Tag Archive for: American Transport and Worcester

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Do Your Research Before Picking An Auto Transport Company

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I was in the office today and received a call from a person that was looking to ship a car from Weymouth, Mass to Las Vegas, NV. He told me the story that he had a carrier(has their own trucks) and the truck broke down in New York and couldn’t do it. I asked for the company name and he told it to me. After doing some research the company didn’t even have trucks, in addition wasn’t even license as a broker or carrier. This company was using a name that sound like they had trucks etc. They are a sister company out of florida that was a broker. The fake company had some good reviews but also some bad ones. The auto broker company hides behind the fake company so they don’t get bad review. FIRST OF ALL DO NOT BELIEVE ALL THE REVIEWS ON THE INTERNET THEY CAN BE POSTED BY THE COMPANY. Second, get the company name and just do a google search you will be amaze on what you find out if you can get the owner’s name do the same. THIRD, ASK FOR THEIR m/c NUMBER AND GO TO THIS WEBSITE AND SEE IF THEY ARE LICENSE. Follow the steps on the front of this webpage.

http://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/LIVIEW/pkg_menu.prc_menu

 

The fake company was not license as a carrier or broker AND THE BROKER POSTED THE LOAD UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME. They couldn’t get anyone to move it so they said the truck broke down etc.

This poor guy is now stuck I tried to help him but explain it would be costly because everyone is doing snowbirds and only the high price vehicle are moving.

The internet is good and bad  just be careful and it only takes about 15 minutes to research a company. I just don’t understand customer their vehicle is worth between 5k-45k and they trust a broker they know nothing about. A couple of months ago an incident happen a 10 car carrier stole all the cars and shipping then overseas. There are a lot of different cultures shipping cars and a lot of them have connection overseas p.s the broker usually picks the first carrier that calls and has NO IDEA ABOUT THEM AS LONG AS THEY ARE LICENSE THEY DISPATCH THE ORDER. Remember they work on commission so they get their broker fee and if you read the contract it is between you and the carrier. Not to get off topic 10 cars at 15k is not bad in foreign countries. The carrier will just cancel their insurance and leave the country.  This is an extreme case but know who you are dealing with.

Snowbird Season

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Ok summer is over and kids are back in school. Yes, the fall is when a lot of snowbirds start heading to Florida and Arizona for the winter. The question is when does it start? My rates kick in right around Oct 1st because there are a number of vehicles being ship to Florida now. As of 9/21/2014 the number of vehicles going to Florida from Mass is approx. 114 vehicles ready to be shipped in 14 days. That  number is going to increase very quickly within the number of weeks. Here is the problem a lot of carriers doing the route is not going to increase that much because they have went out of business( it cost over 14k for insurance, equipment is very pricy and fuel is costly so they have gotten out of the business)Some carrier decide to stay on the same route they do every year and not bother with snowbird season. HERE IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM. THE NUMBER OF CARS COMING OUT OF FLORIDA IS FEW AND EVERYONE WILL BE FIGHTING TO GET THEM. therefore, a lot of carrier have decided to not bother with it as it isn’t worth it. As of 9/21/2014 there is approx. 17 vehicle coming out of florida to mass within 14 days that is not much so think about it.

The bottom line is supply/demand the supply of vehicle will be very high but the demand for carriers is few. So there is going to be a lot of cars sitting this snowbird season. Last year was one of the busy seasons I have seen since the great depression of 2008. The economy is improving, housing in Florida is cheap compare to Mass can’t speak for other parts of the U.S. so a lot of snowbird are heading south.

I Get This Question Everyday.

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I get calls from customer asking for transport quote. Today I got a call looking to ship there car from the South Shore Hanover, Mass to Florida daughter was going to school. I gave them a price of 800 which I know I can do if not me I can broker it out but it will get move. The customer replies we got a quote of 575 to move it. How did she get a quote so low she went to one of those websites and put in her information and next thing you know she got 8 quotes ranging from 550-850. Of course everyone takes the lowest one. I hate these websites it gives the customer  the idea a car will get moved for that price. These sales/brokers people all work on commission and will tell you anything to get an order they are fighting against each other to get an order. Little do these customer know that BROKERS have no control if a car gets picked up. They are hoping it does if not they do not get paid.

In addition, your car will sit for days or weeks and be stress out. The quote I give you will be an honest quote. I do not work on commission so no need to lower my price. I will let the customer find out for themselves but give them fair warning on what will happen.

