I know you guys will give it to me straight. I needed my personal vehicle shipped and while many, many brokers reached out to me, getting an actual human with a truck to ship my car was not as easy.
So, this week I went scorched earth and basically contacted a bunch of brokers and simply went with the one who picked it up first.
In the interim, one of the brokers I contacted evidently disliked the fact that I didn’t book with him and charged me a $200 cancellation fee. It did state as much in our contract en re cancellations.
I shot a text to said broker (A – who charged cancellation) first thing that morning to ask if they had a driver. No driver, so I booked with the other company, B. Company A calls up a couple of hours later saying they had a driver and wanted to confirm. I said I do not confirm, the job is no longer available.
I then receive a text asking me to confirm that I cancel the listing and agree to the cancellation fee. This is where I was most stupid. I skimmed over this text and thought it only asked me to agree to cancelling and the rest was boilerplate “Contact us for any work in the future.” Type of stuff. I confirmed and they charged me $200.
I got them back on over text and they refused to refund and said I could hire a lawyer but I agreed and it was in writing. I then said, “Okay, call this driver and see when he is coming.” I suspected the driver didn’t exist. Lo and behold, the driver “took another job and already left the area.” My reply was, “Okay, he got another job. Why can you charge me and charge your new customer, that seems a bit unjust.” And then they stopped replying.
So, do tell. Do I have options? I can charge back through my bank, but that’s easy to refute. Do I have a case if I file a complaint with the DOT? Am I just a dumb@ss who needs to STFU and take the L?
Thank you to all you trucker guys and gals. ☺️
