Autorail Forwarders

They took forever to let us know when they would pick up the car so we booked another forwarder. They said they would give us a refund minus a penalty and they never have. They are very dishonest and don’t get back to you. Never book with them. Terrible.

DO NOT USE GERRY! There is a reason he takes your money up front. It's because he tries to find the cheapest most unreliable truckers and then blame some you when they don't show up and keeps your money saying it cost him money, which it doesn't. Lost $3000 and filing suit shortly.

Worst/scariest experience I've had. I requested the vehicle to be transported in July from Halifax-Toronto, didn't receive it until the end of November. Took 2 weeks to pick it up, I requested that they pick it up at my house as the vehicle was not registered and could not be driven. They made me get a friend to take it to an auto dealership, where they outsourced the pickup to some other company. Gerry then called me saying that there were items inside the car which wasn't allowed, so I offered to have someone go to the dealership and take the items out. By the time my friend got to the dealership, it appeared that someone had already picked up the car and taken it to Halifax. I didn't hear back from Gerry for another 2 weeks, after sending him repeated emails and calling him almost daily. Then he emails me in ALL CAPS SCREAMING telling me that there were boxes inside the car and that it was all my fault, blaming me. Then he charged me more to get rid of the boxes, by this time 2 months had passed. He was then shouting orders over email for me to pick up the boxes at this random address in the middle of Toronto, and gave me no further information. I asked him to give me a call to give me more details and he bluntly said NO! PICK IT UP NOW! I didn't want the boxes in the first place and I was not going to go to a random stranger's house to pick them up. Another 2 weeks passed and I threatened to call the police if he didn't send me the vehicle. I had to get a lawyer involved to figure it out with Gerry because I was not able to get through to him myself. Gerry ended up sending the vehicle to the middle of nowhere in Toronto (3.5 months late), (remember I told them I needed it to be transported to my apartment since I was not able to drive it). The vehicle was in terrible condition (interior, exterior was surprisingly fine), with kleenex tissues everywhere, the license plates were removed, it smelled really badly. Overall, the worst service I've ever encountered. All I can say is, please do your research before choosing a service, ultimately I am the one to blame for choosing such a horrendous transportation service. After I did more research, it appears that Gerry has failed to deliver many times and he actually uses the car while he delays the process. He then says in his comments that only 1% of vehicles are delayed, YEAH RIGHT. If he is so busy as he says, he should hire more people to run an adequate service and stop wasting people's time and money.

Took 1679$ from me to transport a car from Montreal to Vancouver.
Car never left Montreal.
Never returned money.

After 3 weeks of delays for unexplained reasons, Gerry sent me to an industrial parking lot in Montreal to ship the car with a trucking company, *** Transport, without actually paying them to transport the car.
I met the *** Transport driver in the parking lot, and was surprised to be given a blank form to fill out with no mention of Gerry or Auto Rail.
It's as if I was hiring the trucking company myself.
Confused, I filled out the form, carefully putting Auto Rail as the shipper.
The driver loaded the car, and I left thinking the car would finally be on its way to Vancouver after three weeks.
I hadn't even had the time to cross the street, when the *** Transport dispatcher, called me to inform that they were missing information from Gerry, and would therefore have to unload the car.
I call Gerry. Amazingly, as anyone who has business dealings with the man knows, he picked up on the first ring. I tell him to call back the *** Transport dispatcher.
Even more amazingly, the dispatcher calls me back a few minutes later to tell me that all is good, and that the car will be on its way to Vancouver.

An hour later, I'm relaxing and enjoying a pleasant lunch when I get a call from the other Transport dispatcher informing that Gerry has given them false information, has not paid them, and that the truck driver will be unloading the car at the next truck stop.
After discussing with the dispatcher, and providing him all the documentation, I manage to convince the dispatcher that we are both victims.
He agrees to send the driver back to the parking lot to unload the car, on condition that I pay for a tow truck to unload the car from the flat bed transport truck.
I agree. The tow truck ends up costing me another 97.53$.
The dispatcher informs he that not only did Gerry not pay him, Gerry provided him with the number of a Burger King as the number to contact in Vancouver, and gave the address of an auction house as the drop off address of the car in Vancouver, leading him to believe he was going to sell off the car.

I would not use J.Simons or AutoRail shipping ever again.

The service was SLOW and the representative (Gerry) who worked on my case was extremely UNRESPONSIVE. He never replied my emails and never replied my voice-mail about time of vehicle arrival after I paid upfront the full amount and dropped off my car for shipping from TO to CAL.
It took over 7 weeks for my car to arrive and then another full week of calling and follow ups before I grabbed hold of Gerry from AutoRail to arrange the time of my vehicle pickup.
If you're looking to avoid the painful struggle, just avoid using this shipping company all together.

Even after we set up a time for pick up, Gerry sent me the WRONG pick up number. There was no worker from AutoRail/J.Simons to answer my question about higher mileage after I inspected my car. I contacted AutoRail afterwards asking them to confirm my initial mileage, but they just denied that my car could have been driven and said they don't have my mileage from their initial inspection.

The car was super dirty when it arrive and the shipping was a very frustrating experience overall and I would not recommend this shipping company to anyone.

Shipped my car from Victoria, BC to Ottawa, ON with Autorail in September 2010. Car showed up with extensive damages - to the point that the car is unable to be driven. The car was also extremely late by the date we received it. We were given the run around by Autorail for almost a year before filing a lawsuit, which we won, and have since been unable to obtain our judgement amount from the company. We provided the company with court documents at all stages, and have asked more than once for our verdict/judgement to be paid out. When speaking with the company owner, we were informed that the verdict was ridiculous and that they have no intention of paying out the money they owe us (over 4000.00).

Although the company states, in a response to a previous complaint file, that I used their company to claim mechanical defects, this was not the case. I was able to prove to the court that the car had no damage prior to being shipped, and upon receipt had extensive damages - including paint damage, undercarriage damage, and damage to the exhaust system. The company also claims that I did not provide all documents to the courts, such as the terms and conditions agreement for shipping that was signed. This is also not the case. All documentation between the company and myself was given to the courts. The company owner knows this as I personally served him with the court documents when I filed against the company. They are making excuses as to why they won't pay. The car was DRIVEN to be dropped off, and was loaded onto the carrier, which it would not have been if it was not in drivable condition. When the car arrived it was no longer in drivable condition, and that was the reason for the lawsuit. The fact that the company is blatantly ignoring the orders of the courts to pay out the amount determined by the judge gives a statement of its own.

The condition report that they are claiming we did not file, we were never requested to file. The original package sent via email by Steve Burley for the shipping was completed in full and returned. I also still have this e-mail with package attached that they are more than welcome to see. At not point in time was this report, that they are now saying was not filled out, ever requested from them. I also have all e-mail correspondence between myself and the company to prove this form was never mentioned, let alone requested.

I spoke with a person named Jerry from the company, which I found on Google. I was looking for quote to have my car shipped from Vancouver to Toronto. After I submitted the information from getting a quote I noticed that I could not put any personal belongings in my vehicle. There customer service never informed me of any of there strict policies which as a customer will sometimes miss out on. I had to call them a ask several questions for which they didn't give the accurate information. I found out I could only put personal belongings in my truck space for an extra $150.00 plus tax after the fact of paying. The payment has also a $200.00 cancellation clause. Watch out for there terms and conditions and there delivery time. Other reviews claim to not see there vehicle shipments for 6 weeks after there car is shipped. USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN USING THIS COMPANY!!!