Originally Posted by windsmith

Totally my fault, as I knew better.

Talked a broker up 50% from his offer on a load from BFE Pennsylvania down to Maryland. It was a 70 mile deadhead, but came out to just over $2/mile with d/h included, and I wanted the load for positioning for a Monday pickup of a good paying load to get me out of the northeast for a while.

We'd done business with this outfit before (Ultra Logistics, 201 458-1016), so they faxed the rate con to the office for a signature and I headed towards the shipper. After about an hour, I called the broker to check on the status. The person that answered the phone said that the broker I talked to was busy, and that he'd check on it for me. Came back on and said we hadn't been put on the load yet since the rate con hadn't been signed and faxed back. Got my information again, where I was, driving hours available, etc. I called the boss, and he jumped on the paperwork and faxed it back in.

So, I hit a truck stop 15 miles from the town that the shipper is in and call the broker again to get the dispatch information. "Oh, we tried to contact you for 2 hours and never got an answer, so we had to give the load to someone else." WTF? No sense arguing, I hit the load board and found a BETTER paying load going to the same place I needed to be in MD, picking up 40 miles further down the road, and with a drop that allowed me to get in a 34.

Yes, I know - get the dispatch in writing before heading for the shipper. But we'd done business before, so I wrongly expected that a handshake was good enough. I highly suspect that they found someone to haul the load for the posted rate and pocketed the difference.

TQL done me that way before. If I don't feel like printing and scanning I just have
broker email me info and I reply with a read receipt requested.

Originally Posted by revelation1911

TQL done me that way before. If I don't feel like printing and scanning I just have
broker email me info and I reply with a read receipt requested.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to start doing that myself. The boss has a lot going on, and since I dropped $200 on that Neat scanner at Staples last week I guess I could save him a little work and put it to use.

Originally Posted by BigBadBill

If he doesn't mind you signing rate confirms. We let a few of our guys do it when we are slammed or our of the office.

Well, yesterday he had me sign a broker / carrier agreement and send in the paperwork to get set up with the broker that I got my current load from. So I suppose he's happy to have someone else doing the paperwork for a change

Do not turn a wheel until you verify you have the DEAL.

Different situation as we only deal with LS brokers, but I had something like this happen to me this week. I booked a LTL out of Gardena, CA on Wednesday for pickup Friday morning. It was late in the day but the agent told me I had the load. Well come 5pm I still had not received the rate sheet. So I calle and he said he'd have it to me first thing in the morning. Well come Thursday and still no info so I calle again and he said he was getting it to me. I called 2 more times thru out the day and he was just too busy so I said screw it and was just going to run the 1 other LTL I had booked (paid full truck rate) so come Friday morning, while I'm loading in Compton the other agent called me and asked where I was. I told him that I went on to another load since he never got me the info and never put the load onto my truck in Landstar's system. He was all upset but I told him it was his own #### fault and I had kept all the emails I sent him and his replies about being busy and so-on. Well he called me back just as I was leaving and asked what he could do to make it right since the customer had already awards him the load..... Well $200 comcheck later and I loaded the 5 crates of stone and it wound up only being 7 blocks away !!!