Please help! Need Advise- Broker won't pay says load was "short"

When I was in school my main instructor said this every day! But how can it be legal for them to completely not pay?

 

It's probably questionable not to go through a claims process but if the load pays $1500 and the claim is $1500 the broker is probably covering their own butt. Most likely this driver got the shaft. It happens if you're not on your game and paying attention. You just have to know if you don't take the time to count the freight because you're tired or whatever that you can't count on the guy loading your truck to make sure everything is right. Not only that but with produce you could get a load of garbage from a shady shipper that sees an opportunity to pass off bad product on a driver.

This is why if you haul produce, don't haul it cheap ever. It's one of the more risky loads for claims.

 

OK, I'm going to recap what your problem is, just to make sure I have this right in my head. If I do, I am also going to voice my frustration with some of you other respondent's who are both horrible business people and bad advice givers...

*A broker, or unlicensed broker, contacted you to ship a load for a shipper.

*You shipped the load as a carrier, with your own authority.

*Upon delivering the load, the BOL count didn't match the actual load count. (missing stuffs)

*You signed off on the delivered count, and went on your way.

*You invoiced the broker/non-broker.

*He didn't pay.

*You made a collection call, and he says he wasn't paid because the load was short.

*So you get no pay?


NO! A majority of the respondents are absolutely wrong when they say that "you live and learn"... or "they knew they had a newb"..

The more disturbing part of this whole thing is how the brokers bond is talked about in this thread as if it's insurance for shipped product and because the product was agricultural, it is exempt. Thats just retarded.


The broker was contacted and contracted to get the product shipped. They are an agent of the shipper, and owe only the shipper a fiduciary duty. Had the broker not vetted the carrier, and the carrier just up and disappeared with the load, the broker would be responsible for paying for the shippers loss, bond or not.

The broker, as an agent/broker of the shipper, looks for a carrier and then finds one. When the broker and the carrier enter into a transport contract, the carrier owes a duty of care to the broker, and transitively, the shipper. If the BOL is received and signed for at the receiver, payment is due at whatever terms the contract dictates. This payment has absolutely nothing to do with disparities in shipped/received amounts of product, so long as the receiver received and signed for receipt. And even if the shipper or carrier had a claim against the broker, anything short of non-payment, fraud, or negligence would have nothing to do with a surety bond. More than a surety bond, general liability coverage is required by federal law when doing any b2b business. More than that, most states require more in depth and broad coverage depending on the industry. These could be E & O, Professional Liability, off-premise liability, etc..

MISSING PRODUCT: If some product is missing, it went somewhere or didn't exist in the first place. The difference in BOL shipped and BOL received, is at the first level of liability, the responsibility of the shipper's insurance coverage, and it's paid out at the REPLACEMENT value of the product. If the shipper does make a claim for stolen/missing cargo with their insurance, THEN AND ONLY THEN will their insurance provider call the broker's insurance provider with hopes of getting a check.... then both call your's.

When you ship with UPS, and you are the "shipper", and they lose your package, who pays? Well if you, as "the shipper" didn't buy insurance, then you do by not getting any product or compensation. (though I've never heard of UPS losing anything)

Just because product is missing, that does not negate the debt that was contracted for and owed, for the transport services of the rest of the received product. Some amount of value was still transferred between three or four entities in this transaction. If there was shipped product that came up missing, was their a police report? Did you go in the trailer and notice that two boxes of avocados contained items that "weren't avocados", so you ditched them? Did you cross the southern border and customs not agree with the shipper's declaration?

Either way, One transaction/loss does not cancel the other, at all, not even in the slightest. "You don't mix money.". If you've never heard that, then I got a guy at the IRS that can teach a lesson on it. You get paid because you showed up with the majority of the load, and it was signed for. Even if you counted and signed, or signed and didn't count, if you know for a fact that those missing items aren't missing because you stole them or neglected your duty of care, then someone else, somewhere, is liable, period.

BOL: Does it say "Prepaid", "terms".... is it blank on the payment line?

A couple questions, once answered, I can tell you exactly how to get your full check/ACH by the close of Monday.

What state was the shipper and receiver in?

How much was the total bill & fsc?

How far was the trip total?

Have you called to verify with the shipper to see if the broker was paid?

Estimate what percentage of the load is claimed to be "missing".....

If you can just answer these questions, you will be paid.

 

Long winded response with the jist stated in post # 10 in less than 50 characters.

 

I just re-read my post and see I'm all over the place on it. I am sorry. There are just alot of misconceptions being expressed in the advice given in the thread.

If there where items missing, there should have been a police report and insurance claim made. Absent that, nothing was missing. If they claimed you stole/misplaced something when you know it was a simple paperwork error, they are liable for both the payment and defamation. If you showed up with only one case on the truck, the rest missing, they still owe you the full freight bill, and the loss of freight is worked out via insurance.

Just because exempt commodities aren't covered generally under BMC coverage, the broker is still liable for payment, both civilly and eventually criminally.

BMC-84 and BMC-85 primarily cover non-payment to carriers on non-exempt loads, general negligence and general fraud by the broker. If there was fraud, malice negligence, or conspiring to commit any of these, BMC coverage is now in full effect, exempt cargo or not. Damage/missing/stolen items are regular insurance claim issues. Even if a surety was willing to pay against one of these claims, they would first look at other existing insurance coverages and demand accordingly.

 

Surety bond has nothing to do with it.

 

What!? Nothing to do with what!?

 

Where you said even if a bond was willing to pay against a claim. Bonds have nothing to do with anything except payment of regulated freight charges.

 

Long-winded or not, this is good info !

 

And also, claims are usually applied at a salvage/used/way less than retail rate unless shipper has a "declared value" stated on BOL. In which case rates would go way up. Claims on apples would probably be less than .25/lb.