Questions to ask a car shipping company before you pay

Ask these questions before you pay a car shipping company. Write the answers on this page or on the email they send back. A blank line means you do not have a deal yet. RideShipper does not ask you these questions for you, and it does not take the payment. The company you hire does.

Print this list. Put the date at the top. Keep it with the contract.

Printable questions#

Company legal name:

Person you spoke with, and the date:

USDOT number:

MC number, if they have one:

Broker, carrier, or both on this load:

Carrier that will load the car, if different:

Date that carrier will be named:

Cargo limit per vehicle, from the certificate:

Deductible, if they state one:

Price they want you to accept:

Can that price change after a carrier is assigned? Yes or no:

Deposit amount, if any:

Refund rule, and whether it returns to the same card:

Payment method they will accept:

What is excluded (personal items, a car that does not run, a closed gate):

How to use each line#

Legal name, USDOT, and MC. FMCSA's consumer advisory, updated February 10, 2015, says interstate automobile transporters and brokers must be registered, and that you should check the MC docket. Search the Company Snapshot by USDOT, MC/MX, or name. The legal name on the result has to match this form. The steps are in how to check if a carrier is licensed. A number they will not give you is a reason to stop.

Broker or carrier. Ask which one is on this contract. A broker arranges the truck. The carrier hauls it. A broker may not represent itself as the carrier, and its advertising has to show broker status, under the name on its registration (49 CFR 371.7). If they say "we are the truck" and a different company arrives, you want that possibility written down now. The comparison is broker versus carrier.

When the carrier is named. "We will dispatch a driver" is not a name. Ask for the legal name and the USDOT number of the carrier that will load the car, and the day you will receive it. You should be able to run the same lookup before pickup. How that handoff usually works is in how a quote becomes a named carrier.

Cargo limit. The big number people quote from FMCSA is often public liability for the truck. For for-hire nonhazardous property in a vehicle rated 10,001 pounds or more, 49 CFR 387.9 lists 750,000 dollars. That is not the limit on your car. Ask for the cargo certificate, the deductible, and the exclusions, and ask them to match the contract. Reading the federal screen is the insurance-on-file guide.

Price and whether it can move. Write the number, then circle yes or no on the change question. If they say yes, you do not have a fixed price. Read the sentence. It is explained in the price-subject-to-change clause. Compare the number with the range before you treat a low figure as a bargain. The quote you received is the field-by-field reading.

Deposit and refund. Write the amount and the path back to the card. The BBB alert of July 21, 2023 says to pay with a credit card, and not by wire or prepaid debit card. A deposit due before any of the lines above are filled in is the pattern on the deposit red-flag page. RideShipper does not charge this fee.

Exclusions. Ask what is not covered and what is not allowed in the car. Personal items left in the cabin are a common contract exclusion. Confirm the words in your papers. Do not invent a coverage the contract does not state.

The checklist tool builds a dated list around your pickup day, including the photo steps. This page is only the questions that come before money. The longer contract pass is the contract review checklist. The company-check tool at company licence check fills the USDOT line from federal records. You still write the answers down, because a tool cannot hear the refund promise they made on the phone.