I might have given this company one more star if they had responded in any way to the detailed and respectful letter I wrote a few days after my very negative experience with their service, but they didn't, so that tells me that they don't care at all that they left a customer in a scary and dangerous situation for several hours because of a series of apparent miscommunications and lack of attention.
On Sunday, August 4, 2013, I was driving back from the coast with my dog in the back seat of my truck, and had come through Corvallis, and had been on I-5 for just a few miles when I had a blowout. I steered safely to the shoulder; this was 8:55pm, and the sun was close to setting. I have a good spare tire, and I've changed plenty of tires before, so I began to set up the jack, etc., while trying to keep my dog calm inside the truck; she was freaked out by our close proximity to traffic and huge semis roaring by; the blow tire was on the left rear, so in order to change it I would be just three feet or so from the road. Well, the truck was parked on a pretty sloped surface, so I was a little worried about jacking up the uphill end of the truck, plus due to having been rear-ended a few times at stoplights by the ever-alert drivers of Eugene/Springfield, my rear bumper was slightly pushed up (I hadnt noticed it before), so I couldn't get the tool through the hole to lower the tire. It sounds lame, but after trying for awhile, trying to keep the dog calm while being a bit freaked myself by the traffic roaring by just a few feet away, and the darkening sky coupled with my not-quite-bright-enough flashlight, I finally decided to call a tow company to fix the tire and just pay for it (my insurance does reimburse up to a certain amount for such roadside assistance).
I found Bob's Auto and Towing after consulting 411 for towing companies in Corvallis, the nearest town, so I called and the night dispatcher (it was 9:41pm when I called and fully dark) was very polite and said he'd send a driver to me as soon as possible. After 20-25 minutes, I called back to check and see if a driver was on his way. The dispatcher told me that the driver was finishing up another call, but he knew about me and would be on his way to me next, so I thanked him and waited. An hour after my initial call, I received a call from a driver (Phil, I think), who told me that he had just finished up a call and was leaving Corvallis and would be to me in about 30 minutes. I told him it had been an hour since I'd called, and now it'd be 30 minutes more? I explained to him that I was sitting next to a very busy freeway and had been there nearly two hours already, and I had a stressed-out dog in the truck with me. He apologized for the delay, and when I told him which milepost I was at (225, as the friendly state trooper who'd stopped by to check on me during my long wait had told me), he said that was closer than he had thought, so he might make it to me sooner than 30 minutes. I said I hoped so, thanked him and waited.
About 40 minutes later, I was in the process of calling the night dispatcher back when another call came through from another driver from Bob's, Kevin, who told me HE was just finishing up a call and was on his way to me. "Wait, wait, wait, " I interrupted him, and told him that the other driver had called 40 minutes before and said he had just been on his way to me and would be 30 minutes, and that he had called an hour after my initial call to Bob's. Kevin apologized for the confusion, and said he had just been dispatched to my location. So I told him to just get there--thinking he would have been told the right milepost by the other driver or the dispatcher--and hung up. I was frustrated, stressed and angry by this point, and it was now 11:20pm, so I had been on the shoulder of I-5 for 2 hours and 25 minutes, so I called the first driver back and asked what was going on. He blithely told me that he had been re-dispatched on another call and was traveling to Portland with a passenger. I angrily asked why he or the dispatcher hadn't let me know and reiterated how long I had been sitting on the shoulder in a dangerous situation. "Well, I apogize..." blah blah blah. Then I called the night dispatcher (the same guy, Joe or John, very nice and polite but evidently powerless), and sort of yelled at him about it, and according to him he hadn't been told the first driver had been re-dispatched. Eventually he found out that a supervisor had overriden the night dispatcher's instructions to come help me, and sent him up to Portland, and no one thought to tell me or the night dispatcher. The driver Kevin finally arrived at 12:25am,he was a wonderful guy, and I finally got back on the road at almost 1am. All nice people, no accountability. read more
