nf6x
Feral Engineer
- 1,630
- 50
- 48
- Location
- Riverside, CA, USA
About four years ago, I won various items such as an M105A2 trailer, a couple of M103A3 genset trailers with 10kW gensets on them, and four 2.5-ton trucks in GL auctions. As is typical for GL, the paperwork accompanying them was thoroughly screwed up. Form 97's had registration numbers instead of serial numbers listed as VINs, had other errors, were for the wrong trailer, or were not provided at all. Also, instead of titling the vehicles as legally required, GL would provide Form 97's in their name along with letters transferring ownership (also containing similar errors). As I understand it, this is called title skipping, and is illegal.
Since the paperwork provided was so thoroughly useless, I simply ignored it and used a title service to establish original civilian title to the vehicles and trailers.
Recently, GL contacted me by email to say that one of these trailers from 4 years ago has been reclassified from A to Q, and that I'd need to fill out an EUC. Great. They expected me to identify the trailer from a 4-year-old listing number and a DTID number (yeah, right!). Further digging through records at both ends of the conversation revealed that the original paperwork supplied with the trailer had the wrong year listed, and listed a registration number that was not painted on the trailer anywhere. They had no record of the serial number (which is the proper VIN, of course). It turns out that my trailer still has a legible DTID sticker on it, and I then discovered that the DTID that they provided wasn't even correct (it was off by one).
I decided to go ahead and fill out an EUC for it rather than fighting the idiocy any more. The web form that they provide for filling out the EUC produces incorrect EUCs, as it turns out. For example, it fills in the name as "First, Middle Last" instead of "Last, First Middle". So I manually corrected errors like this in the PDF that it finally spit out. Also, where they plug in "See Attached" for the item description, I replaced that with the serial number (i.e., VIN) and correct DTID for the trailer I received. After all, if I knowingly allowed them to attach their incorrect item list to the form before sending it off to Battle Creek, I'd be perjuring myself.
I bought through DRMS before GL came around, and while it was painful and frustrating as you might expect from any government agency, it was still a lot better than working through GL, paying them a middle-man fee, and in return getting more frustration, worse service, and no accountability for anything that goes wrong.
In every correspondence with GL over this EUC issue, I've pointed out all of the different ways that they screwed up, and made it clear that I don't value their continued existence at all. It'll be interesting to see if they decide to cancel my account or anything based on my criticism.
I've been satisfied to simply not buy through GL for a few years based on my uniformly bad experiences with them (there were others in addition to the ones described here). Now that they've seen fit to rub my nose in their thorough incompetence once again, I feel motivated to do something to try to fix the problem.
Do any of y'all know who might be appropriate people to contact to complain about how bad GL is? Is there anybody else out there who doesn't believe that GL's involvement in surplus disposal is beneficial to US citizens, and wants to see them knocked out of the picture? Although I doubt it would work out this way, it would sure be nice if they didn't get their contract renewed.
Since the paperwork provided was so thoroughly useless, I simply ignored it and used a title service to establish original civilian title to the vehicles and trailers.
Recently, GL contacted me by email to say that one of these trailers from 4 years ago has been reclassified from A to Q, and that I'd need to fill out an EUC. Great. They expected me to identify the trailer from a 4-year-old listing number and a DTID number (yeah, right!). Further digging through records at both ends of the conversation revealed that the original paperwork supplied with the trailer had the wrong year listed, and listed a registration number that was not painted on the trailer anywhere. They had no record of the serial number (which is the proper VIN, of course). It turns out that my trailer still has a legible DTID sticker on it, and I then discovered that the DTID that they provided wasn't even correct (it was off by one).
I decided to go ahead and fill out an EUC for it rather than fighting the idiocy any more. The web form that they provide for filling out the EUC produces incorrect EUCs, as it turns out. For example, it fills in the name as "First, Middle Last" instead of "Last, First Middle". So I manually corrected errors like this in the PDF that it finally spit out. Also, where they plug in "See Attached" for the item description, I replaced that with the serial number (i.e., VIN) and correct DTID for the trailer I received. After all, if I knowingly allowed them to attach their incorrect item list to the form before sending it off to Battle Creek, I'd be perjuring myself.
I bought through DRMS before GL came around, and while it was painful and frustrating as you might expect from any government agency, it was still a lot better than working through GL, paying them a middle-man fee, and in return getting more frustration, worse service, and no accountability for anything that goes wrong.
In every correspondence with GL over this EUC issue, I've pointed out all of the different ways that they screwed up, and made it clear that I don't value their continued existence at all. It'll be interesting to see if they decide to cancel my account or anything based on my criticism.
I've been satisfied to simply not buy through GL for a few years based on my uniformly bad experiences with them (there were others in addition to the ones described here). Now that they've seen fit to rub my nose in their thorough incompetence once again, I feel motivated to do something to try to fix the problem.
Do any of y'all know who might be appropriate people to contact to complain about how bad GL is? Is there anybody else out there who doesn't believe that GL's involvement in surplus disposal is beneficial to US citizens, and wants to see them knocked out of the picture? Although I doubt it would work out this way, it would sure be nice if they didn't get their contract renewed.