Things to remember. Never give a broker your credit card until they find a carrier. Signing a contract is ok as long as they don’t have your credit card let them find someone first.

Just do your research it takes a couple of minutes on each company to find out if they are good or bad.

 

 

Transportreviews.com

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Alot of people use this website to checkout auto transport companies. I just want to explain how the website works and to use it as one of your tools to find a company. First customer can post reviews good or bad about a company on their experience using them. Companies that advertise or pay to be on the site get special treatment. I saw it happen first hand last fall. A customer called me looking to move their car from Las Vegas, NV to Boston, Mass as their son was returning home. They listed with a company and that company told them they are hundreds of trucks. First of all any company with hundreds of trucks is not going to be on transportreviews.com as they have national acct. Anyways, the vehicle was listed for 900 which was way too low I told him 1200 was probably going to move it. I told him to cancel the order and list it with me and write up a review on transportreviews about the company liaring to them saying they already had a truck assign to get it. The company was only a broker so had NO TRUCKS WAS LIARNG TO THE CUSTOMER.

The customer wrote a review about the company which I saw posted withn 3 hours the post was removed. The company was paying to advertise on the website I say about 200-250 dollars a month was going to the company they handles the reviews. How do you think the website makes money on advertising, so they want to keep this company so they removed the bad review. If you think about it that makes sense as they keep the company and they had good feedback so it is a win/win for both. I then went to look them up on the BBB (Better Business Bureau) they had over 100 complaints on them. How can they both be off by so much. I just explained it above.  In addition, you can see it they are a carrier or broker see below my company American Transport. I tried to cut and paste it but didn’t work

here is a link to my page.

http://transportreviews.com/company/american-transport-(massachussets).asp

If you look at the FMCSA info a broker will only be active if they are a carrier the common and contract with also so active. If they are both all of them will be active.

How long they have been in business is another great tool. A lot of these broker are gone in a year or so. It is always best to use someone local if you can find someone.

THE BOTTEM LINE JUST DON’T GO WITH THE LOWEST QUOTE DO SOME RESEARCH AND WILL SAVE YOU ALOT OF TIME AND HEADACHES.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF AUTO BROKERS

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I get this question all the time why is your price higher then the other quotes, Very simple brokers will low ball you with a quote.THEY CAN NOT MOVE VEHICLES. 3 things will happen  with low quotes.   1) The car will sit and never get picked up. The broker will call and say the truck is broken down or some other excuse. The truth is they can’t find anyone. 2) The broker will call you saying they need more money. Bait and switch. Brokers work on commission so there is no salary they have to close as many deals as possible to be able make it. Do you really think a carrier is going to move a car from Florida to Mass or visa versa for 450 dollars. No way not in a million years if so that carrier will be out of business in a year or two. Fuel $4.10/insurance about 10-12k a year/ pay driver 25% of load and these trucks are not cheap to fix. The driver is better off not taking it they are wasting a day trying to get it. He can go from florida to North Carolina for 450. Drop that car off get another going to New England for 450. etc. 3) You may get lucky and get a driver that has one spot open and needs to fill it but that is about a 10-15% chance, Get the companies M/C number you can look it up just follow the front page of this website or just ask them for it. Don’t get me wrong there are some good brokers but ALOT of them are scumbags and just want the order and are  praying someone picks it up for the low amount.

 

These Auto Broker work on commission so they try and get as man orders as possible hoping a carrier will take it. If not will do a bait and switch and call you to increase the price. In this business most broker have no idea how the business works and hoping to get their 35% cut on a 150 dollar broker fee. I do not work on commission, therefore, I have no interest in low balling customers. I tell you the price what I feel will move it. Just check my ratings on the BBB and transportreviews.com it tells the story.

GREAT ADVICE ON MULTIPLE CAR SHIPPING QUOTES WEBSITES (MUST READ)

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How Do Auto Transport Lead Providers Work?

