Joe's Drive-Away Service
Both sites have a lot of similarities
Once you pay the listing fee to the site and book a provider the rest of the transaction is between you and your chosen service provider.
Most issues that can arise between you and a carrier will be regarded as a civil matter, which means you will have to deal with the courts to settle any dispute. There is very little the police can do to help you get your vehicle back. So regardless of the site you use be sure to research any carrier before paying money to the carrier themselves.
Both sites
1) State they have no control over the quality, safety, or legal aspects of the transactions that take place on their websites.
2) Allow both legal and illegal carriers. With and without insurance or operating authority.
3) Have a large amount of Brokers who resell your shipment to another broker or carrier at a reduced rate.
4) Have their fair share of scammers that are only out to collect your booking deposit and have no intention of picking your vehicle up.
5) To protect yourself I recommend any payments made to carriers be made by way of credit card payment. Paying by credit card gives you a little more protection and allows you to fight the charges. CASH, E-Transfer and PayPal payments are all risky payment methods with little to no recourse in the event you are scammed.
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Both of these sites have nothing to do with the actual shipment. Once you book a service provider the responsibility of the site ends.
Both charge you and the provider for using their service. Prices on the site should be more than what you would pay if you contacted the carrier directly.
Both sites have a large amount of brokers who don't have any equipment and just sell you shipment to another provider. A good sign of this is where they tell you they don't have a yard in town and the drop location is at an auction yard such as ADESA or Ritchie Brothers.
Be sure to ask about operating authority such as an NSC or MTO number for Ontario. If they only have a DOT or MC number that means they are an American company and can't legally move vehicles within Canada. If caught with the proper authority you vehicle could be at risk of impound or seizure.
You will have people offer you prices in the Q&A section, these prices normally don't include the site fees. Although the price looks better, it is normally higher than the official bids you have received.
Most large truck companies charge well over $1.00 per KM, cover all expenses and pay their drivers $0.50 per KM regardless if they are loaded or not. Ask yourself why and how an independent driver can ask for the same $0.50 per km when loaded and not collecting anything when empty. As an independent they need to cover Fuel, Insurance, Maintenance and driver expenses such as food. They do this by running without insurance, log books, operating authority and lack of proper rest. All things that put your shipment at risk.
1) uShip gives you access to more carriers and has a few more options, but is the more expensive option of the two services.
NOTE: uShip increased their fee's and now charge you $150.00 to place your listing. They also increased the starting amount carriers must pay to 14.2% of the bid price.
Example: If I place a bid of $1000.00 it will appear to you as a total bid of $1142.00. Using the $1000.00 bid example you will be charged a $150.00 listing fee and the carriers $142.00 winning bidder fee for a total of $1292.00. The winning bidder fee they say the carrier needs to pay is automatically charged to you by the site. The $150.00 + $142.00 totals $292.00 and must be paid to the site before the carriers contact information is exchanged with you. Once that deposit is paid the carrier bills you the $1000.00 that they was their original bid.
If I bid $2000.00 it will cost you $2434.00. The $2000.00 bid plus $150.00 listing fee and the $284.00 the provider is charged. A provider with a large number of cancellations is charged more by uShip and the winning bidder fee increases about 8% for every 3 cancellations above a set number.
2) Allows you to discuss the shipment with the carrier before you accept a bid.
3) Allows you to choose a provider regardless if you post an auction listing or use the "NAME YOUR PRICE" feature.
4) Appears geared towards rewarding the illegal carriers and forcing the legal carriers out. By increasing the fee they charge carriers, most legal carriers have left the site and the illegal carriers are charging full price.
5) uShip has changed their layout and you can no longer see the prices the carrier charged past clients.
6) uShip is an American company and the prices you see may or may not be in Canadian funds, it depends on your settings. Prices in Canadian funds will show to you as C $0.00. American funds won't have the uppercase "C" before the dollar symbol and will show as $0.00
I've noticed prices seem to change almost daily so I'm also thinking they add the exchange rate to our prices.
1) As far as I can tell cancelling a shipment is no easy task. All contact with Shiply has to be by email or a phone call to their London, England office.
2) There are no carrier contracts available for you to view before accepting an offer and that can leave you open to a lot of extra charges, fees and conditions that you may not agree with.
3) The carrier feedback on Shiply is very misleading. Up until about a year ago a carrier could post a listing, book the job themselves and cancel it, while leaving themselves positive feedback.
4) Shiply does not keep track of the carriers cancelled shipments and marks them as positive feedback for the carrier.
5) They don't enforce a listing format.
Without adding the basic details every service provider needs, they are setting you up to be taken advantage of. Details such as vehicle Year, Make and Model, the origin & destination cities and required dates should be mandatory.
I've always found it funny how a provider can bid $1000.00 on a listing that just says "Car from Ontario to British Columbia"
6) Most carriers on this site have a bunch of extra charges such as Fuel Surcharge, Door to Door surcharge, Drop fee and the list goes on. The lowest bid may actually be the most expensive by the time the job is completed.
7) Has a large number of freight brokers that deal with shipping by rail only. And this is only mentioned after you book the shipment.
8) Pay very close attention to the carriers rating percentage. There is a reason those with the lowest rating always have the best prices.
Even those with ratings in the high 90's and 100% should be researched. If you check their reviews you will see a lot of "Positive feedback received, but no comments left." this is normally a sign the shipment was cancelled.