North American Auto Transport Non-stop lies from the very beginning West Babylon New York

Let me just start off by saying that North American Auto Transport has been absolutely the WORST choice I could have made to transport my vehicle, and has the WORST customer service I have ever experienced.

I'll explain the whole story, but here are the basics of the deception:
* I paid extra to have my vehicle transported across the country in an ENCLOSED train car, but it was transported without my knowledge or permission on an OPEN truck. North American refuses to refund the cost difference.
* I was told I could pay for half the cost with a credit card, but after the vehicle was picked up, the company backed out of this agreement and forced me to come up with a very large amount of cash on short notice.
* I had no choice but to accept the changes North American made to our agreement AFTER they took control of my vehicle, because they refused to return it to me until I met their additional demands.
* North American Auto Transport's customer service team repeatedly lied to me and ignored my phone calls, voicemails and emails.

So here's the story:

After moving to California from Massachusetts several months ago, I decided to bring my car from Massachusetts, where it had been left with a friend, to San Francisco. A friend offered to drive it, but I decided it would be simpler and safer to have the car shipped on a car carrier by a transport company. The lowest quote I got for this transport from the many companies I contacted was $1046, door to door. North American Auto Transport quoted $1072, but then offered enclosed transport on a train for $1235.

Ryan, the reservationist, easily convinced me the extra money was worth it because my car would be completely enclosed in a train car, thus protected from flying road debris, leaking fluids from other cars on the truck, and would arrive quicker. I agreed I would prefer this method of transport, then discussed payment options. I stated that I would need to pay half the transport cost with a credit card. Ryan said they don't accept credit cards, so I thanked him for his time and told him I'd have to use a different company. He said they'd really like to keep my business and got permission from a supervisor to accept a credit card payment.

Once this deal was worked out, Ryan emailed me a contract and I gave him my bank account information to pay a $300 deposit via electronic check. I read over the contract and noticed it said balance to be paid by cash only. I questioned why it said nothing about the credit card payment and Ryan said don't worry it's a standard form, I've noted it to your account; but if it makes you feel better you can note it on the contract when you sign and return it. So I did. This was September 19th.

Pickup was scheduled for Sept 28th. I was told the driver would call when he was in the area and arrange a pickup time. On that day, the driver did not show up or call. Same thing next day, and all calls to North American's office went unanswered and unreturned. The weekend passed, then Monday was the same thing. By this point I was becoming afraid I'd been the victim of some type of scam, and I'd never see the $300 deposit again. Finally on Tuesday October 3rd I reached someone in the trucking dispatch department at North American, who told me the delay was part of the nature of this business because scheduling is not exact. And no, they didn't know why no one had called me back. But they would get in touch with the driver and find out what was wrong.

North American didn't call me back, but the driver, Bobby, called me on Thursday the 5th to say he was looking to pick up the car, and why was no one at the address where it was to be picked up? I told him it might be because he was seven days late. We worked things out with the pickup schedule, and it was picked up that night in Massachusetts. I asked when he would be getting the car loaded onto the train. He said What Train? That's right--no train. My car was going to be transported the entire way on an open truck, flying road debris and all.

The next day I again began calling North American, to ask why the car wouldn't go on a train. By Monday afternoon (after four days of ignored calls) I managed to reach Stephanie in customer service, only after I figured out that dialing *67 before their phone number would block my information from their caller ID. Ryan, my original contact at the company, was nowhere to be found by this time. Stephanie and I had a very long talk/argument about why she felt I was not entitled to any type of price reduction for the inferior mode of transport. She began trying to convince me the truck transport was worth the same as the train transport. Some of the reasons I was given included:
-This is an expedited truck. It's faster and better than other trucks.
-The train requirements changed just this week, and it would have actually taken 3 weeks, not the 10 days we told you, to ship it that way. We decided this was better.
-Our drivers are very trustworthy. Other companies hire their drivers right off the street.
-It's too late to change anything now, since the car is already on the truck.
-You're going to get your car either way, right?

I insisted that if they had called me to ask about switching the car from train to truck, I would have told them that I was paying the lower rate or using a different company. Stephanie wouldn't even address my arguments, she just kept repeating that if I didn't like it that was too bad, but the driver would not release the car to me without full payment.

Realizing I would get nowhere with Stephanie, I told her I'd like to speak with someone else. She said no one else is available. Why? Their entire staff (which Ryan claimed was 200 people) is on the phone. Okay, sure. So I asked for a manager. Not available. Okay, next down from the manager? Stephanie said that would be her. After wasting several hours (while I was supposed to be working) fighting this useless argument, I gave up and ended the call.

That afternoon (Monday the 9th), the driver called to say he expected to be in my area by Tuesday night. I was impressed by how quickly the car would be there, although this was because of the excellent driver who was not an actual employee of NAAT as they had claimed, but an independent driver subcontracted by them. The driver reminded me he would be picking up the remaining $935 balance from me in cash or cashier's check only.

