Schumacher Cargo Logistics
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Schumacher Logistics
I contacted a few logistics companies to ship my car from France to California. The person who replied from Schumacher was pleasant and had the title of COO, I thought I was in good hands. I cannot describe how DISAPPOINTED I am with this company. I agreed to the quote on November 27th to arrange for pick up, the car was picked up on December 10th with two days to get to the port, I was told the container would be a 40 foot shared container and would ship within 2-3 weeks (three weeks would be January 2nd). I routinely asked for updates, and could not get a concise date it would ship, as we got closer to the end of December, I was told that if I want the car to ship sooner, I could pay an additional $2500 for a 20 foot container and that would ship on or around January 4th, already days after the original outside window date/cost. Of course I asked when the shared container would ship at our agreed upon price and was told that we do not have that information at this time. So would my car still be there now if I didn’t pay the $2500 for the 20 foot container ? Sitting at the Schumacher holding area in Rotterdam for a month. I agreed to pay the $2500 EXTORTION money so I could get my car. I even sent a note to the president of the company who never replied. I got an invoice that was higher than the agreed to price, so of course we had to go back and get it revised, you cannot trust anything will go as planned. I was told at one point that everything I was told was factual, clearly it wasn’t when it came to dates, time or in this case cost. Just before New Years, the shipper reached out to the previous owner to have more papers signed, he was not happy at all, in fact he assumed the car was in California already since it has been over a month since it left his house. He begrudgingly signed the documents. SO we had the papers signed, the car was there and I tried to pay the freight charge so it would ship when promised, I paid within an hour of getting the final invoice including the extortion payment, and only then found out the ship wasn’t leaving until January 8th, nearly four weeks after the car arrived at their port location, ONLY because I agreed to the additional $2500 extortion amount.The 8th wound up as the 9th, then the 10th, and then the late in the day on the 11th. The original ship date was January 2nd for the 40 foot container. With he EXTRA $2500 made it over four weeks. I know they cannot control when a ship leaves, but it compounded the misery…. A few weeks before the ship was to dock in Los Angeles, I asked for an updated accounting of the taxes and duties due from me when it lands, previously I had an estimate that valued the car incorrectly, all I wanted was an updated estimate, more than 20 emails and a phone call later, I got what I requested. It was a VERY simple request I thought. Especially since the person I was dealing with is the company COO. A week before the shipment was to be delivered, I reached out to the COO and Car shipping supervisor and asked why the tracking information they provided hasn’t updated in over a week. I was told the next day that it shows that the ship is scheduled to dock in the specified date. I asked how do we know if the information is still correct since it is not updating. I found the ship on a different website than they provided, it is showing the ship is at anchor after leaving the Panama Canal for 4 days, of course, the information I found on different websites was more accurate than what I was getting from Schumacher employees, the shipment is delayed again, I KNOW that they are not responsible for what happens on the ship, but being able to report on it should be their job. I am sure I have become a pain in their ass, but if they just communicated, I wouldn’t have been. The car was finally released to me on February 26th, 90 days after agreeing to ship with this company. The car transport supervisor routinely doesn’t answer direct questions without prodding . I keep all of the over 100 emails as proof of my comments above, it has been a very disconcerting experience and I do NOT recommend. This is not the first car Ive imported from Europe, the first experience was 40 days from the time the shipper was called until the boat arrived in Los Angeles, that was in 2023. 90 days may be acceptable to some people, but the lack of concise communication is a huge concern. If they would have provided updates with answers to future steps, most of this could have been avoided.