DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR DEPOSIT!!!
Matthew Watts
Submitted this review about
Tristar Trucking
Review made Live: 6/2/2011 11:37:00 PM
Tristar is probably the worst company I have ever dealt with. This is a long story, but I will try to be as concise as possible. In short, I gave them a $175 deposit for nothing. After being repeatedly lied to and receiving terrible customer service, I was forced to cancel and go with a different broker. I have requested a refund of my deposit, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
First, I dealt with Harvey. He quoted me an extremely low price of $610 for my move from California to Georgia. I knew little about the car shipping industry, and I had yet to look at the reviews on this site, so I just thought I was getting a great deal. Little did I know that they never intended to deliver on that price.
Even though I was in my last semester of law school, I found their contract to be incoherent, so I asked Harvey if there was any chance I would be charged more than $610. He responded in an email that "[a]s soon as you lock in the $610 price you won’t have to worry about increases because of gas prices." When the carrier arrived to pick up my car, however, I was informed that the price was actually going to be $800 if I wanted the car moved. Later, Harvey explained that when he said I didn't have to worry about increases because of gas prices, "that doesn’t mean that prices won’t go up…….it means you don’t have to worry about it." Apparently I am made of money, so I shouldn't worry about throwing some away.
While the driver was still there, I called Tristar to ask why the price had changed. At this point, I dealt with Sam, and I was given even more bad news. Not only would the price be $800, but that price did not include the $175 broker fee. I was going to have to pay the driver $800 in addition to the $175 deposit I had already paid, for a total of $975. In other words, the price had suddenly gone up 60%.
Sam argued that I should have known about this if I had read the contract. My contract clearly said that my amount due was $435, however, which is equal to the $610 total less the $175 deposit/broker fee I had already paid. When I took issue with Sam's strained interpretation of the contract, I was told that I should get some English lessons. This is just one example of the type of customer service I received.
I cancelled with that carrier because I didn't want to pay the $800. Later that day I got a call from Sam saying that he could get another carrier for closer to $700 to pick up my car the next day. Desperate to get my car out of there, I agreed, so long as he could indeed pick it up the next day. When I didn't hear anything, however, I cancelled with Tristar altogether via email. About four days later, another carrier called me saying they were ready to pick up my car, but I had already gotten the car shipped through another broker. A little later, Sam called wondering why I had used someone else. Up until this point, I had thought the guys at Tristar were only dishonest, but I'm now convinced that they are also incompetent.
The moral of the story is that you have options when you ship your car, and you shouldn't use Tristar. They are dishonest, and the company is laughable. Their contracts look like a mass joke email. There are plenty of companies with good reviews on this site that will get you a reasonable price. Specifically, I recommend Domestic Auto Transport, who I had an excellent experience with after cancelling with Tristar.
