a contract has been signed.  She explains to me she has not done anything with anyone. I gave her the name of the company and she tells me that they only talked about shipping her vehicle that same day but no contract or credit card was given. I took a picture of the posted load and e-mail it to her. She calls the company and ask them what’s going on. I look back on centraldispatch.com and the load posted is gone. Remember these are sales people sitting in a South Florida room with about 10-15 other salespeople working the phones all day trying to get your order. THEY WORK ON COMMISSION ONLY SO NO ORDERS NO PAY(on orders that get dispatched)

Also, if you get an e-mail saying “we have trucks in your area) run the other way as fast as you can. These are brokers and they have no trucks. These brokers buy hundred of leads a day so there is not that many trucks in the U.S to be everywhere in the area it is a liar right there before you even get started.

I don’t work on commission so if I don’t get the order so be it. I had two cancel last week on me. They were flying in on Dec 9th in the morning and wanted there car Dec 9t in the afternoon. I told the customer it is possible but can’t guarantee it. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get something to eat. I told here I would try my best. She kept on saying Dec 9th and finally I told here I’m not interested in the order and please find someone else. If a customer can’t have a little patience I’m not the company for them. The second one wanted me to guarantee it would be there Dec 2 or 3 in Tampa, Florida. I told them I can’t guarantee it in this business and no one can, so they cancelled the order on me. I would rather be truthful and not liar to the customer and get bad reviews for me it isn’t worth it. I will be honest and straightforward from the time you talk to me.

 

 

 

I always wonder why people choose a broker they know nothing about. They get a cheap quote and the broker actually salesperson that is all they are most of them have no idea how the industry works they will tell you everything you want to hear. They answers an ad in their local paper i.e. craigslist (mostly florida) has tons of brokers with the opportunity to make 800-1000 dollars a week which is NOT TRUE. They make 35% of the broker fee which is between 125-150 so you have to close a lot of deals and that isn’t happening.

The reason for this blog is to use someone local if your car gets damages i.e small dents and new scratches from unloading or loading how do you proceed. That broker job is done once a carrier has been assigned and if they are in Florida, Chicago or California do you really thing they are going to help. You will be playing phone tag with the broker, carrier insurance people etc nothing will get done. Are you going to go to small claims court and take them to court for a 150-200 fix most of the contracts you have a legal clause as following ” Any legal actions must be brought in the jurisdiction of the carrier or brokers home” I don’t need to say anymore you are not going to waste your time or money well over 1,000 dollars to start it.

To get this far first you have to get all the insurance information on the carrier most people have no idea how to even get this, as the broker is suppose to help you but most of them are too busy trying to get new loads and your vehicle is a thing of the past. Remember the salesperson works on commission so talking to you they are not making in money. I don’t need to say anymore more on this topic also,

 

The most important thing to remember when the VEHICLE IS DROPPED OFF before you sign the Bill of lading any damages you see must be written on the Bill of lading. Once you sign the paper it relieves the carrier/driver of any responsibility of damages to the vehicle. If it is dropped off at night. Tell the driver you can’t see it and write STI on BOL (subject to inspection) in the morning. You still have to pay the driver at drop off for the vehicle transport.

I currently have 8 mobile auto body companies I use in florida. If there are damages please take pictures and send them to me. I will get an estimate from the company and work is usually done within a few days. Mostly minor dents and scratches can be taken care of very easy.