V & K Transport

Review: The owner of V&K Transport is holding our car hostage and not letting us know where the car is until we wire money into his bank account.

We used [redacted] Express, a car shipping service that subcontracts with carriers to provide reliable auto shipments for people moving. [redacted] subcontracted to [redacted] of V&K Transport, and since picking up our car, he has continued to do the unexpected. First, the service was supposed to be door-to-door, which was not done--our friend, Judit Pap, had to drive our car to some location for [redacted] to pick it up. That was Wednesday, 8/1. Second, on Thursday 8/2 we got a call from [redacted] while we were en route driving from TN to CA (we were somewhere in the midst of New Mexico, mile marker 130), saying that he wanted us to stop and meet him at I-40 exit 15 to pay him upfront for the delivery. Despite the fact that our contract is for payment upon delivery, [redacted] said that he would be in CA before us, and we needed to pay him before delivery because we would not yet be in CA when he got there. According to the contract with [redacted], he is supposed to find a reasonably priced storage place in the event that we are unable meet him. At first he refused to do this, so we called [redacted], who we thought successfully mediated with [redacted] to drop it off at Fresno's Public Storage. On Friday, we get a call from Fresno's Public Storage (by a Lynn) stating that [redacted] arranged with them to store our car and that we needed to set up a time to come get it--preferably that day. She wanted us to come in at 5:30pm that day (still Friday), and since we were only able to get to Fresno by their closing time at the earliest (~6pm), I told her that we'd most likely only be able to come in Saturday morning (8/4). Saturday morning we wake up, get the GPS out and type in the Public Storage's address. We get there, and this nice guy [redacted] had a blank look on his face when we asked if he had a blue 2007 Yaris. He told us that we can take a look around the lot, and after walking the perimeter and not seeing our car, we called [redacted] readily picks up the phone and says that he will only tell us where our car is once we've wired him money. So, in essence, we're being blackmailed and our car is now being held hostage. We are trying to work with [redacted] to mediate with [redacted] since we do not want to pay sight unseen for the car--we do not know how the car is, where it is, and who has the key to it. And, simply put, we chose [redacted] because they specifically contract to pay upon delivery (which is good practice). We are not sure how this will resolve, but we definitely do not recommend [redacted]'s business. Any help the Revdex.com community can give us in ensuring this does not happen again would be greatly appreciated.Desired Settlement: We would like to see our car, after which we will pay for the service (as per our contract).

Business

Response:

Business' Initial Response

* Per consumer's additional Information*

Overall, the entire shipping of the car was much more difficult than it needed to be, and [redacted] even had a different storage company call us and tell us our car would be there, and then when we arrived in CA and went to the public storage place, it turned out that they never received the car from [redacted]. This left us without knowing where our car was, and when we called [redacted], he told us he wouldn't tell us anything until we wire transferred him money. After trying to get his contracting company, [redacted] to hold [redacted] to the terms of shipping (our contract, he would not return [redacted]'s calls, and he was difficult to talk with on the phone because he didn't seem to care that we didn't know where our car was and he just wanted his money). We finally were able to get [redacted] to tell us where the car was--it was being held at [redacted], and as a favor to [redacted], the owner of [redacted] would only show us the car, but not release it to us, until we wire transferred money to [redacted]'s Bank of America bank account (this seemed really weird to have our car pretty much held hostage, especially given that we were told by [redacted] that [redacted] would arrange with public storage to hold the car until we get there--which is what we were told is common and what we expected). Again, as a customer whose contract was to pay upon delivery, and whose expectation was to have the car shipped in a pretty transparent manner, this was neither what we contracted for nor what we expected. So, at the end of the day, we have our car, but we totally would not have agreed to let V&K ship our car if we knew that he would pretty much hold it hostage. Since we used our credit card for the original contractor [redacted] Express, we were able to successfully reverse their charge, and while we always wanted to pay V&K for their service, the unfriendly and uncaring manner in which it was provided would have resulted in a similar rebuttal if we were able to charge instead of wiring money--pretty sure that holding people's cars hostages isn't exactly legal (or, if it is, it shouldn't be). Just wish that [redacted] was less heavy handed, pressuring, and desperate in getting money from car owners before he even delivers their cars... Definitely would not recommend him.