According to Clarionledger.com Deuce McAllister Nissan of Jackson will be liquidated following a settlement reached yesterday. Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. agreed to convert the dealership’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 proceeding prior to a scheduled hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Jackson.
According to their web-site they have been in business for 29 years. Their phones are forwarded to a broker that will take load requests but they report that AAA advantage is finishing up their last loads and closing their doors.
We reported in a previous post that Auto Transport America had vanished and the office was closed. According to the SunSentinel.com the office is now open and being run by EAST COAST AUTO TRANSPORT
“Kenneth Correra, president of East Coast Auto Transport, a broker based in Rhode Island, said he bought Auto Transport America’s customer list and is now doing business out of its West Palm office and using its phone number.”
I am a bit confused because I have East Coast Auto Transport based at 2906 ELMHURST LANE Portsmouth, VA 23702 . Maybe there is more than one East Coast Auto Transport.
According to the article the Feds have taken over the Investigation into Hector Iglesias and Auto Transport America, and their bond with insurer Pacific Financial was depleted back in August.
Jefferson City, Mo. — A St. Charles County Circuit Court judge today issued a temporary restraining order at the request of Attorney General Jay Nixon against a St. Peters automobile transport service and its owner. The order prohibits Caran R. Vinson and two businesses she owns, Chipmunk Transportation Inc. and Chipmunk Auto Logistics Inc., from advertising and engaging in the businesses of providing automobile transportation and transportation brokerage services and from accepting money from consumers for transport services.
Nixon sued Vinson in May 2002 for defrauding consumers of money paid for auto transport services that were never provided. The lawsuit alleged that at least 22 consumers from around the country paid more than $5,400 total to Chipmunk Transportation to have their vehicles picked up and delivered to another location. Nixon said that the company did not inform consumers that their payments or down payments were nonrefundable or misled them into believing that refunds would be forthcoming.
Nixon said that since the time the lawsuit was filed, his office has received at least 21 additional complaints from consumers, including reports that Vinson has operated under other business names, including AAA Ark Auto Transportation.
Judge Lucy D. Rauch set a July 17 date on Nixon’s request for a preliminary injunction against the defendants.
This is off of the Sun-Sentinel.com
Palm Beach County officials checking on Auto Transport America’s headquarters in West Palm Beach on Thursday found the parking lot empty of cars waiting to be shipped, the company’s name scraped off the locked front door, and a “for lease” sign outside.
That leaves many retiree snowbirds, such as Jerry Kerzner, wondering if the company is out of business — and if he’s lost the hundreds of dollars he paid Auto Transport in advance to have his car delivered from his upstate New York summer home back to Delray Beach this fall.
“When I call the office, I get a busy signal. Or the message box is full,” Kerzner said. An Auto Transport customer for several years, he paid $575 in advance almost nine months ago, receiving a $50 discount for signing up early.
Other customers reported having to pay truckers extra to deliver their vehicles to their summer homes recently, since Auto Transport had bounced subcontractors’ checks. Some discovered their cars never had left the company’s lot weeks after delivery was promised.
State regulators have received 117 complaints, most of them within the past month, from Auto Transport customers. The state Attorney General’s office asks anyone who had problems with the broker to call 866-966-7226.
Diane Lade can be reached at dlade@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4295 or 561-243-6618.
We can talk all day about whether the Allied Auto Transport drivers did right to accept a pay cut to attempt to save their jobs. There has been a lot of discussion along the same lines about the union rejecting Performance Auto Transports attempt to force a similar pay cut through the bankruptcy court. The facts are that Allied is still hauling cars and paying their drivers the lower wage and PTS is closed.
Is my sense of fair messed up when I think it is UNFAIR for a driver with seniority that lost his job because he voted to strike rather than accept a pay cut to take a position at Allied, that results in either less work or possibly no work at all for a guy that has been driving for a year at Allied under the wage concessions!
