Celadon’s sudden closure left drivers in chaos all over the country. One repo company is now being accused of improperly seizing Celadon trucks and trailers by claiming to be a valid place for drivers to surrender their vehicles, offering bounties on the locations of Celadon equipment, and more.
Celadon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last year just days after they were ordered to pay a $43 million settlement to the Department of Justice. The settlement was the result of a federal investigation into alleged fraud at the company which also led to two former Celadon executives being hit with multiple felony charges and an SEC civil complaint.
While Celadon’s CEO said that it was Celadon’s intent to “proceed with the orderly and safe wind down of our operations,” the company’s shutdown has hardly gone smoothly. Drivers on their way to training showed up at bus stops only to find that their tickets had been cancelled; fuel cards were shut off for truckers still on the road; and the only carrier that stayed in operation, Taylor Express, was sold to a creditor for $14.5 million, about 1/3 of the $43 million Celadon had paid for the company back in 2015.
With all the confusion, some drivers abandoned their equipment all across the country. Triangle Recovery Services of Raleigh, North Carolina may have seen an opportunity.
According to the complaint filed by Celadon, Triangle posted ads encouraging people to surrender their equipment. They even allegedly offered a cash bounty to anyone who knew the location of abandoned Celadon equipment. Triangle then allegedly used Celadon’s own trucks to pick up Celadon trailers from all over the country and drop them off at Triangle’s yard in North Carolina.
The complaint filed by Celadon says that Triangle has at least 50 pieces of Celadon equipment including trucks and trailers. As is standard practice for repo companies, Triangle seems to be holding on to the equipment until Celadon pays their retrieval fee.
But according to Triangle, the company has done nothing wrong.
“Celadon abandoned thousands of units nationwide, at distribution centers, truckstops, businesses and personal properties,” wrote Triangle general manager George Stephenson in an email to IBJ. “Interrupting daily business, causing great inconvenience, creating hazards and even encouraging criminal activity and vandalism.”
There is a preliminary hearing scheduled for the case on February 26th.
Source: Freightwaves, Yahoo, IBJ
If I agree to pay my buddy to drive my car across the country, and then I fail to meet my obligations to him, during the trip… He can park my car and walk away, and it is my responsibility to recover it or make arrangements with the owner of the property where it is parked, or risk it being towed, and any attendant liability associated with the tow.
Celadon (and any other trucking company) isn’t special. They would have dropped a driver like a hot potato, for the kind of behavior that put them out of business – what made them think that drivers (or anyone else) was going to be sympathetic, foot the bill or work for free and without insurance, logs, or legal authority, to help them recover assets that they bought with stolen money? Why *shouldn’t* everyone who can, feed on their rotting carcass?
Being sued out of business for fraud, isn’t a credible place to start from, if the argument is that the proceeds from the impounded equipment would otherwise have gone to pay driver payroll. They don’t get to sell off equipment on the cheap to the next corporate shell that they own/control/work for, screwing their creditors, investors, suppliers, contractors, and employees on the way.
Crack open your wallets, sell off your sports cars, boats, and houses, Celadon principals. You earned none of it and you deserve none of it – least of all, the rolling stock that you couldn’t even be bothered to get back to a terminal, with it’s drivers…
I would have kept the truck and trailer and use it as farm equipment that would never leave the farm!! Trailers make great storage!
Yeah, strip off all the numbers and registration ID and they would never find it, been done I’d bet
Hell if I was a driver that didn’t get paid, that’s how I’d try and sell the trailer, drop and hook, you could even swap the registration paperwork on the trailers, so it’s not connected to you. Too late for that now, but I’d bet it’s been done and was initially.
40 years ago when I got screwed as a company driver I dropped the trailer out in the desert headed home and left truck almost inside the gate of a junk yard in Brooklyn with the keys in ignition and enough fuel to drive it away
Well said. If I know of any Celadon equipment locations, I’ll cash in myself. Could this be a new Series? Truck Repo? They could have someone like “Dog the bounty hunter.”
Pay now or pay later, too cheap to pay drivers to get the stuff back to your yard the same way it left there?
Well then why expect any of the folks you inconvenienced with trailers at docs, rigs at truck stops and rest areas etc, or wherever they ran out of fuel, side of the interstate, creating a hazard for
4 wheelers as well, would care about your loses, in fact, you can argue that Triangle performed a public service and should be compensated well. I think Celedon will lose in court, if they don’t they should
oh well. CEO gets caught in illegal activities… Fined 43 million… Files for bankruptcy… leaves all of the drivers stranded. my heart bleeds.
