Who Decided These Are the “Best Car Shipping Companies in Naples”? Our Investigation Into the FreightWaves Rankings

Some aren't in Naples — and that raises bigger questions

We started looking into this because of one simple fact: we know the Naples auto transport market. Yet when FreightWaves published its August 2026 article titled “Best Car Shipping Companies in Naples, FL,” many of the companies presented to Naples consumers weren't actually located in Naples. Some aren't even particularly close. Some are national brokers headquartered in entirely different states.

Since beginning this investigation, we have also been told something potentially even more concerning: that some companies operating in the American auto transport industry may have substantial portions of their sales, dispatch or customer-service operations outside the United States, despite presenting themselves to American consumers as U.S. companies.

We want to be extremely clear: we have NOT independently confirmed that allegation regarding every company on FreightWaves' list, and we are not presenting it as fact. In fact, some of the companies we checked clearly have U.S. corporate registrations and U.S. addresses. But the allegation raises a question any publication recommending companies to consumers should be able to answer: where are these companies actually operating from?

• Where are the people answering American consumers' phones?
• Where are the salespeople negotiating these transportation transactions?
• Where are dispatchers located? Where is customer service located?
• Where are consumers' personal information and credit-card information being handled?

A U.S. address doesn't necessarily tell consumers where the operation is

A company can be legally incorporated in the United States and maintain a legitimate U.S. mailing or business address while employing workers or contractors throughout the world. There is nothing inherently illegal about outsourcing — thousands of American companies do it.

But if a publication is going to recommend a business to consumers as one of the “Best Car Shipping Companies in Naples,” consumers deserve more transparency about what that means. Is it a locally owned Naples company employing people in Naples? A Florida company? A U.S. national company? A U.S.-registered brokerage whose sales operation is substantially overseas? Those are very different business models — and consumers generally aren't told the difference.

The same three companies top every “local” page

FreightWaves says it evaluated more than 2,400 companies nationwide and scored providers based on cost, service options, availability and customer reviews. Yet the same three companies appear prominently across geographically different FreightWaves pages: Nexus Auto Transport (4.8/5), Sherpa Auto Transport (4.8/5) and Navi Auto Transport (4.4/5).

Those same companies aren't merely recommended in Naples. FreightWaves also places the same three at the top of its Cape Coral page, and the same three appear at the top of route-specific pages such as Orlando-to-Seattle. So how “local” are these local rankings? If essentially the same national companies repeatedly occupy the premium positions regardless of which city the consumer searches, what exactly makes the Naples ranking a Naples ranking?

Where the recommended companies are actually based

Nexus Auto Transport identifies its business address as 1320 Tower Road, Schaumburg, Illinois 60173. That's Illinois — not Naples, not Southwest Florida, not even Florida. Sherpa Auto Transport is associated with Charlotte, North Carolina. Again: not Naples.

Navi Auto Transport's website describes the company as headquartered at 250 N Sunny Slope Rd., Suite 200, Brookfield, Wisconsin 53005. The BBB also lists a second location at 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958, and Navi's own legal terms identify the underlying company as Navi Transport Services LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. We found evidence of a U.S. corporate entity and U.S. addresses for Navi, and we are not alleging that Navi isn't a U.S. company.

But Navi's LinkedIn company page identifies employees with names including Nikolay Andonov, Ivan Karakostov, Gregori Stoilov and Emil Atanasov. That doesn't establish where anyone works, and a person's name obviously tells us nothing about citizenship or location. But it demonstrates why the investigation has to go deeper than an LLC address. The relevant question isn't someone's nationality — it's where the work is actually being performed.

Compare that with the actual Southwest Florida companies

Now compare those national businesses with companies FreightWaves lists farther down its Naples article. Shaughnessy Overland Express is actually located in Naples. Towmax Transport Corp. is located in Cape Coral. Friendly Auto Transport and Young's Auto Transport are associated with Fort Myers. At least those companies have an identifiable Southwest Florida connection.

But Cape Coral still isn't Naples. Fort Myers still isn't Naples. And Illinois, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Delaware certainly aren't Naples. So what does it mean when a consumer is told these are the “Best Car Shipping Companies in Naples”?

And here is something that should make Naples consumers pause: Enterprise Auto Transport is an owner-operated, federally licensed auto transport broker with offices in Naples, Florida and Minnesota, a 14-year track record, BBB Accredited Business standing with an A+ Rating, USDOT #2273104 and MC #774106. We are not on FreightWaves' list at all. If the article truly identified the best car shipping companies in Naples, it is difficult to understand how a local, licensed, established Naples broker — with a real Minnesota office as well — could be entirely omitted while national companies headquartered elsewhere were included.

The consumer-review data doesn't match the scores

FreightWaves gives Nexus 4.8/5, Sherpa 4.8/5 and Navi 4.4/5. But the public consumer-review data doesn't always line up neatly with those scores. The most dramatic example is Navi: the BBB currently reports 1.91/5 based on 110 customer reviews, along with 53 complaints during the previous three years. Meanwhile, FreightWaves scores it 4.4/5. That is an enormous difference.

