Why do brokers not post appointment times, wasting our time?

To me it's just fishing. Multiple parties calling in and the load goes to the low bidder. That way brokers profit much as possible.

 

Louisville KY to Jefforsonville IN is separated by a river...and a $10 toll...but what is two tolls and a scale out...only$32

 

Not sure why it would take hours and hours to find out an appointment time, i would pick up loads all the time never had an issue with it.

 

The reason appointment times aren't posted are because appointment times aren't set for half the loads in the country until after the driver is booked, especially with big companies with a litany of freight. The only loads I post with appointment times are freight that come from shippers with only 2-3 loads a week, who can afford the time to post all the details when they send me their loads. The other 90% of the time, I have to book loads with pending delivery times because on the customers end, it can take up to 24 hours for appointment requests to be approved, depending on the customer. Even the JB hunt load board is 90% "appt not set," even when they're scheduled to pick up "today." Even when loads are booked and contracts signed, appointment times are still often changed or moved around during transit, up to and including the moment the truck pulls into the receiver. This is frustrating as all hell when one tries to be a man of integrity in this industry...having to call a driver and tell him the rug's been pulled out from under him.

In my experience, brokers take the ### chewing for any number of things that can go wrong on a load; Bad driver late for no good reason, broker gets chewed out by customer. Bad customer changing delivery appointments or scheduling loads that aren't ready, broker gets chewed out by driver. In both cases, the general consensus is that the broker is responsible for the screw up. I don't mind being the scapegoat for bad customers and bad drivers at times, but I don't run shady drivers twice, and when a customer denies 12 hours of detention on one load and charges a 750$ late fee to my driver on another, I find a new customer. If you're having problems with a shady broker, then it's on you to pass on their ####ty freight.

I wish it worked this way. I post up to two hundred loads from around the US in a single morning and rarely get more than 2 calls on a single lane. My customers don't attach rates to their freight so I can't approximate a rate on all 200 loads because I'll end up booking a truck, then get that rate denied, so instead I have to take offers and bring every one of them to my customer. If I sit around building up a list of bids on a load, the load will move without me. I've had occassions where I can take bids on a lane, I had a driver fall off a lane Chicago-LA yesterday, and I took 3 offers before scheduling the lowest. It happens, but I would never kick a driver off a load because I received a lower bid, I had the opportunity to take bids because someone fell off my load and I had to recover it. I know this sort of business happens, I'm not saying it doesn't, but I don't think having a negative outlook on things really helps. Just laugh it off and find a decent broker if someone is screwing with you. Drivers have a bad reputation for being drivers, but I know that most of the drivers are hard working Americans who are making a decent living for their families, just as most of the brokers are. Out of my office there's 12 really nice people doing their best to serve their drivers with empathy, and only one shady broker that will book loads and lie to drivers just to get them on the load. Unfortunately, this one bad apple seems to be the generalization for the whole industry. I literally make friends with my drivers, I have a driver in CA that pulls in 250k a year, 2017 truck, 0 citations in 25 years; I call him the assassin. We talk regularly, about politics, philosophy...I'll talk with him for 2 hours at a time on occasion, even though he hasn't run a load for me in over two months. We really have become friends, and he's one of several drivers that actually just call to talk sometimes. Good people exist in the industry, and I'd be willing to say they make up a silent majority, you've just gotta be positive enough to help break them out of their shell that's built up due to the stigma in the industry against (insert customer/driver/broker here). If you can pull the good out of your business partner, then you hold on to them and don't deal with the chaos and backstabbing that the stigma claims runs rampant in the industry. In reality, it's not shady drivers/brokers/customers, but simply the nature of this chaotic industry that things get double booked, times change, loads cancel, etc. Our need for accountability leads to the stigma of hating all drivers/brokers/customers because "they're all shady." I think it's just the nature of the beast, and at the end of the day someone has to take the blame.

TLDR: you guys know whats up, we've all been in it long enough. Stay positive and you'll attract other positive people, and stay smart to avoid the bad ones.

 

too much time on my hands jeez

 

90% of the loads I call on the appts are set, so they could post them. The ones that aren't, simply putting "appt pending" would help, then we'd know there might be some flexibility on setting an appt, which could be huge with these eld's. Leaving the field blank just doesn't help at all.

 

I wish all posting brokers did that. I can tell when a posted rate on my lane seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Last week a guy posted an offer from L.A. area to Portland (dry van) for $3,500. I've gotten that much before, but last week the rates on that lane weren't in that range.

So, I called the guy. It was a furniture load with SIX driver assist drops along the way! If he would of posted that fact, no one would of even called. However, because he didn't, he probably got frazzled to the bone with all the calls and subsequent hang ups.

 

Every year in FL I get to patiently explain to drivers that no, that plant load is not equivalent to my load because it has 5+ drops...

 

Plant loads! This fall I did one. Paid me $1,400 for 200 miles & 3 drops. I had to tailgate the heavy arse pallets (I mean heavy) with the receivers manual pallet jack. Got everything off in a half day and swore I'll never do one of those again, unless they give me an electric powered pallet jack.