When a customer searches on the Internet for an auto transport company, it is sometimes hard to tell which sites are in that business from the pretenders who are merely lead generation sites. The multiple auto shipping quotes web sites disguise themselves as real companies, capturing personal information and the particulars of an auto transport shipment, and then turn around and sell that information to nearly 10 brokers. What happens next is often chaos and confusion for the customer. Multiple QuotesThere are probably about ten former auto transport brokers who for whatever reason decided to give up shipping vehicles and now dominate the multiple quote lead business. The broker business is hyper competitive and takes a toll on most owners, so off they go. The lead providers usually own several sites that they optimize for certain major keywords. Many lead generation sites employ people whose only job is to find ways to push their auto transport web sites higher on Google, Bing and Yahoo. The customer has a hard time discerning the real from the sudo-real companies, and may unwittingly submit his or her personal information that is within seconds sold for $1.00 to $2.00 per lead to several actual brokers. The average total value of a typical multiple quote lead is therefore roughly $10 to the web site owner. If the auto shipping lead generation site has natural or organic web position, then the $10 collected per lead is pure profit. However, if the site used advertising companies such as Google Adwords to generate the multiple quote lead, then usually that advertising service will get the lion’s share of the $10. Ouch. So most lead providers use a mixture of both methods. It’s all numbers, and some lead providers are simply sharper than some of their lead providing competitors.

Who Buys The Multiple Quote Car Shipping Leads?

Usually, but not always, very aggressive auto transport brokers buy the leads. They have to be aggressive or somebody else will eat their lunch. Think about it. That broker knows that the lead they just received was also sent to as many as 9 other companies at precisely the same time. On average it cost each broker $1.00 to get that lead. Let’s say he buys 100 leads every day, so that’s $100 regardless of whether he books an order. The auto transport broker sends an email to the prospective customer just as soon as he can figure out the quote. But by the time he does that, the customer may have already received 9 other emailed quotes. If that broker’s quote is too high, he is likely to be eliminated from consideration, even though he knows that the order is unlikely to ship anytime soon for less than his quote. For our part, we are oblivious to competitor quotes. We know what it will take to actually ship an order within one week and will not deviate our approach. For that reason, we only occasionally participate in the lead buying business. ALSO CHECKOUT THE COMPANY YOU ARE GETTING A QUOTE FROM MOST OF THESE ARE FLY BY NIGHT COMPANIES AND WILL ONLY BE AROUND IN A YEAR OR 2. AMERICAN TRANSPORT HAS BEEN IN BUSINESS  FOR NEARLY 10 YEARS.

 

 

Why Use An Auto Terminal?

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There are several reason to use a terminal. Mostly for snowbird customers going to and from Florida from New England. Newenglandtoflorida.com website for American Transport has 9 terminals in Florida and 1 terminal in Massachusetts home base.

City in Massachusetts – Worcester

The cities I have in Florida:

West Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Naples, Ft Myers, Sarasota, Port Charlotte,  Tampa and Orlando.

Why are terminals important for snowbirds usually they have two cars. They drop one off at my terminal in Worcester, Mass a week or 2 before they are flying down. The car is shipped down to the terminal that you choose. When you get off the airplane you can take a taxi to the location, have a friend  pick you up or I can arrange to have you picked up.

The same can be done coming back.

Transporting  vehicles takes time and there are several delays that can happen. Trucks do not leave empty must be filled to make money, truck breaks down, overweight must fix load at weight station, have other stops along the way, traffic on I 95 can be crazy so you can see there is a lot. Remember this is 1500 miles not going right around the corner, so a lot IS involved with this transport.

Vacation In Florida

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SDC11927 (Large)Yes, the family took a vacation in Florida in July. The weather in Macro Island was very hot 90’s plus but it was a great time. My step daughter had an awesome time at the pool and the ocean. we go to Florida twice a year always in Oct to Disney world. Had a lot of fun but love New England in the summer.

 

Out to get some shells on an island.

 

What kind of insurance do the carriers use?

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Most carriers hold750,000 to one million dollars combined single limit and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per incident.

This insurance covers damage done to your vehicle in transit. The auto transport carrier is the main and only coverage. Personal contents of the automobile are not covered by the carrier’s insurance, and the vehicle will not be covered if it is lost, damaged, or stolen

Can I Put Items In My Vehicle

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Auto shipping companies are not insured for household goods. The law specifically forbids automobile movers from transporting anything except your vehicle. The vehicle shipping transport truck is inspected by the Department of Transportation agents and police at every state line and can be fined up to $10,000, if found to be carrying household items. Under no circumstances may a vehicle carry firearms, illegal substances, contraband, or hazardous materials. The vehicle may be subject to impoundment, and in such an event, all fines and expenses will be passed on the owner of the vehicle. Newenglandtoflorida/American Transport lets you put less then 100 pound sin the trunk. Remember transport companies are not moving companies. In addition, please do not have anything in the front/back seat over the windows.