They quote you one price.
Then they hold your car hostage for another.

I needed a car picked up, so I used one of those car-shipping quote sites. The quotes came back everywhere from suspiciously low to outrageously high. Christian with Pride Car Shipping landed at a comfortable middle number: $695.

On Tuesday 7/21 I gave him the pickup address. Pride sent over a contract to sign — $345 due at pickup, nothing upfront. I asked for pickup by Friday from the shop where the car was sitting.

Friday came. Nothing. No driver, no update. The second I texted Christian, I immediately got a text from the driver — Daniel. It was a long, polished message that read like it had been pre-written and sitting in a drafts folder waiting to send. Looking back, that was flag number one.

Flag two was in the wording. Daniel referred to himself as being "with the carrier company assigned by Pride." Vague on purpose. In legitimate business, people give you the actual company name — not a phrase engineered to keep the real party invisible.

Friday pickup slid to Saturday. Saturday slid to Monday. I was driving back and forth handling business in Newnan, GA the whole time, waiting on a car that never got picked up.

Monday morning I'm told Daniel can't do the pickup at all, and the broker will "work something else out." I'm on the road heading home to the Kansas City area when that message hits. The moment I'm back home and stationary — boom — Christian calls with a price increase.

Here's where I made my mistake: I told Christian I was already talking to another company, Safeeds Transport, and told him their quote. He immediately started warning me that they would bait-and-switch me. I told him I'd take my chances.

Minutes later a call comes in from a number I didn't recognize. The guy says his name is Patrick and he's from Safeeds Transport. He tells me the real price is way higher than what they'd originally quoted me. I thanked him and declined.

About ten minutes after that, Christian rings back with a "better" offer. The price had still more than doubled — $1,500, with $500 due upfront this time — but I needed my car home. I took the deal. Suddenly Pride could assign a driver the same day — Monday 7/26.

Then I called Safeeds back — the real guy I had actually been talking to. I told him someone from his company had just called me raising the price. He asked for the number. I gave it to him. He told me flat out: that number does not belong to anyone at Safeeds Transport. Somebody had called me pretending to be them.

Christian was the only person who knew I was talking to Safeeds. Nobody else.

And here's the part I can't get past. Later, I called Patrick's number back myself. Guess whose voicemail picked up? Daniel. The driver. Same voicemail, different number.

So my best guess: Daniel is running multiple phone numbers, and he and Christian are working this play together. Look at Pride Car Shipping's Google reviews and parts of their BBB profile — you'll see the same story on repeat: one price, then "something happens" to the driver or pickup, then a new, higher price.

I believe — and this is my opinion based on my own experience — that the reps and whichever driver gets "assigned" are in this together. I can't prove the driver's role. I can only tell you what happened to me, and that a lot of other customers describe the exact same pattern.