Posting For Good and Bad Brokers

I just got a pallet from Fort Wayne, IN to Austin TX, 500 pounds with lift gate pickup for $350 on UShip. Probably sucks for carriers using UShip but for shippers their rates are pretty solid.

 

Yep it's a great way for a shipper to save money. Until something happens to your freight and you have zero recourse because uship actively encourages illegal transportation operations.

 

I suspect some of the JB Hunt brokers are playing games on their 360 app.
They allow online bidding, which is a good thing, and they, as I suspect, underbid themselves pretending to be another carrier, trying to make you come down with the rate. At the point, when you give up and let someone else haul it, they call you and are ready to agree to the rate of your last lowest bid. They take you up on on what you offered. That would be all right, if you won the bid as a part of the process but not after they noticed that you're not interested any more. I resent these tactics. The bidding works when players compete for the best rate. I also understand that dummy bidders are not unheard of. However, if it is a fake bidder who wins, he is supposed to be discredited and penalized. Is it not a foul play?
I resent such mischievous tactics.

 

I pre-booked a JB load the other day as insurance to make sure I had something out of where I was going. They did the same (I suspect) with the "bidding" process. Any who, I booked it at a decent rate, nothing to write home about, but okay.

The day before, over 24 hours before pick-up, I looked at the loadboard and it had exploded. I contacted the JB rep and informed her that due to personal circumstances, I was canceling the load. I proceeded to re-book a similar load for 40% more, I know, that's hard hard to believe?

Sure enough, I looked at the board later and she was offering that same load (I had canceled) for 40% more LOL

 

They, JB Hunt, also act childish sometimes. When you offer, let's say delicately, an ambitious bid but not something that should be considered outrageously high either, they will counterbid it with a rate that's lower from what they initially offered.
Is it supposed to be a message that you were too greedy? It is annoying.

 

Yes, I've seen the same thing. I don't cancel pre-booked loads as a practice. However, when I do, I give them at least 24 hours notice. Which is more than I can say for the shippers who use freight brokers and their cancellations.

 

My favorite is when I get a call as my driver is pulling into the customer's yard. Someone has seen the truck that I've had scheduled for three days coming in, and suddenly remembered load A is unready for x, y, or z reason. And now they want me to turn them away.

"Yeeeeeeah, you're gonna pay for that...."

 

So when you book a load your word is no good if something better comes to your attention?

 

As long as it's 24 hours before the scheduled pick up, I have no problem cancelling a load that allows me to put more food on my family's table.

Your mileage may vary...

I have no sympathy for mega shippers who stick it to small one man operations through mega freight brokers on the spot market every day.

 

However you want to justify it in your own mind is fine by me. Still doesn't make it right. And you won't get any argument from me that most brokers are not liars and thieves. Two wrongs don't make a right but you can't even prove they did any funny business with your bid. It met your parameters and you accepted it fair and square until something better came along, right? I got my chops busted for this by a buddy of mine several years ago.