Response to WUTC Hearing

Posted 12/21/18

Earlier this week, Dolly had the opportunity to plead our case in front of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) as to why we should be granted a provisional household goods permit.

At the highest level, Dolly is 100% aligned with the WUTC’s stated mission – to protect the people of Washington by ensuring that transportation services are safe, available, reliable and fairly priced – all of which is at the very heart of Dolly’s core purpose of creating the household brand name that stands for the best-in-class local moving and delivery experience which consumers turn to time and time again.

We use stricter standards to background check and vet our Helpers, we carry 10x the required insurance limit, our prices are substantially cheaper than traditional providers and the service is available on-demand or whenever a consumer needs it.

Before Dolly, consumers frequently turned to Craigslist or the parking lot of their local building supply stores to find truck and muscle help. A shadow market where there are zero consumer protections in place. We’re aggregating that activity and, in doing so, applying much higher security and safety standards to it, substantially improving consumer protection overall.

BUT, our customers speak the loudest. To date, Dolly has served nearly 200,000 customers to incredible satisfaction – you need look no further than the reviews we’ve received on Facebook and iTunes where over 10,000 people have rated the service and the avg score is 4.9 out 5.0.

Since the earliest days of our business, we’ve always sought to actively collaborate with regulators and have been outwardly vocal that we welcome regulations for this business. Have we challenged them? Yes, but only for the purpose of wanting to work together to find a way to adapt the existing permitting process to make room for a service that consumers so clearly need, which has its challenges.

Given that, I am deeply disappointed that the WUTC counsel’s strategy was to paint a picture that Dolly has been untruthful and defiant. Contrary to the WUTC staff’s claim that we have been uncooperative at every turn, here’s what we’ve done:

  • The WUTC told us they don’t have the legislative authority to change the rules so we’ve worked shoulder-to-shoulder with their policy team to introduce a bill to legislature, granting them the necessary authority.
  • Dolly is an active member, and sole industry representative, on a legislative Taskforce lead by the WUTC to develop regulatory suggestions for this industry.
  • The WUTC asked us to modify content on our website and social media pages to make it more clear that Helpers are independent contractors and that Dolly exists to connect demand with supply, which we’ve done (though admittedly, it’s not always been clear exactly what they’ve wanted us to do).
  • The WUTC charged Dolly with a $69K penalty for advertising infractions before we made the content changes referenced above. We paid the fine in advance of the due date despite disagreeing with the findings.
  • The WUTC has consistently said that Dolly is operating illegally without a permit so we applied for a household goods permit with sensible exemptions (e.g. to get a permit you need to have a DOT #. To get a DOT #, you need to own a vehicle…but Dolly doesn’t own any vehicles so we asked for an exemption from that requirement).

Which gets us to where we are today.

We’ve actively engaged the WUTC to partner with them to bring about the right regulations for this new industry – just as we’ve done in every state we operate in. We recognize that the existing regulations aren’t easily adapted to the latest technology and consumer preferences but we are committed to working with them to make the necessary changes and we hope that includes them granting us a provisional permit so that we can prove that commitment.

Sincerely,
Mike Howell, CEO