We chose to ship our vehicles to Australia through the official WSC shipping company – DB Schenker. Up front they seemed to provide a competitive price, about $6000 each way for a 40′ shipping container.
After the fact they’ve tacked on thousands of dollars of hidden fees that they didn’t bother to notify us about on the way out. It seems like they’ve acted in a way to trap us with their services regardless what price they want to charge. I’m sure there are other teams in a very similar position.
Then they send representatives to try and placate us who have no decision making power to make things right. If allowed to have their way, DB Schenker will have charged nearly $22,000 for the round trip to Australia and back. That’s about three times what we paid for similar services back in 2007, and 100% more than what they indicated up front.
This is simply unacceptable corporate behavior, and you can be sure that we’re going to fight this in every way we can. Let this be a warning to other solar car teams going forward, as well as to anybody else considering doing one-time shipment with this sleazy company.
Stanford Legal has been notified of the situation.
Don’t let this sleazy company get away with that. Hold a press conference and let everyone knows. I am sure the Australians would not like that negative publicity–taking advantage of starving students.
Comment by the Bretts — October 31, 2009 @ 11:25 PM
That’s obnoxious. I e-mailed one of their product management people (helge.jensen@dbschenker.com) with my opinion of their behavior.
Best of luck in dealing with it.
Comment by Reno — November 3, 2009 @ 2:10 PM