Magic Carpet - Stephanie Hamilton

H Gee Submitted this review about Magic Carpet Auto Transport
Review made Live: 10/25/2009 11:19:00 AM
Despite the cheaper quotes, I decided to use Magic Carpet because of the high reviews. Initial set-up for transportation with Magic Carpet was fine. Stephanie answered my questions so I decided to use them. Then once I paid the deposit, the service from Magic Carpet went downhill. The vehicle pick-up date was set for 10/14 and Stephanie said to call her if I did not hear from the driver by noon. I did not hear from the driver so I called Magic Carpet and asked to speak with Stephanie. The receptionist said Stephanie was busy so I asked if she could find out info about the pick-up, she said that driver's don't like to be "bugged" about pick-up times and she could not provide any information. (Well Customer's don't like waiting in limbo either.) Since Stephanie was "busy", I asked the receptionist to have Stephanie call me when she was available. I did not get a callback so I called at 2:30 (Stephanie was "busy" again) and another receptionist said she will get a pick-up time and would call me back in a few minutes. I never received a call back. At 3:30 I spoke with Stephanie who said she never received any messages for her to call me.(You better get another receptionist because how many other messages are not getting relayed) I told her that I was still waiting for the driver to let me know when the vehicle would be picked-up and rather than finding out the information about the pick-up for me, she gave the me the phone number of the dispatcher for R& G Transport. This was frustrating because if this was provided earlier, I could have called them directly and would have avoided wasting time calling Magic Carpet when i was at work. So I waited all day with no contact from anyone and in the end they give me the number for me to call. This is lame customer service, and the receptionists should provide correct information or say nothing at all ("driver's don't like to be bugged and I'll call you back in a few minutes but never call").

So after work, I call R&G Transport and spoke with Vitaly, he said the driver was in Oakland and would not be in Sacramento until around 7pm. (This may explain the run-around and no calbacks from Magic Carpet.) I told Vitaly that I had an engagement after 7 and he called the driver for pick-up updates every hour.

Meanwhile, I get an email from Magic Carpet stating the vehicle has been picked up and is on it's way to Texas. What a joke sending out a form email when the vehicle was not even picked up. It really shows how Magic Carpet values their customers.

After coming to the conclusion that the driver could not pick-up the vehicle at 7, Vitaly offered to have the driver pick-up the vehicle without me there which was a nice offer but I wanted to be there to see the vehicle loaded. We decided that R&G would pick up the vehicle at 7am the next morning. Vitaly, Oleg and the driver showed up earlier at 6:30am and provided excellent service. There was an issue with loading the vehicle because it was inoperable but the three from R&G worked hard to get it loaded. The vehicle was delivered on the date stated. Thanks R&G for providing superior customer service, the hourly updates and the effort loading the vehicle is appreciated. 5 Stars to R&G.

As for Magic Carpet, maybe they were busy but the customer service was extremely sub-par. especially with the misinformed statements about pick-up times.

The total bill was $1005 with $735 going to R&G Transport for the pickup/delivery. Magic Carpet received $270 for setting an appointment. (Kind of like Ronco's rotisserie machine, " just set it and forget it".

I understand there can be delays with the vehicle being picked up but at least inform your customer.
Next time, I'll go straight to R&G Transport or Angel's.