How to Avoid a Bad Auto Transport Carrier

With the availability of the internet, you have an almost endless amount of auto transport carrier companies to choose from. While it's recommended that you go through an experienced broker for your auto shipping needs, if you find yourself contacting carrier directly, you need to know how to avoid choosing a bad carrier.

The good news is that thanks to the internet, you also will be able to separate the good from the bad far easier than you would have been able to in the past. If a company is bad, trust us, the internet has a way of destroying reputations. Here are some tips to follow:

Search for Reviews.

It's a must to read up on the carrier that you're choosing to go with. One of the best sites to use is the Better Business Bureau's website, which is located at http://www.bbb.org. It contains an extremely large amount of customer reviews on most haulers (and auto transport brokers). If you can't find the auto transport carrier listed on the Better Business Bureau's website, that's a warning sign.

Of course, another option, which you should do in addition to searching on http://www.bbb.org is to do a Google search for the company. You should be able to discern from the results if it's credible or not. Try this simple template: "(Company Name) review". You can also try adding the word "scam" next to the company name during your search to see if anything alarming comes up.

Ask for References.

Another way to tell if relocator is bad or not is to ask them directly for references. If they refuse to give you any references of customers that they've worked with before, that's not a good sign. If they have nothing to hide, they won't mind doing so.

Evaluate Their Quality of Customer Service.

This is something that you should use common sense with. When you contact them, are they rude or short with you? Do they make an effort to accommodate any special requests that you have? What about answering your questions in detail and without an attitude? You can tell a lot about a company by how they treat their customers at every step of the process, so the quality of an auto carrier's customer service is important.

Check Their Credentials.

Make sure to check out their credentials to see if they have the appropriate carrier licenses. At the very least, they should be registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is located at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov. If they don't have it on their website, ask them to e-mail you a copy of it, including their US Dot number. Once you have their US Dot number, you can visit http://li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov/LIVIEW/pkg_carrquery.prc_carrlist to look them up.

Even though you might deal with transporter directly, you really should go through an auto broker. We only use haulers that have a proven track record and are extremely credible. Our decades of experience in auto transport means that we know which carriers are good and which ones should be avoided at all costs. Make sure to contact us today for your free quote, as well as to ask us any questions. We're happy to help!