WASHINGTON – On May 14, 2014, Staff Sgt. Tisha Hill dropped her car off in Brussels to be shipped home by a Pentagon-contracted car shipping company, International Auto Logistics. It’s been more than a month since Hill was due to receive her car back in the U.S.A.
“I borrowed vehicles from family when I could,” Hill said, now stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia. “Otherwise I was stuck in the house.”
Hill was on her third overseas tour with the U.S. Army, this time in Belgium. She has used car-shipping services before, but this particular service was “horrible,” she said.
“I have been pretty upset about it.”
To accommodate families’ frequent moves, the Army offers a service to ship and deliver troops’ cars to their new bases.
Hill’s husband, also with the U.S. Army, dropped his car off on June 14 in Brussels for shipping. On Monday, Tisha Hill finally received a call saying her Cadillac CTS was available for pickup. Her husband has yet to receive his Honda.
And they are not alone. Other military families have filed reports – and complaints – of delayed car deliveries. In a Facebook group titled “International Auto Logistics: Reviews, Complaints, and Inconveniences,” people have expressed their distress trying to locate their automobiles.
“The most upsetting is not being able to get anyone from the company on the phone or to return an email,” she said. “Even the VPC [Vehicle Processing Center] says that they have had little to no luck contacting the company.”
“I ended up calling the office in Georgia and someone finally called me back but provided nothing but excuses because this is a new contract,” she said. “They could not tell me about my vehicle. She was supposed to call me the next day to give me a progress update and she hasn’t called back since. This was a week ago.”
Other military families reportedly did the same with little luck.
International Auto Logistics is newly contracted by the Pentagon to ship troops’ personal cars when they are re-stationed worldwide. The Georgia-based company took over the responsibility of shipping troops’ cars from American Auto Logistics in April.
An International Auto Logistics representative said the company has acknowledged the delayed delivery problems and is addressing outstanding issues.
“Eventually the [Army] VPC manager told me to just go ahead and get a rental because I still needed to go to my duty station and find someplace to live,” Tisha Hill said.
According to the IAL contract, Hill said she is supposed to be compensated for the rental, but she’ll find out if that’s the case when she picks up her own car, she said.
When asked about alternatives down the road, Hill said she would take care of the shipping herself.
“It would cost about $1,800, but the money I wasted on vacation reservations and a rental vehicle surpassed that amount,” she said.