I'm in the process of buying a bike that's a 15hr drive away and trying to work out details. We're on the second shipping company because the first one was so bad at communicating I didn't feel comfortable doing business with them. The guy we're trying to use now communicates well but has put us back a few days twice now. I understand that he has to coordinate a lot of deliveries over a large territory so I'm not too concerned. Is this normal? Secondly, how do you arrange payment so everybody's covered? I trust the guy and the bike appears to be everything he says it is but is there a way to keep the money, or at least some of it, in limbo until it's arrived? I've never done a deal like this with real money involved
You will get on the truck when you get on the truck in most LTL like a bike.
Basically the shipper is trying to make the most profit possible for the trip. Sometimes you get lucky and the guy shows up the next day and hotshots it. Sometimes no one will pickup the load because there just isn't enough shipments there. I've had both experiences and the second one got me to FM and an epic road trip.
As far as payment, I would recommend an escrow account and have a clear conversation with the seller on what would happen if it's not as described.
For 15 hrs away I would spend a weekend with a rental UHaul or similar that gives unlimited mileage and go get it. Cost vs Stress, that would be the big winner in my book.
It's a long drive this time of year and the cost to go there and get it will likely be more than shipping, and I have a truck. if it was summer I could make the case for a week's vacation, but I'm really not into the drive.
As far as payment, pretty sure we don't have escrow here, I think that's an American thing. Had lots of back and forth with the owner, the bike shop where it was stored as well as pics and videos. I'm not really concerned about the bike as much as Payment, but also looking for some tips and maybe if I'd missed something
I don't know if they still do it, but Forward Air used to have a motorcycle shipping service. They had crates designed to hold a bike, so you all you had to do was load it up at one end and then take it out at the other end. You could contact them to see if they still do it. https://www.forwardair.com
I posted this the last time someone asked about shipping recently, but a friend of mine has used easy auto ship as a broker a few times with good results and good communication. Not sure if they deal with bikes but I'd imagine they would. Same person has used escrow.com to handle payment multiple times as well with good results.
Keyboard is the company we used when we had our motorcycle dealership. We used to ship customers BMW's all over the country for their fly-&-ride vacations.
Just an update.
As far as payment is concerned, the bike owner owns a (non bike related) business and sent me a credit card invoice. It was going to cost him $150 but it's a lot safer for me than sending an e-payment, so that was sorted out. But for the second time we attempted to get the bike shipped down here, and everything was set up for pickup yesterday (Monday) when I made a request to see his proof of insurance. At which point he lost his E36 M3 on us and continued to berate us for questioning him. After all, he'd shipped over 700 bikes last year. So that was that, and now we're in limbo again, and it's looking like I may wait til spring and take a drive and short vacation in the north.
Does anybody have any shipping connections in Thunder Bay Ontario?
Just an update. The bike arrived safely on Friday.
We used Shiply for the shipping. You submit the job and various shippers, all approved and insurance verified by Shiply, bid on it. We got it shipped down here for $350 which I thought was more than fair, all things considered. It was just good luck that we booked it when we did, before fuel prices when nuts. The bike owner seemed like a great guy, I'm sure the scammers do too, but he gave me enough info that it was easy to see that he was either legit, or an incredibly smart, and well researched scammer. Which, for the amount I was paying for the bike, was not likely the case. So it all worked out and pics will be posted in the bike thread
