I am so dissapointed by my experience with Transit Air Cargo. I represent thousands of Small Businesses in California running transparent and honorable operations that act in the best interest of the customer, so when I see/experience a business that so unfairly mis-represents information to their customers, I have to warn others. This was a classic example of bait and switch on TAC's part and I hope other small businesses never have to deal with a similar situation. I also hope that other small businesses are well informed of all the tactics/terms such companies will use to extract more money from you.
When I was looking for a freight company to ship items for my first trade show outside of California, a Transit Air Cargo (TAC) representative contacted me. After explaining to my rep that this was my VERY FIRST TIME shipping freight, he proceeded to give me an estimated quote to ship from Northern CA to Chicago, IL. At the time I believe I had an estimated 150lbs worth of cargo to be transported. Given this weight, he quoted me a price of $522 round trip. I made sure to talk through all of the quoted charges since it was my first time shipping freight, I was very new to the freight industry, and I wanted to understand. He stated that costs would increase by pound and be charged at $.53/LBS which made sense to me. I gave him my credit card details with the understanding that he would finalize costs with me upon my freight pick up.
Upon freight pick up, I received a paid receipt for $672.31 without being contacted. After talking to my rep the next day about why this was more than my initial quote, and after some confusion on his part, he outlined that costs had increased because my freight weight was actually 330LBS. He also indicated there was a pallet charge of $35 in order to protect my items, which made sense. I acted in good faith and trusted his word, and assumed this was the total cost of freight TO and FROM the venue. He never stated that this was only a ONE WAY charge in our conversation.
After my trade show event, there was also a hiccup on TAC's part where their internal mis-communicaiton caused my cargo pick-up to be delayed and an extra special pick up charge of $125 to be added to my bill even though I was not responsible for this delay. Eventually they reversed this, but only after multiple written and verbal communications.
The biggest surprise came a few days after freight pick-up from the show venue when I received another paid receipt for $708.83. This is a total of $1,381.31 TAC charged my credit card without authorization. Note this is nearly 3X more than the initial quote they provided. And Only after writing a very direct email did TAC finally provide me with two line item invoices to explain all of these charges.
After discussing the invoice charges that did not make sense nor were disclosed in my initial quote, TAC stated that the weight cost of my items were based on a dimensional weight instead of actual weight which assumes a weight minimum of 750 lbs. They stated that this was "standard" in the shipping industry. However, such "standard" weight calculations were never discussed in my initial conversations nor in the initial quote provided. My rep never disclosed that my weight costs would be based on dimensional weight, he had quoted me on actual weight. In addition, the dimensional weight formula was also never disclosed in the initial quote nor discussed prior to credit card authorization. There is no mention of dimensional weight formula calculation on the TAC site either.
After multiple steps to get in touch with TAC and reach a resolution, they have still failed to reimburse me for these "dimensional weight" charges and be honest about the fact that they never discussed how "dimensional weight" is defined nor its relation to my freight quote -- the only time I heard of this term was AFTER all charges had been made on my credit card.
This is a severe case of lack of transparency, carelessness, and mis-representation. My hope is that you do not make the same mistake that I did in choosing TAC for your next trade show freight solution.
UPDATE (7/25): After disputing the charge with my bank since I was getting no response from TAC, the bank initiated an investigation with TAC's bank and ended up awarding a full refund in my favor! Yay! read more
