Western Express Does not reimburse for Scale Tickets

When it comes to Western and things like forgetting to reimbursement scale tickets and receipts, I'm on the fence whether it's a conspiracy or incompetence. On the one hand your right, my tickets were reimbursed about 90 percent of the time. The other 10 percent of the time I would have to call them and they would fix it & claim that the receipt or ticket didn't go through... Never had an issue getting reimbursed after the call but it makes one wonder. The BOL always goes through so the company gets paid for the load, but the scale tickets & receipts for things like load straps .etc magically disappear until the driver calls them.

But on the other hand, the rest of the office staff are just so incompetent, payroll might be too.e

For example, Western employs some of the worst planners & CSR peeps. They struggle to book loads & pass on accurate information to drivers. I received many complaints about Western CSR from shippers and recievers. Appointment times will be days off, pu/drop #s will be missing from load info even when dealing with regular customers, van drivers who rely on planners for empty trailer locations may be sitting for days.etc. If a driver contacts his dm about any of these issues it may take hours to get them resolved if he or she has a bad one. Why would management get payroll to steal small $ from drivers while employing a bunch of baboons to book & plan freight? The amount of lost revenue due to idle/unproductive tractors must be enormous.

The whole company's pretty bonkers.

It's a real mystery on how the company makes any money.



The real frustrating thing about Western is that it does have some good qualities that might attract a driver. Buried beneath piles of manure but it's there. I was OTR dry van & ran east of the Mississippi, but Western has a lot of NE regional dedicated accounts whose drivers go home every weekend. Many of the drivers I talked to on these accounts were pretty satisfied.

I'll also add that out of all of the mega carriers, Western is, IMO, the LEAST micromanagy. There's no monthly training videos or anything like that. While there are forward facing drive cameras on their trucks, they never call you about anything unless you smash into something or are running red lights every day. You can actually just focus on driving. Also, If you are rarely late & regularly run 500+ a day they will start running you pretty hard after 2 months or so.

If Western cleaned house and started hiring good people in the office, hired/retained decent trainers for their drivers just starting out, and raised their experienced drivers pay a bit it would actually be a fairly decent first choice second chance company.

As it is, even if you have had a couple of jack knives, are fresh out of prison, and/or have 20 speeding tickets, I'd still explore a few other options before putting in your Western application. You can always apply to Western if everyone else in your area says no.

 

Missing 10% of those who actually turn in the receipts and follow the procedures is probably netting that company $1 million in savings a year. As big as they are. And that’s just for the people that follow the procedure and then they just don’t pay it. There’s an app, someone with an IQ of 25 can learn to use it in about three minutes. You don’t even have to get out of your truck and you get your scale ticket right there at the scale via an email. No going in, you’re in and out of there in a couple minutes and it’s paid for instantly. Every trucking company out there knows about these apps. They don’t use them because a certain percentage of those scale tickets they’re not gonna pay back. And they know it.

 

I remember when drivers were talking about Wayne Wise when he passed, I want to say it wasn't long after I started. That would have been 2010, though I could be wrong. Around that time they had bought out SMX too. That company was so outlaw back then it was crazy. I don't ever remember being micro managed, hell I don't remember really being managed! It was kind of fun though lol....

To the OP, I remember them always saying scale every load. I never had an issue getting reimbursed for any expenses. At that time it was a company policy. I can't imagine that they've got away from that, especially if they still haul that water out of Maine. If you're still there, follow the advice @Deleon gave you. Converse (not confront) with the right people.

 

I think they probably make their money with the flatbed division. I ran flatbed for a while, and I never had issues. They had so much freight it was crazy. The running lanes were different and they had a lot of long hauls. I think it varied from terminal to terminal though. I was dispatched out of Birmingham and that seemed to have a bigger focus on the flatbed side if things.

 

And you don't delay the person behind you unnecessarily while waiting for a person to do what you can be doing yourself.

 

From my understanding his children got ahold of the company and it went downhill from there.
You know a company is bad when a TORNADO of all things hits the headquarters and still leaves it standing!!

 

I HATE when that happens.....

 

Yeah, I always heard that those trucks had a mind of their own to reflect a dispatcher driving.

 

I looked that up and he has two daughters and neither worked there. I think his wife is a silent partner/owner.

 

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