Celadon did not leave us stranded. They called each driver individually to make sure their truck was secured, and to make sure they had a way home. Don’t believe everything you hear. I was one of those “poor celadon drivers” and if they opened the does tomorrow I would take a pay cut to go back without hesitation. I have NOTHING bad to say about them.
And the CEO that was involved in the wrong doing was fired almost 3 years ago because of his wrong doing. Which, by the way, was discovered in house.
Sooooo, you lost your job because the leadership at your company were criminals. And these are the people whose boots you want to lick? It’s people like you that…………….
That’s cool to hear because that’s showing true integrity on your part
Dude are u on drugs or just stupid!
That’s too boot lickin “Jennifer”
She must be a true submissive subserveant.
Ok that’s good to hear for the drivers, the least they could do,
but dumping equipment all over and not collecting them, cheaper to pay the drivers to bring them back, oh well, they threw away a
$ 1/2 million to save a 1/4 million
I wonder if your individual case was the norm? If so, then what is the point if this Celadon article about them bringing a repo LAWSUIT?
I wonder what’s wrong with Jennifer’s MVR or background that would make her desperate enough to go back to Celadon. There are far better jobs available for drivers with good records.
You’re a moron
Sounds like the repo company is helping drivers more than their own bankrupted company did.
I personally would say “lemme have the truck and anything you owe me would be free and clear”. Then head off with a owned truck, no payments. I hear that’s when you’re really making money as a O/O, with a rig with no payment.
And I was paid every last penny I was owed too.
Right now, the loads are being so underbid that no one is really making money and truckers are being hit the hardest. When you have to shell out nearly $8,000+ per month for fuel, insurance, maintenance, equipment payment, elds, prepass, UCR, IFTA, etc., PRIOR to even turning a profit, then it doesn’t pay to haul loads. The trucking industry is imploding right now! There are so many truckers who no longer can afford to fix their trucks, and there are a huge amount of truck stops with abandoned trucks. It is happening and it is real!
Well the bigger economic driver is automated trucks, with Electric a hot second, potentially removes 2/3rd’s of the standard big fleet expenses: payroll and fuel
A windfall for the Swift’s etc, they are chomping at the bit, want it sooner rather than later, a couple of years away max for both, if you don’t own, there’s no future and even if you do, ….dicey, certain loads will never go away, but many others definitely will….
Van drivers are history, I think very soon too.
This will be one for the courts to decide. Celadon equipment parked on private property does not give a repo company authorization to enter the property and take the equipment. Sounds like theft.
A bank or finance company can enlist the help of a repo company if they have a judgment in their favor from court and can legally take possession of equipment. THEN they hire a repo company to find it/get it (and that would be only equipment they financed and specifically listed in the lawsuit, not just any truck/trailer with Celadon on it).
If one of my drivers left a truck/trailer at a truck stop, no one is allowed to remove that equipment except the owner of the property. They call the cops and have it towed/impounded.
Filing Chapter 11, Celadon was under a reorganization bankruptcy which means they could keep their assets and restructure…if approved by the court.
Repo company demanding a retrieval fee when neither Celadon nor any lien holders of Celadon hired them to retrieve the equipment? Sounds like highway robbery!
Your right It seems like the repo company did this on there own thinking they would make some money of Celedon and why would they think that when the company filed bankruptcy
BOOOO HOOOO, to celadon..Myself, I would have dropped the treiler somewhere and started heading towards home till it ran out of fuel and left it where it stopped.That was just wrong. They should have gotten the drivers back to terminals and given them a ride home.
Seems everyone forgets how Celadon treated lease operators in the past. I remember crying when not having money after running three thousand miles in a week. It seemed that there were always charges that would reduce my paychecks to nothing no matter how hard I ran.
I’m so sorry for the drivers that were hurt by Celadon closing but I am smiling when I think about it going under.
If you think only two people were involved in criminal behavior i respectfully submit that you are out of your mind.
They took good paying loads from me and kept throwing 86 a mile loads on me. I quit immediately. Only took me 2 weeks to realize they were crooked.
They Got What They Deserve (Celadon) What Goes Around, Comes Back Around. AWESOME 1 More BAD APPLE OUT OF BUSINESS
Well boo the hell hooo
Is it not funny when thay get taken advantage of thay cry like little babies. As thay fly off in private jets. But when the people that works for them complain that thay are out of a job it falls flat, and told too bad so sad. Most people don’t get paid what thay are worth.