And then there are review platforms that currently display notices indicating they have taken action involving reviews on company profiles, including removing reviews they identified as fake. That isn't our accusation — that's information being displayed by the review platforms themselves. So how does FreightWaves arrive at 4.4/5? We would like to see the calculation.

The comparison we find particularly difficult to understand: FreightWaves includes Shaughnessy Overland Express, which is actually located in Naples, and itself reports approximately 4.8/5 on Google, 4.3/5 on Yelp and an A+ BBB rating — yet gives Shaughnessy an overall score of approximately 4.12/5, lower than Navi's 4.4/5 despite Navi's 1.91/5 BBB showing. Maybe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Then explain it.

The advertiser disclosure matters

The FreightWaves article contains an “Advertiser Disclosure” and prominently displays “Get Quote” buttons and telephone numbers alongside recommended companies. Advertising doesn't automatically invalidate editorial content. Affiliate marketing doesn't automatically make a ranking dishonest. Lead generation isn't automatically improper.

But when editorial recommendations and commercial activity exist on the same page, consumers deserve to understand the relationship — and perhaps the simplest question of all: could a small Naples auto transport company that pays the publication absolutely nothing receive the #1 position if the methodology determined it was objectively the best company? Yes or no?

Don't fall for Forbes 'best' lists, Consumer Voice or similar 'top 10' consumer pages. These are typically paid advertisements and lead-generation placements. Some sites charge $2,000 or more per listing simply to claim a company was 'rated' and appears on a 'best companies' page. The ranking is the product; your click is the inventory being sold.

• Does the publisher receive money when consumers click quote buttons or call?
• Does it receive compensation for leads or completed bookings?
• Can recommended companies purchase advertising or enhanced exposure?
• Does any commercial relationship influence who is evaluated, displayed or recommended?
• Is the 'best' list a Forbes, Consumer Voice or similar paid placement rather than an independent review?

And now another question: where are the employees?

As we continue investigating this industry, this is something we are going to start documenting. Again, outsourcing is not proof of wrongdoing. But consumers deserve transparency. If you call what appears to be a Naples auto transport company, you deserve to know whether you're speaking with someone in Naples, another state or another country. And if a publication tells you that company is one of the “best companies in Naples,” we believe the publication should know the answer too.

• Corporate headquarters and FMCSA registration
• Actual office location, owners and executives
• Sales-team, dispatch-team and customer-service locations
• Whether overseas call centers or overseas contractors are used
• Where consumer payment information is processed and personal information is accessible

Show Naples the data

This isn't complicated. Any publication issuing “best of” rankings for a specific hometown should be able to tell consumers how it reached that conclusion.

• How many actual Naples companies were evaluated — and which were rejected?
• How many Naples residents provided the “feedback” the rankings cite, and how were they identified?
• How are Google, Yelp and BBB reviews weighted?
• How are review-platform warnings about potentially fake reviews treated?
• Where are the recommended companies headquartered, and where are their sales and customer-service operations actually located?
• Does the publisher receive compensation connected with these recommendations?
• Why do the same national companies repeatedly appear at the top of supposedly localized rankings?

This is bigger than one article

The deeper we dig into the auto transport industry, the more we believe consumers have no idea who they are actually dealing with. A website can look local. A telephone number can look local. A Google listing can look local. An address can look American. A company can be federally licensed. None of those things, individually, tell a consumer where the people actually conducting the transaction are located.

This isn't about someone's ethnicity, accent or nationality. It's about business transparency — knowing who has access to American consumers' personal and financial information, who is actually negotiating American transportation transactions, and whether a company marketed as “local” has a meaningful local presence. And it's about whether a publication has done enough research before telling consumers these are the best companies in their hometown.

FreightWaves says these are among the best car shipping companies in Naples. We would like to see exactly how it reached that conclusion.

How to protect yourself as a consumer

You don't need an investigation to protect yourself — you need five minutes and the right questions. Before paying any deposit, verify the company directly using sources that can't be bought with an affiliate payout.

• Look up the USDOT and MC number on the official FMCSA site and confirm the legal name matches.
• Ask where the sales, dispatch and customer-service teams are physically located. The biggest companies on the first page of Google often operate primary offices in Bulgaria, the Philippines, Ukraine and elsewhere — not the United States.
• Cross-check scores on BBB, Google and Yelp — including review-platform warnings about removed fake reviews. Watch for reports of gift certificates or other incentives offered to change negative reviews to positive ones.
• Be skeptical of tens of thousands of glowing reviews. The biggest brokerages can afford to pay clients per review; real customer feedback is hard to collect at that scale.
• Ask whether the quote assumes the vehicle runs and drives, and get the broker fee in writing.
• Call the phone number on the company's own website — not the one in an ad or a ranking page.