One or two accusations is probably nothing to get worried about - review sites are famous for being places where less than honest customers sometimes go to damage a business’ reputation. The scammy companies will often have lots of people they’ve scammed before, and those people will be mad and post negative reviews. It’s a lot harder to cancel the deal without financial penalties if you sign a contract that says you can’t.Ĭheck online reviews. Even non-scam companies might have clauses in there you don’t want to obligate yourself to. First, as we’ve said before, read that contract. You can take some steps to protect yourself from being scammed, or just ending up on the wrong end of a bad business deal. Make sure all costs, including taxes, fees, service charges, and more, are disclosed to you before you agree to anything. Suspiciously lowball prices are a sign that there might be hidden costs demanded of you after you agree to the trip. That’s a great price! Probably too great. You’ve found a company that’ll ship your DeLorean to Guam for $300. You should have gotten it washed just before you turned it over to the carrier, and if it’s covered in dirt, that could be an attempt to hide damage. And disreputable companies can edge the odds in their favor by making it hard for you to find that damage.īe suspicious if they want to deliver the car at night that’s a great way to hide damage, by making it hard to see in the dark. You need to find the damage when you accept delivery of the car - finding it even a few hours later is too late. But lesser companies might try to prevent you from discovering the damage until it’s too late. Driving a car on and off trailers involves very narrow spaces, and sometimes the car can get scraped or dented in the process.Ī reputable company will accept responsibility for the damage - they’ve got insurance to cover it. That’s a clause that’s ripe for abuse, so be wary if you find it in the contract.īut don’t just look for that - there are all sorts of ways a contract can be stacked against you, which is why you need to read them very carefully before you agree. A common example is that clause we talked about above, allowing the company to keep your deposit even if they cancel too close to the shipping date. The trouble is that sometimes contracts say things that give a significant advantage to the company. The only exception is if a clause isn’t legal those aren’t enforceable, but you often have to go to court and get a judge to agree that such clauses are invalid. You’re agreeing to everything it says, even if you don’t read everything it says. That contract is a legally binding document. This one isn’t a scam, per-se, but it certainly can feel like a scam if you end up on the wrong side of it. This practice is not good for the consumer. If they want an up front deposit without telling you who the carrier is, pass on that. A reputable company won’t pull that stunt. You then have a choice: Pay extra to actually get the car shipped, or cancel and lose your deposit. Some disreputable companies will use that language to give you a lowball price, then wait until after the cancellation period ends to spring the news on you that no carrier will work for such a low payment. Many contracts state that if you cancel within a certain number of days of the job, you won’t get your deposit back. If a broker wants your deposit before they tell you who the carrier company will be, that’s a red flag. That’s not a scam, but it’s possible with the way they go about securing drivers for jobs, that it can become a scam. They make their money by taking the difference between what you pay them, and what they have to pay the transporter. That means they don’t actually ship your car - they’re brokers who find other companies to do the actual work. Some auto transport companies aren’t direct carriers. It’ll tell you if they’re properly registered, and verify that they’re carrying the required levels of insurance. If they give you one, double check it by plugging the number into the FMCA’s website. If they don’t have one, they’re not legit. These are definitely auto transport companies to avoid, and the way to do that is pretty simple. It’s not always easy for the authorities to catch them, so it’s possible you’ll encounter one. But some outfits take the easy way, and operate illegally. And to get that registration, they need to have certain minimum amounts of insurance coverage. Common Auto Transport Scams Fly By Night CompaniesĬar transporters are required to register with a government agency called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
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