Turns out he'd heard nothing about the credit card payment. Ryan had told me they would charge my credit card when the car arrived, but that left no way for the driver to get paid. The $300 deposit is actually North American's cut of the money, while the rest goes to the driver. So North American can just stop taking your calls after they've got your deposit, and leave the customer to work out any issues that arise after that. That's when I really got mad.

The next day, I didn't have to call North Americanthis time they called me. Stephanie left me a voicemail saying the driver contacted her after I told him I'd been planning to pay with a credit card. She said that was absolutely unacceptable, and the driver was not going to release my car to me until he had $935 cash in hand, period. Stephanie claimed North American has no way of charging a credit card because they don't ever do it. I demanded she put Ryan on the phone to verify that he had authorized using the credit card. Of course, he was unavailable.

I hung up with her and called Ryan's line repeatedly, which Devin answered and said Ryan was on the phone. I said I'd hold until he was done. I got disconnected. Called back and said the same thing, got hung up on. Twice more. I left him several very angry messages, which were never addressed. After a little more arguing with Stephanie, then nearly getting fired for spending so much of my work day on my cell phone, I gave up on her.

I asked my mother/lawyer, how I should handle the situation. She offered to call and try to work something out. Lucky for me, she sometimes records conversations involving a dispute, so her conversation with Tina in customer service is all on tape. Tina told my mother that Stephanie was not in fact the next down from a manager, but just a part-time employee who is not supposed to answer customer service calls. Tina claimed Stephanie would be disciplined for her rude behavior towards me and would not be allowed to answer the phone again. She said they do in fact have a credit card machine, but it was currently broken so they had been calling all the customers to ask that they use Western Union to charge the credit card and get cash. My mom complained about the extra expense of this, and Tina agreed that North American would take care of such unplanned expenses.

It seemed like everything was worked out, until the driver called to say he'd be a day or two late because his truck was having a mechanical problem. I said no big deal, I can wait.

Then on Wednesday the 11th I got a voicemail from Ryan, who had mysteriously reappeared, telling me that the $300 I had given him on September 19th had bounced, and I would need to give the driver another $300 in cash when he arrived with my car. At that point I about lost it. When I returned his call and said that it absolutely could not have bounced, he corrected himself and said he actually had the wrong routing number for my bank. I was given a couple of stupid reasons why it took almost a month for this problem to be discovered and he suggested I call my bank to verify the money had never been deducted.

While I had Ryan on the phone I demanded an explanation for why he hadn't returned any of my calls during the confusion about the credit card. He became very defensive, saying his father had been taken to the hospital, and he hadn't been to work in a week because he'd been with his father. I stated that Devin told me several times that Ryan was unavailable because he was on the phone, so I knew somebody was lying. Then, Ryan actually yelled at me that he didn't appreciate my making personal attacks on him and his family! I couldn't believe what I was hearing, which was so ridiculous I laughed at him. I said I didn't bring up your family, YOU did! So he said I was pushing for personal details, and anyways he didn't appreciate being called a liar, but what else could he really be called? By this point, the situation was just becoming ridiculous.

The next day was the same routine. I started calling the minute NAAT opened, which was 6am my time (in San Francisco). By now my calls were usually answered, thanks to the trick of dialing *67. But the people who answered my calls wouldn't allow me to talk to anyone except Stephanie, who I'd had about enough of by that point. This was Thursday October 12th, and my car was actually in San Francisco, but couldn't be released to me until I straightened out the issue of the $300 deposit.

Although I was at work that day, I might as well not have been because I spent the whole morning on the phone with Stephanie and my bank. At one point, Stephanie actually said I was wasting her time with all the phone calls! Eventually I verified with my bank that the $300 deposit never did go through, then closed my whole bank account and opened a new one because I didn't trust North American with my account information. Then I had to carry $1235 IN CASH back to work where the truck driver was going to meet me with my car.

I tried to get Tina back on the phone at North American, since she had originally agreed to reimburse Western Union expenses. I wanted to get someone to agree that I could deduct the cost difference between truck and train transport and the other extra costs from the balance I was paying to the driver. I knew that once I got my car and paid them, I'd never be able to get that money back. But it was no use talking to Stephanie and I was becoming more and more worried that something would happen to my car, so I told the driver I was ready with all the cash and he could come deliver the car.

FINALLY, I received my car on Thursday October 12th. It was absolutely filthy from the trip on the open truck, but was, remarkably, undamaged. I paid the driver and sent him on his way, then immediately called North American to start with lawsuit threats and whatever else it would take to get my money back. Of course, I have not ever reached anyone from the company since then. I am being completely ignored.

All in all, the hassle I went through in dealing with this company has been horrible. They just kept surprising me with how terrible the company is run. I can't imagine how they can treat people like this and still stay in business. But with most of their customers coming from the internet, word of mouth doesn't spread far enough, I guess.

I'm hoping to change that now. No one should have to waste the time and expense I have wasted with North American Auto Transport.

Jessica
San Francisco, California
U.S.A.

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