This story is terrible. I need some major advise.

My mom won a medical settlement and decided she wanted to start a business. I suggested for my mom to invest in real estate in Las Vegas, but she didn't listen to me. Instead she listed to her loser brother who convinced her to start a motor carrier business. He recently finished truck driving school. I told her it was not a good idea considering she did not know anything about this type of industry.

Well, before doing her proper research she bought a huge truck for $42,000, paid for a year of insurance, and started establishing her business. This all happend within a week...... Well, last weekend my uncle stole my mothers van and disapeard. We tried looking for him and he was last seen at " the drug spot" in our area.

I don't know what to do. My mom thinks she can hire a driver and start this business on her own. But she is clueless !! What should she do?? Try to run this business, sell the truck?? Is there some type of consulting company that will help her learn how to start this type business.

sell the truck and call it a lesson learned if you are not the driver you will still have to take care of the truck when it needs fixing plus paying taxes for the truck and heaven forbid some driver a company puts in YOUR truck gets in a wreck and kills somebody i would sell it and walk away.

Thanks for the suggestions. I feel bad for my mom for wasting so much money though. I don't know how to tell her to cut her losses. She really thinks in her heart she can pull this off. She bought business cards too.

Some people can make a go of things by accident. MOST of us can't.

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sell the truck and be done with all those headaches, especially for a no-knowledgable person such as your mom (no insult intended). then whatever she does, she should report her personal vehicle as stolen and let the police take care of her loser brother. i can only imagine the problems he will be on the roads since you say he was at a "drug spot"........this worries me.............

have your mom seek professional help regarding her investments, like a "CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER"...........not a loser brother, and frankly, not from you either. your intentions may be as honorable as all can be, but a financial planner has more ideas available that are better paying investments than you can imagine.

maybe even a restraining order from the courts to keep "loser bro'" away too........he's going to continue to "haunt her" for money...........

I concur that selling the truck now is the best plan. Perhaps some of the other expenditures such as insurance can be refunded. The kind of loads that an inexperienced single truck carrier has access to haul don't pay enough to bother with. It will be an extremely steep learning curve. Perhaps she does not yet understand all the paperwork that goes along with trucking. Having to file for permits for various states, compile fuel tax reports, manage logs and daily vehicle inspection reports, comply with drug testing requirements and other things. I have spent more than a year researching the owner operator side of trucking and I still don't feel that I have enough knowledge to make a go of it, especially when I see how much things cost out here on the road.

If these warnings go unheeded and she still plans to go ahead with this foolishness she will need to start researching now. Some of the information that she needs is available right here on this forum, and a few others. The more she learns I think the more nervous she will get. Right now she doesn't know enough about it yet.

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The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

-- J R R Tolkien

Curious the best thing you can do is talk to her. After that its all hers and tough as it might be to watch happen you may just have to watch her ruin herself.

There is not much you can do otherwise if she doesn't want to listen.

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I have to agree with Pro Driver on this. Sell the truck even at a loss because it's going to cost more since neither of you have ANY experience in this business. Even people who have been in this business with years of experience fail when they buy a truck. Get what money you can back from the insurance company, burn the business cards,sign a warrant on the looser brother for stealing the van and get a restraining order on him to prevent him from having any further access to ALL monies, anything else with any value, and the truck until you can sell it. She should invest the money with the guidance of a planner or your banks investment person. Check out the planner too as some of those are scam artist like your brother.

sell the truck,thru a private sale if you can,but that will be hard to do if you don't study the trucks worthyness and its condition,if a dealer buys it he will give you less as he has to sell it also. don't give any quarantees ,buy as is as shown,and consider the whole investment as a loss. With the right accountant,you may be able to write all or most of it as a loss,including the stolen vehicle. Don't try getting a driver for it at all,as the others have said,it takes a great lease or great knowledge of trucking to make a profit and keep on with the business.