Just an FYI out there for people shipping their cars.

I was finally in court this morning regarding the damage that Searail "the careful car movers" did to my 993. We had the shop foreman from the Porsche dealership as our witness, and my dad acted as my agent. (My dad is a retired lawyer, so he wasn't officially my lawyer, but for small claims court it doesn't matter.)

Anyways, after the judge read her verdict it was clear she based it on two things. 1. The shop foreman brought with him the Porsche manual which instructs that the car only be tied down with fabric tie-downs which go through the wheels. (The moron truck driver tied the car down to the jack points, and they were subsuquently torn out, damaging the oil coolant and A/C lines in the process.) Plus we had photos showing the torn out jack plates. 2. My dad researched some case law and found a supreme court (Canada, ymmv in the US) decision that dealt with companies trying to contract out of gross negligence. (Searail's position was that even if they did the damage, the shipping contract stated that undercarriage damage wouldn't be covered.) The judge agreed with us that their contract language wasn't valid and granted me the initial amount, plus interest and costs. Boo-yah! It feels good to be vindicated!

Anyways, now I have to collect, which won't necessarily be easy. Also, Searail can appeal, and the guy looked shocked that he lost and was asking about the appeal process. But to appeal to the Queens court here in Canada he'd have to spend more in lawyers costs then the judgement cost. So hopefully they'll finally just pay what they should have in the first place.

Moral of the story: If you are shipping your car, make sure they ship it properly and watch the language of the contract. As a matter of a fact, unless you are shipping it overseas, I would forego shipping it and drive it! Trust me
Oh ya, and avoid Searail like the plague, they are <insert your favorite expletive here>

 

" they are <insert your favorite expletive here>>.."

" losers"
"plonkers"
"tossers"
".....

well done!

 

excellent job. Its always nice to hear of someone that is able to beat the... incompetence/ ignorance/ arrogance/ apathy... of certain companies that have such poor business practices. Unfortnately some businesses, like the one you have been dealing with, simply don't have the proper focus on customer care that they need to. Only by getting these stories out can we deal with them in the appropriate way - by hurting their pocket books. This way we allow Darwinian law to take its course and "encourage" incompetent business owners get into a different (hopefully supervised by competent individuals) line of work.

 

Cheers, Mr. C. What a shame you had to go to so much trouble. Hope you get your money.

 

Cngratulations. Glad to hear you won and are one step closer to being fairly compensated. They broke it they should have recognized their resposibility and paid quickly and moved on.
Good luck with the next phase. I think it will go easy.

 

You guys aren't going to believe this.
Searail has appealed the judgement against them. They claim the judge erred in interpreation of law. LOL!! The incompetency of these guys continues to surprise me. Here in Canada appeals go to the queens court and they could easily end up spending more on legal fees then on the original judgement. They're probably hoping I'll just go away, or possibly they want to get their driver up on the stand to lie through his teeth that he tied down the car properly. No matter, these guys are starting to royally **** me off. They want a fight, they've frick'n got it.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
Do not do business with Searail.

(I'm glad Frank Faria decided against using them... at least my getting the word out is sparing some other people for dealing with these a$$hole$).

 

Illegitimis non carborundum

 

Hello Everyone;

Its freezing in Calgary, well once again congrats to Mr. Canuck, I was in the process of getting SeaRail to pick my car up in Manheim PA and changed my mind after I read the post from my neighbor here in Calgary.
Im flying to Harrisburg tomorrow to pick up the beast, and as soon as we get some of this snow off the roads I will invite Mr.Canuck and a few Calgary Rennlisters to go to, say Radium or at least Bragg Creek for BEER and compare Porkers.
All in favor please reply Porkers and Beer in Bragg Creek.
For the benefit of all non Calgary members BCreek is about 20 miles away at the edge of the Rocky Mountains and Radium is in the heart of the Rockies and 200 miles away trough the mountains.
Any members in Harrisburg, Syracuse or Buffalo call me at 403 383-6161
Cheers all

 

Almost certainly they are hoping you won't be willing to invest the time and expense necessary to continue contesting your claim. Stick it to 'em!

Chip

 

Time for a bump up of this thread. One of the other members PM'd me about the damage that Searail did to his car and was asking for the particulars about how I sued them and won.

People on rennlist really need to get the word out:

**DO NOT USE SEARAIL**

They do not care about your car or how it is transported. If they damage it, they will deny liability. Your only recourse will be sueing them which is an expensive, time consuming and energy draining process, even if you win.

**DO NOT USE SEARAIL**

 

I take it they lost on the appeal? Hope so.

 

Great News! I hope you collect for the pain and suffering caused by loss of use.
You can also add the reoccurring headaches and lack of sleep due to the freon and oil leaks in your car.
Chris

 

The appeal was a bit of a strange event. Searails lawyers compiled this 2 inch thick (no kidding) binder of other case law trying to win the appeal. My lawyer compiled nothing, a) because it's unusual to do that in a small claims appeal, b) because it would have cost me a forture and c) he felt the case was strong enough. The problem was the judge read all that stuff beforehand and came in with a bias... a bias which my lawyer was initially surprised by, but he started plugging away with oral arguments... perfectly willing to address them one by one. But the judge must of had a lunch date or something because he didn't want to continue to hear them. So, he said he agreed Searail was negligent but then continued to say he didn't like some of the things the judge said in her ruling, so he decided to send it back down to small claims court. (an unheard of thing).

After that we decided to pitch a settlement to Searail, because continuing only meant the lawyers would win. So it was settle for original damage costs, but I dropped my demand for court and laywer fees too. Searail capitulated. I didn't get all my money back (because of lawyer fees etc.) but I'm sure they hemmoraged a lot of money and that is the one fact that gives me great pleasure from this whole ordeal.

If the idiots had just admitted they f'd up they wouldn't have lost more money than the original claim. Plus I'm more than happy to tell everyone about these guys... they should be starved of business.

 

That sounds like a good win to me..