Damaged Vehicle

Darren Submitted this review about Berthoud Fair Deal Auto's
Review made Live: 2/10/2011 6:54:00 PM
Arrived 1 day early and insisted, while we were eating dinner with family for the last time before moving, that we leave dinner to let them load up the cars. We were greated a few minutes later by him calling again and insisting we leave to drop off the cars. This was a day before they mentioned they would be on location for pickup.

Upon picking up our vehicles there was a hydraulic line failure that sprayed fluid over the guy loading our car, who then proceeded to get into our cars and load them up with no seat protection.

3 days later we were notified via phone that their truck had lost a driveshaft and was awaiting replacment. We made it to our destination town in Colorado and called to check on our vehicles, they said there was a delay but they could deliver them the next day. The next day they called to see if we would be available to recieve the cars, and to let us know that one of them had been damaged in a storm. When the cars were finally delivered one had the roof crushed in bigtime and was covered in hydraulic fluid. The scratches in the crushed part of the car ran perfectly front to back... not something you would see from a tree in a tornado as they had claimed. They had transported the vehicles with the windows down and they were super dirty and dusty on the inside. I had mentioned to not leave the key in the ignition or it would kill the battery on my car, a gell cell that cannot handle going to zero charge, it arrived on the trailer warm to the touch and the $200 battery died less than a week later. I had placed an additional computer in the car that logged wheelspeed and rpm as well as many other sensors when the car is running. It was started and cooled off completely 7 times, was driven over 35mph once, had undergone wheelspin multiple times, and was started once completely cold and run at a high rpm for nearly 20 seconds.

Much like the other people that have commented about this company, I was also given the run around with some fake sounding insurance company. Upon seeing the damage to my car I immediately asked the person that dropped it off for claim information and the number to call. They told me to call their main office and they would get me the phone number. It took over 2 weeks and nearly 20 calls to get that insurance number from them. So I started dealing with their insurance person, who would do nothing more than write down information and asked very very few questions. This went on for almost 6 months until the point that I decided to let my insurance company deal with them. Almost instantly I found out that there was no record of my vehicle being on their transport books in Colorado. Furthermore the inspection of my car by the bodyshop showed frame damage due to extreme pressures on the top of the car, damage that was caused by some type of saw that easily cut through metal.

Needless to say I met with my insurance company to start the paperwork on a legal attack plan. I was out of pocket for my deductable and a local body shop fixed my car to the tune of almost $9000 after having to completely cut off the roof and weld a new one on and repaint nearly the entire car from all the minor damage they caused (crawling into and out of windows..etc). We won the suit and I got my deposit back, but the entire process took almost a year and I was left with a car in worse shape than when it was picked up.

I cannot say enough to stay away from this place. They should all be in jail for fraud. Hiding behind a business/corporation should not shield you in instances like these. They also go under multiple other names, so investigate the heck out of it.

I have left out a lot of the complaints I filed, phone call conversations to resolve the situation, faxes, emails, letters, etc. Do not underestimate how far they will go to get out of paying. There simply isn't enough 4 letter profane words to describe them.