Dishonest - Stolen Keys and no follow up
Audrey
Submitted this review about
Lightning Auto Carriers
Review made Live: 10/7/2010 9:24:00 PM
Casey Harrington (and his company Lightning transport) is dishonest as a broker, does not stand behind the company he hires, and does not work with carriers that can be trusted to stand behind their word. I want to advise anybody who is considering this company for their car transport – DON’T DO IT!!! Here’s what happened (believe it or not, this is the short version) : We moved a Lexus and a BMW from Rhode Island to Florida in August, 2010. I based my decision largely on positive reviews from this site. He was not the cheapest at all, but he sounded trustworthy and he had mostly positive reviews. I should have suspected something right away, when he told me the cars would be in Florida by Friday and they hadn’t been picked up from RI on Wednesday, but I was patient. This resulted in additional car rental fees of almost 300 dollars for us, but I really was too busy to deal with it.
After the company finally came to get the cars from RI, somewhere along the way the keys were stolen from the carrier. Apparently somebody climbed up onto the truck and stole the keys, which shouldn’t have been there in the first place (irresponsible trucker not following car transport laws). Luckily, we had our valet keys to get the cars off the carrier. We got estimates to replace the master keys, one of which was very expensive (1500 dollars), because we were making them from the valet keys and they were supposedly going to have to replace the computer in the car in order to make the new master. We were very sympathetic and agreed that it was unreasonable, so, although we weren’t happy about it, agreed to send our wallet keys to the trucking company in Boston so they could make us new masters at a lower cost. It has now been almost 6 weeks. I have to call the trucking company to get updates which vary from “I’m working on it” to “Oh yeah, I will call them this afternoon” and “I’m waiting to hear back”. The guy actually has the audacity to laugh when he hears my voice. In the meantime, I have one valet key that I am using, with no backup should I need it. Casey promised to take matters into his own hands about 3 weeks ago, told me all about the various people he had emailed who were “working on it” and promised me up and down that he would call me back after it was resolved. He also told me that if Cobra Transport does not resolve this soon, he will post a negative review about them which should hurt their business and is undesirable. Instead, he chose the trucking company again to transport more of his cars because they told him it was all taken care of and he “didn’t think to call and confirm that”. When I told the guy at Cobra that I was reporting him to Casey he said “what’s Casey going to do about it” and I said “he will post a negative review” and he laughed and said “he won’t do that”. He keeps telling me “don’t worry about it, I’m taking care of it” but the weeks are ticking by and I still have no resolution.
I feel that I was very patient and understanding through this ordeal and have been taken advantage of. It is now September 30, 2010 and I called Cobra this morning (after being promised that they would have it all set by this past Monday) and he again told me he’s “waiting to hear back”. Why not be more aggressive and pursue this? Why do I have to pay the price for his lackadaisical attitude? I have not heard from Casey, who avoids my calls (which are pretty infrequent – it’s not like I have been overzealous at all in my attempts to communicate with him), and I have about 10000 things I should be doing right now rather than writing this post and having this headache. I just moved with my husband and small children and have had way too many issues to deal with – this was supposed to be very simple and it was anything but. Unless you are looking for irresponsibility, poor communication, and liars, I highly advise you to choose another company who will back you up should something go wrong, as it did with our transport. Casey’s argument is that they didn’t actually transport the car, so my issue should be with Cobra, not Lightning, and while I do feel that he is not directly responsible, I hired him, not Cobra, and when my attempts to deal with Cobra were futile, he should have been able to do something, or at least made a sincere effort, which he did not. I am sure he will have some excuse as to why this happened and how I am to blame (I would be interested to hear what it is) but the bottom line is that no matter what he says, I hope you will trust that it was in no way my fault and that as the company I hired, Lightning Transport held the ball here and failed miserably. Update as of October 4 – Both Casey and Barry Edwards (from Cobra) are ignoring my calls. Left 2 messages for Casey after he promised me to get back to me with the insurance information so we could go that route, and he never called back – certainly not within ½ hour as his voice mail states. I held off posting this in case he decided to do the right thing, but as he hasn’t, this is my only choice.
