I made another mistake

Well first off, cash ONLY should be interpreted as just that. If the customer tries to give you a check, or a money order, or anything else OTHER than CASH, that is when you make that call to your company for guidance. I've seen accounts that would give you a check, and the whole darn business would be shut down and out of business before you get back to the terminal. I've seen other accounts that were long term companies with fine reputations. Except for paying their bills and bouncing checks.

The vast majority of the time if you have a COD, a check is going to be OK. But if it says CASH ONLY, I'd take that as gospel, and run it by the folks who get the big bucks to make those decisions. Sure, it may slow you down a bit. But isn't that better than trying to collect on a bad check?

 

It's been a lot of years since I did route work but your post brings back a lot of memories. Some of those companies have their checks printed by B. F. Goodrich for extra high bounce and by the time you realize, it's too late. In that the company I worked for would hold the driver responsible for collecting those bad checks, I was a stickler for cash when the account was flagged for cash only. It saved me a lot of trouble in trying to badger someone to make good on a check. Thanks for posting this, it really brought back some things I had forgotten about.

 

I agree with Big Don. I rarely did any kind of cash only deliveries, as most of my jobs, I worked for a company, and my job was to deliver the freight, and let the office handle it. However, when it was a cash deal, I was under strict orders, no cash, and "president's faces" cash, not checks ( I guess certified checks were ok) or M.O.'s. If no cash, the freight stayed on the truck. Not sure your situation, if that's an option, but to me, if a company is on a cash deal, there's been problems before, and the company will try to get your freight, just to keep operating. They will cry and moan, trying to get you to leave the stuff, but I wouldn't. It was a hassle working around it the rest of the day, but it was better than getting stiffed for it. Good luck.

 

No.

Not really.

Exactly. Even just as a truck driver, you always want to put the responsibility for whatever you can on someone else. Making a decision you don't have to is the first step to failure. 1 (ONE) "Aw Spit" erases all your "Attaboys".

No. People "DBA" (Do Business As) the same businesses under their new ownership (Vomit Comet, Inc. DBA The Olive Garden). The "business" itself has no account, the DBA owner (/their company/corporation) does... or in some cases doesn't.

People can be reluctant to be the account collection agent of their company, it makes them uncomfortable to tell people they have to pay cash. Believe me, most of those people are used to it, and if they aren't you have to remember "It's business, it's nothing personal". The fact you're at their door with a BOL is evidence something has been determined regarding their account status before you got there, and they know it.

A LOT of otherwise reputable (and large) businesses are "slow rollers"-- they pay their bills late as standard operating practice, float themselves a loan, for free, or often at a predetermined interest rate. Invoice terms often read to the effect "NET 30 (days), 10% thereafter". Locally, everyone tends to know who they are, and they always pay eventually before they're cut off.

You have helped your fellow man.

 

Every human being makes mistakes. The intelligent ones, learn from their mistakes, and it sounds like you are one of the intelligent ones. You will continue to make mistakes, just as we all do. But hopefully, you won't make the same mistake twice.

I think we have all worked with people who would take a ten minute coffee break, and have to be retrained. Over and over and over. Those are the folks we hope never get behind the wheel of a big rig. And yet, we do see it happen.

 

Big Don, I got to tell ya', you are a character. "10 minute coffee break, and have to be retrained". One of the reasons I did trucking for for so long, is I'd truck with guy's like you, and had a riot. But you're right, we've all made mistakes, and hopefully, caught it early, so it didn't turn into a big mistake, and remember, ok, that didn't work, not going to do that again.

 

When I ran LTL local, the normal thing was a truck and a 27' pup. But we had 3 different size trailers, and different configurations. 27' 45' 53' and converter dollys. It wouldn't be an unusual day to be hooked to all three sizes of trailers, nor very unusual to pull doubles or rockies. It does make for an interesting day, sometimes.