Rate cons

Well I have to be honest I went back and looked at that rate con.

That one said that they would pay $1.71 for you to return it to the shipper, that's what you were supposed to agree on in the rate con.

However this was a short load that I got $12 a mile or whatever it was back then.

To return the load was another 80 Mi plus a $40 toll. So at that time I think fuel was about a dollar a mile so fuel would have cost me $80 and the toll would have cost me 40.

1.71 x 80 = 136.80.

So they're going to pay $136.80 and it's going to cost me $120 at the very minimum.

Maybe I should have rethought that because I could have made about $15 or so rather than the $900 I made on the next load I pulled out.

Never deal with thieves like that. It's bad enough if legitimately the rates have dropped, but when people are actively trying to rip you off, screw them.

 

Or maybe the broker is saying the shippers will charge a missed appointment fee when the shipper is not charging it. My experience is a broker will deny it is dark at night if they can keep more money by doing so. Do brokers ever show the contract they signed with shippers to 3rd parties? Brokers serve an important business and lying helps them, so they do it when necessary.

 

Could be. A quick call to the shipper listed on the ratecon would clear it up.

 

I’ve saw a little bit more of it. But, honestly I do this on our broker side as well. It’s to keep the morons in check, not the people who are good at what they do.

But also, some freight it’s very very important it gets there when it’s supposed to. If a single operator team such as yourselves inquired about it then my guys would notify me and I’d make a call to remove it which I have several times.

I see both sides. We rarely penalize people but definitely do from time to time but it’s because there is a major blatant disregard.

 

I wouldn't agree to that either.

 

I think a lot of that is keeping in touch with the broker.

If you have a load that you were doing and you have updated the broker every step of the way and he knows where you are he knows you're on time he knows you picked up on time he knows you did everything you're supposed to do but as soon as you have a problem you have to call the broker.

My truck is worked over every which way. I put more money into my truck before I put it onto the road to make sure it was Dependable than you could ever imagine.

Well one day I got loaded and I pulled out into the lot and my steering felt funny so I got out and looked and here my poppets needed to be adjusted I had no idea and I turned the wheel and hit the stop I suppose when I backed in and that was it it blew the line out which by the way was a brand new line because I wanted everything to be dependable.

So right away I called the broker and let him know that I have to fix this. It was after hours so I couldn't get the line there's no way I could make the delivery.

My own opinion it's a good idea if you tell a broker that you need a particular repair and you are stranded, don't be afraid to tell him that you will be happy to send him pictures of what needs to be repaired. People that are trying to BS the broker generally will not make that kind of an offer. You never know because when you send that picture to him he may forward that to the customer and say hey look I got this guy he's really broken down so please let's not charge him a late fee let's just reschedule please.

The broker seemed very happy that he just knew what was going on and I kept him updated.

They didn't charge me any fees at all but I did have to wait I think two or three days to get another appointment.

My point is that if you have a mechanical problem you either have to be able to fix it and get there on time or immediately call the broker and let him know what's happening.

Another time there was a big accident on Route 80. Traffic was just stopped dead. There was a huge accident.

So I called the broker hey I'm over here on Route 80 it just passed Exit whatever whatever we're jammed up traffic has stopped they said there's a massive accident I was going to be on time but I might be a couple of hours late now.

In that case the broker can certainly look up the traffic to know you're not kidding him and no one should be giving you a hard time because you're stuck in stopped traffic.

So by keeping in touch with him he called ahead to the shipper and everybody knew what was going on so it's not just some truck wandering in there late.

So no fine there but I was late for the pickup so they worked me in. I don't know how many hours it took them but it was a while and there was no detention because I was late but I did not get charged with any late fees or any of that.

It's a shame that people are not professional enough to show up on time or keep in touch with the broker so that they can keep in touch with the customer.

That's how all this nonsense got started.

 

There’s a lot of funny business going on more then in the past couple years.

With people more desperate for loads, they will say they’re 15 mins away and empty when turns out they are 2 hrs away and still getting unloaded. Tracking is becoming even more essential due to this crap.

They’re lying so they can keep the load to themselves vs a carrier who is positioned to better do the job. When we find out we pull them off and blacklist.

 

I've seen it too.
They want to charge you $400 for late arrival, and/or reschedule to whatever date they see fit but they themselves are setting a cap on a detention limit of $250.

 

These are normally hard appointments and they need the stuff. Most of the time it also has stuff that protects you from having a break down in the paperwork but you have to show the breakdown paperwork. No reason to be worried unless you are one of those that arrive late.

 

I don't know about that. Maybe for some places.

Long long time ago I think we used to pull loads for Coke where they actually were filling the bottles with product.

Sometimes something would happen that the production line would break down. From what I understand about that situation, they couldn't simply just fill other bottles. They needed to get that particular product filled and onto the trucks that are waiting.

If they sent the 10 or 20 trucks that are waiting home, then they're going to have 20 tractor trailer loads of product that have to go somewhere and they probably don't have the room for them, not to mention the customers are waiting for those loads.

Okay so they send the trucks home. Now for the next 5 days, they have a constant lineup of trucks. How are they going to get this other product filled and to their customers?

It may be cheaper or seem cheaper for them to just cut the truck loose, but as long as it's not going to be like 24 hours or something to fix it if it's just going to be three or four hours or something like that I think it makes more sense for them to just pay the trucks to wait.

And of course if the trucks wait for 4 hours they're only paying two so that's not a bad deal for them.