VeriTread Transportation from GovPlanet

If you’re on the military auction site, GovPlanet or IronPlanet, you’ll notice a convenient “shipping estimator” on the right side of each auction. Confirm your delivery location and you’ll get an estimate in seconds. It sounds simply, but here’s what we’ve learned.

This is our experience and may vary from yours. If you’ve had a difference experience, we’d love to hear from you directly or comment below. Read about transportation options and prices here.

What you see is not what you get

All we wanted to know was, what it would cost to get a single M1102 trailer after the auction to our location. We used the quick quoted price, but every time we do, the quick quote is always 2-3x lower than the actual cost of transportation we receive in email minutes or hours later. It’s called bate and switch. Car dealers aren’t the only ones that use it.

Be ready for an assault

If you sign up to get an estimate from VeriTreat through GovPlanet be ready to get assaulted by emails and phone calls. We received no less than three emails a day and multiple phone calls just from our simple inquiry on price. The emails don’t stop coming, even after the auction has ended and you don’t care any more. You have to contact them directly or unsubscribe from multiple places to stop the barrage.

Negotiate

The price they quoted was still significantly higher than rates should have been. We know, because we’ve been around the block on both trailers and shipping. Through email they recommended we contact them through phone to get a “more accurate quote”. We called and haggled for a few minutes which dropped the price down roughly 15% of their lowest, but still nowhere near realistic prices for moving a little 1460 lbs trailer.

Do it yourself

We ended up driving ourselves to pick up the Military M1102 trailer directly from the GovPlanet auction location. The cheapest quote we received was more than twice the lowest quoted price we received. We highly recommend spending $100 or more to rent a flatbed car hauler to pickup your trailer at auction. You don’t know the real condition of the trailer, especially inside, until you show up.

One of the most common issues with the trailers are the wheel bearings. You don’t want to show up to haul your cool new M1101/M1102 trailer 100+ miles and find out 25 miles into your trip the hubs are hot and the axles are warping. Read our other posts about these issues.