Trucking isn’t what it used to be that’s one reason I walked away from it to many cut throats out there so fend for yourself these companies could careless how you get home
I dropped OTR for local hauling. I made more haulin cattle in a 150 mile radius of home. 25% of the load was my usual pay which came out to about $1500/week after deductions. Pullin 98,000 cows to Tyson paid for a lot of things. Just the 19 hour days were murder, a young mans game for sure.
When I was there with Steve Russell running the place it was great. When the bean counters got put in charge I got out, I could see the light, Bean counters can’t run a trucking company, celadon’s demise is absolutely the proof.
No news here. It’s typical business as usual. A thief stealing from another thief.
Probably illegal ,but then again who can steal from a better crook ,why don’t some one just break in repo yard ,or burn it down
I would definitely look into a debtor’s lien if I had one of their trucks and they owed me money.
Who cares.if you don’t like driving a truck.just get out of it.
Seems ITS NOT criminal activity when the office steals from drivers, but it IS when drivers or others in the trucking business find ways to ‘get paid’ by same company. The irony isn’t lost on anyone, and the many hope those found guilty are in prison, general population, where justice is thoroughly served. Often.
I seen 3 of their trls this 1 in Pennsylvania 1 in Iowa and 1 in Ohio all going different directions, all with different trucking companies and with seals on doors and all had 1 thing in common and that was foreigners pulling the trls🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Mark Berry, was thinking the same thing. And who owns this Company?
And how could you tell where they were from?
How do you know they were foreigners? Did you look for a passport or a Green Card?
There are many people out there who are first generation Americans. Can you distinguish from a person who came from the middle east or an Asian country to someone who was born in the USA to someone who was born in those areas?
” We’ve watched the Simpsons ! We know how to spot a 4ner ! “
This is straight Karma at its finest. I’ve talked to several drivers there that were in LP agreements and they couldn’t afford to eat at times. They were the absolute worst of the trucking industry and I have zero sympathy for them. The drivers all suffered at their hands and I don’t give a damn that they can’t recover the equipment. It should be auctioned to the highest bidder and drivers should be paid first and foremost
I know there is a thing called carma didn’t the big companies say they wanted to level the playing field with the elds it looks like this big company is getting leveled 😆 but I really feel for my fellow drivers that went through that B S
What goes around comes around. This was the shadiest and most unethical company I ever worked for. I couldn’t get away fast enough. It surprised me not one iota when the news of their corruption and bankruptcy broke. The only thing I thought was: It’s about time.
These bastards are guilty of theft of services to the tune of over 1 million dollars to my fathers Iraq/Kuwait transportation and security company back in 2004/2005. Glad to see their world crashing.
It’s a great wave coming from all the people of Trucker’s. That’s all I need to say, if you all don’t do right by the TRUCKERS! Waiting to get unloaded 😘
The top management squirreled away a nice nest egg no doubt. The height of scum-baggery.
Steve Russell has to be rolling in his grave. Celadon use to be a pretty good company, as far as general commodity freight companies go. It’s a shame that it went down so fast after he died.
Well,why didn’t some of these drivers just put a lien on the equipment?
Take it home .Park it .Lock it up and get a lien.It can be done and has been done.
Easy and legal..No one can take it when you legally get a lien on it. But I guess with all the finger pointing and lack of real world life experiences so many can only do as they are told.No one seems to be prepared for bad days anymore.
I love it, to see a floor flushing outfit go under, hope the drivers all made it home safe .
These slimy Corporate goons deserve whatever befalls them! Hope their wives run out from under the porch and bite them when they get home!
You go Triangle!!
Let them squirm they way they did their drivers!!
I would never work for a company like them, but this is not about Celedon it is about the towing company do things that were not authorized by Celedon
I worked for this rotten company for 1 month..I spent more time at their yard in Laredo,Tx than ever on the road..And they never paid layover because they said “If you are in our yard you don’t qualify for layover..Ivan was a crappy dispatcher,and everything they told us in orientation they lied about..Mind you I had already been an OTR driver for appx 25 years at the time..After 1 month of their lies I drove straight back to Indy and told them to shove their truck up their candy ass’es..I had a very good job on my way back from Laredo to Indy,and stuck with them for another 15 years before retirement from the road with 40 years..So as far as I am concerned,as they say Karma is a bitch,and it could not have happened to a better company.
One man gathers what another man spills