How a simple shipping quote turned into a missing car
I filled out one shipping-quote form online. Within a few hours, about a dozen brokers were texting me, including Door to Door Transport (D2D). The quotes ran from $400 to $850, and more than five of them landed on the same $495.
I bought the car. Now I just have to get the car to Utah.
I asked D2D to send me their actual contract so I could read it. Twice I asked them a simple question: could anything change this price? They assured me the total would be $495.
I started filling out their form and got as far as entering the pickup and delivery addresses. Then I hit the terms and conditions and stopped. The fine print said the price was only an estimate and could change, so I didn't accept it. I never agreed to their terms or made a deposit.
That evening I read through their reviews. Enough of them described the same "bait-and-switch" pricing that I decided to get my car home some other way. I started looking at one-way flights and reaching out to friends in the Denver area.
My friend Paul offered to drive the car out for me. He's a commercial pilot, so he can fly home for free. We set the pickup for Friday. I had a plan, and it wasn't D2D.
D2D started pushing hard. First came a text: "I have driver picking up today call me back please … they will be there in 2 hours." I was at work, and since I'd never hired them, I didn't think I owed every broker a reply.
Then they texted: "I see you booked with Dynamic auto paying 600.00 make sure they dont get the car or you will have to pay that to get it delivered." This one gave it away. They were worried I had booked with another company, which only makes sense if we never had a deal in the first place. We didn't.
By the afternoon the texts got more insistent: "Why are u not responding to me we are shipping your car."
I texted back: "I found another option to ship and already finalized everything." That was me telling them no, in writing.
A driver from MTVA Auto, the carrier D2D had sent, showed up at the dealership with paperwork that had my name and shipping address on it, and loaded my car onto the truck. I never signed or authorized any of that paperwork.
Once they had the car, the story changed. D2D texted that the price was "now 595.00," with "195.00 due now and 400.00 at delivery." That was a hundred dollars more than the $495 I'd been quoted, and I'd never agreed to any of it.
Since then, D2D has offered to drop the fee back to the original quote, asking "why are you making such a big deal about this, we shipped your car safely." But this was never really about the money for me. The problem is that I never agreed to work with them in the first place. I've filed a police report (Unified Police, case #CO26-51123), and I've been in touch with Denver PD.