This post on The car hauler is what set me thinking about this:
Times are tough and if you have excessive overhead you may as well get in line at the Bankruptcy courts. We have watched PTS struggle and fold sending a lot of hard-working people to the unemployment lines and now JHT Holdings looks to be in trouble as well. They have over 1300 drivers plus support staff. I hope it goes better for them than the PTS employees! You can read their official statement here
in PDF.
Land line has reported very well on this. Here is part of there report you can click the link to read the whole thing:
Company officials reported in the bankruptcy filing that while the company has between $100 million and $500 million in assets, it also has liabilities of between $100 million to $500 million.
Reuters reported company officials blame JHT’s decline on a significant reduction in demand for large diesel trucks after new emission standards in 2007 increased the costs of making diesel engines, leading to higher truck prices.
Company officials do not expect daily operations to be affected.
We called it on the 11th but now ,Jeff Cornish, the CEO of Performance transportation Services has made it official on the company website. I think the teamsters are fortunate that Jeff threw in the towel and folded when he did. If he would have let the strike extend several weeks then the shippers would have been forced to find non-union carriers to move the cars. Here is a copy of the letter: 
Here is the Teamsters rebuttal
Lenders Pull Plug on Company
June 10, 2008
PTS announced today that it was shutting down, effective today, and Teamster carhaul negotiators are setting the record straight about the company’s demise.
“In its announcement, PTS suggested that our failure to accept its most recent proposal led to the closure, but nothing could be further from the truth,” said Fred Zuckerman, Teamsters Carhaul Director. “We learned this afternoon that PTS permanently closed its doors after its primary lenders, Black Diamond Capital Management, cut off access to its credit facility earlier this week. The union has been on strike against PTS since Monday, June 9, 2008, in support of our bargaining demands and in protest of the company’s unfair labor practices. PTS’s top officials met with us all day yesterday to try to end the strike and to convince us to accept drastic wage concessions for our members. The company did not provide us with information that was anywhere near adequate to support its demands. The company did not present us with a viable plan to get out from underneath its debt. Instead, the company wanted to force our members to bear the lion’s share of the cuts and to shoulder a grossly disproportionate share of the ongoing risks relating to the company’s problems with its lendors. We countered with a detailed proposal to the company, which included significant operating improvements for PTS and which in our opinion would have enabled to company to survive. The company rejected our proposal and insisted only on cutting our members’ wages. At the same time, though, the company’s top management would not take the same cuts for themselves. Their last-second gesture to take just a modest cut in relation to the cuts they wanted our members to take was an empty one at best. Based on the company’s actions today and reports of lock downs at the facilities, it appears the company has chosen to shut its doors rather than continue talks with the union.”
There is two sides to every disagreement. I think this one is no exception and both sides have valid points. I think Zuckerman loses some credibility when he says “it appears the company has chosen to shut its doors rather than continue talks with the union.” I don’t believe that PTS has any choice. They have run out of time. Creditors are pushing for chapter 7 so they can begin recovering assets.
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Melba Rudiger Says:
The East Coast Auto Transport, Inc. that you have shown in your article is not in anyway affiliated with Kenneth Correra or the East Coast Auto Transport in Rhode Island. There are in fact at least 3 companies named East Coast Auto Transport which have no affiliation with each other. Since we are not the company you are referring to in Rhode Island, I would appreciate if you would kindly remove our logo and link from this article.
Thank you
Melba Rudiger
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Melba Rudiger Says:
Sorry, can’t give you much help. I just know that there is an East Coast Auto Transport in Rhode Island and one in Georgia. I have received checks for the one in Georgia that were sent to us in error. I have also heard of the one in Rhode Island but don’t know anything about either company.
Melba
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Jamie Says:
There are infact 3 East Coast Auto Transports in the US. There is no website information for the East Coast out of GA. Below find the Website information for East Coast Auto Transport of VA and East Coast of RI. ECAT of RI is the one I believe you are posting information about. Also not to be confused with East COast Truck & Trailer Sales which sells Carhauling Equipment @ http://www.ectts.com.
http://www.eastcoastofva.com/
http://www.eastcoastautotransport.com/