How to get a truck with no money down and bad credit

Discussion in 'Trucker Taxes and Truck Financing' started by Truckers_Cow_Girl, Oct 14, 2009.

  1. tucker

    tucker Road Train Member

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    Off topic,
    but I have "no credit" which is worse than "bad credit" .
    By not borrowing money or having credit cards my credit score is zero.
    Last summer I got a quote from Farm Bureau for insurance and he mentioned my score, the quote was higher than I'm paying now and my bank turned me down for a small loan to build a house.
    So now I have to build my credit,
    I had to get a secured credit card, now I have to use it every month and pay it off on time.
    I signed up for Credit Karma and I don't exist in Credit world.
    You'd think being a white male land owner and having no debt and money in the bank would give me an awesome credit score.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2017
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  3. boredsocial

    boredsocial Road Train Member

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    Don't worry they'll catch on fast. I was in your shoes at one point and let me tell you, when someone who doesn't actually need money decides to build some credit it happens super quickly.

    Also you're about to enter a brave new world where every time you spend money you get a kickback from American Express. Sooner rather than later you'll be buying stuff with 0% interest that you would have paid cash for. People are just falling over themselves to let you borrow for literally nothing. And since you're financially responsible you'll be smart about it and this will all be pure profit.

    Enjoy!

    EDIT: In case it wasn't clear the cash that you would have used for the purchases is to remain in an interest bearing place until one month before the interest free period expires. At which point Siri will inform you that you need to pay them off and you will do so.
     
    tucker Thanks this.
  4. tucker

    tucker Road Train Member

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    American Express turned me down, as did Walmart,all I could get was a $300 secured Capital One card.
    Alec Baldwin kicks ###!!!
     
  5. nax

    nax Road Train Member

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    Ahhh....someone on the forum using them fancy MBA words..."bootstrap"...

    I gotta keep an eye on this one: @boredsocial
     
  6. boredsocial

    boredsocial Road Train Member

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    You start with the secured card. Use it to pay for EVERYTHING. Charge it up and pay it off as many times as you can in a month. Ask for credit line increases constantly. Go to those credit forums and read what they have to say... They are probably way better at it than I am.

    It might take you a year or two to build up your credit to something really valuable, but you'll have a solid mid 600's score inside 6 months probably.
     
  7. boredsocial

    boredsocial Road Train Member

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    I did unfortunately go to business school (Undergrad econ). I learned exactly nothing but fancy words like 'bootstrap' while I was there.

    But yeah trucking is a bad business for bootstrapping. You need to be properly capitalized to start. Interest rates are low, so you can get factored and still be viable, but you can't do an 18% interest rate on the truck unless the truck was very cheap. Very cheap trucks break down and cause tons of service failures which will put a very real ceiling on your ability to take good freight. A very cheap truck with a high payment will also have lots of expensive repairs which you won't be able to afford because you have crappy freight that people will trust to a brand new carrier with a 15 year old truck with an ungodly number of miles on it.
     
  8. nax

    nax Road Train Member

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    @boredsocial ...I have a business related Undergrad too, so I get you...

    I always thought when people say "business school" they imply MBA...but I digress.

    What you are saying re: "brand new carrier with a 15 year old truck with an ungodly number of miles on it" is what I've argued to those that caution me from getting a $50K truck (with 400-500K miles). I have little desire to keep repairing 900+ miles truck, and the downtime is triple-costly i.e. money to repairs / lost revenue / damaged reputation.

    My question is: Does the Equipment specs i.e. Year / Make / Model / Miles etc come into play as you engage with a carrier? I find this to be very unlikely, but I suspect you may finese the info out of them.

    It appears to me that you place more trust on a newer truck, but ARE YOU willing to adjust the rates up for newer equipment i.e. not lowballing the carrier?

    Finally, I wonder if these are shipper/broker's self-inflicted wounds in the grand scheme, when you say "Very cheap trucks break down and cause tons of service failures which will put a very real ceiling on your ability to take good freight". ALMOST EVERYWHERE I TURN, I hear, shippers/brokers are offering "cheap freight"....so where is this "good freight" you are talking about?
     
  9. boredsocial

    boredsocial Road Train Member

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    I don't ask about equipment for a few reasons:

    1) I don't know anything about trucks which means that any information I gather I probably couldn't use all that well.

    2) It's not easy to verify.

    Most 'good' freight never sees a loadboard or only sees it for a few minutes before it gets snapped up. There are brokers I know who have UNGODLY good freight (I'm talking team loads that are power only, round trip from the NE to FL that generate like 13k in revenue on a ~4k mile cycle that runs FAST and end right where they start) but those loads go to trucking companies that have jumped through like 15 hoops to get it, part of which was an equipment inspection I'm pretty sure. That freight is 100% mission critical and running through a different large 3PL that literally doesn't trust their own people to get it handled correctly... And wants the person handling it to be personally responsible if something goes wrong.

    You can see the better produce loads on the load boards simply because there is so much of it when it's going that everyone is booking every truck they know and still trying to reach for new carriers.

    Basically as a trucking company you want to have as much of your freight NOT come from the loadboard as possible. There are definitely some guys who do really well off the loadboard, myself included, but it's much better to have some good brokers you usually haul for or even better direct freight. Interestingly this is true for brokers as well. Everyone benefits from a mutually trusting business relationship where everyone gets what they need. If I have to choose between worrying for 3 days about a load I'm making 400 dollars on, versus being completely chill about a load I'm making 200 dollars on because one of my reliable regulars is on it... I'm choosing the latter every time. I also have to do VERY little work on the second load compared to the first.

    EDIT: As a rule I pay slightly (like 50-100 higher) higher rates than my competitors. This comes out of my end and it comes with some pretty stringent carrier selection requirements that I really can't go into. I pay most trucks the same rate, but I don't deal with bad carriers at all so in effect I 'pay more for good equipment' on every load. It's just not broken out from 'probably has a competent driver, decent equipment, and probably won't call me to demand detention after waiting for 4 hours at a produce shed in GA'.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
    nax Thanks this.
  10. nax

    nax Road Train Member

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    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
  11. sandman22

    sandman22 Bobtail Member

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    so is there anyone who has done alright with l/p?
     
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