Prime - Ultimate BS artists

Yeah... but you take yourself out too!

Kamikaze Trucker anyone?

 

You know what they say,It's better to burn out,then to fade away.

 

Talk about a horrible place to work... This past week just proves it!

Can you believe they deadheaded me from the Central Valley of CA to Vegas because they weren't sure they could get me a load there in time for my scheduled hometime and be able to pick up my family from the airport.

Talk about a waste of time sitting in Vegas a day early... I hit a $1200 jackpot because of Prime, #### them! Turns out I got six days off total... The nerve of them giving me enough time to spend with my family and see them off to the airport yesterday. They were only supposed to give me four.

 

That evil Rob Low.I grossed over 4.5 K this week,Thats as a Solo Lease op.One of my best weeks in a long time,should be a nice check.The downside is,I have been in the Northeast for 10 days now,and it is starting to wear on my nerves.

Why is it people in Albany cannot drive in the snow?I'm from Florida,and I handled our little blizzard up here just fine.I hate the Northeast,but ####,these loads pay awesome.

 

They dead headed us alot. If memory serves me right. Once it was over 850 miles to pick up a load that only went 400 miles. And that is no bull. Checks were real good until the middle of December. Truck did not make any money for us until 1st of Feb. then it was about 150.00. Kept us in the Northeast the whole time. Then sent us to Laredo and we sat for 3 days waiting on a load that never showed up!

 

They(Prime) didn't deadhead you 850 miles, as a Lease Op you accepted a load that Prime offered and decided that what the load payed was worth it to deadhead 850 miles... Now that is no bull.

I, however, as a company driver have no choice, but do enjoy being payed for all dispatched miles.

3 days layover? Layover pay is a lot better for a L/O. Typically Not so good for a company driver. However, my Fleet Manager has kicked it up to $100 a day in instances where Prime has screwed up and wasted my
time.

Just last month, I went 40 miles to drop a trailer and collect a specialized trailer for a specialized load. Only to have the load canceled, and me drive back the 40 miles to be reloaded the following day with a different load... $100 bucks

 

It was take the load or SIT! And as a L/O, you sit! You make NO MONEY! And they paid us $75.00 a day after the first 24 that we sat and waited on a load that was supposed to be drop and hook and go to HOUSTON for my husbands brothers funeral that we MISSED, sitting there waiting for a load that never got there. On day 3 we were finally told to get an MT. Well guess what we had to wait on that too. Flatbeds were in and out. Those of us who had Reefers were SOL.

 

My Grandfather passed away last month. First thing I got was a heartfelt condolence from my Fleet Manager. Second thing was he wanted to know when and where I needed to be for the funeral. Third thing was the promise to get me there... even if I had to pass off a load to another driver and bobtail me there.

I will call BS on the funeral deal. I've heard a lot of complaints from current and former drivers.... not a single one about Prime making them miss a funeral. I've listened to quite a few drivers relate the hoops that Prime jumped through to get a driver to a family funeral. Even putting people on planes.

Forget the funeral part... I've met a number of L/O who, rather than wait for Prime to get them a load home, shelled out the money for fuel from their own pockets to drive hundreds of miles to get home... Why? Because as a L/O they could.

Your telling everyone here that Prime made you sit and wait to miss a funeral... When you were neither connected to a trailer, nor a load? For three days? Roughly 300 miles away, or 6 hours away, or about 40 gal of diesel, or under $160 of diesel?

They've Bobtailed me home from Pasco WA to Olympia WA for home time. Thats 260 some miles for regular ole home time. Nothing special. As I mentioned in a previous post, they just deadheaded me from Central CA last week (with a trailer) just to make sure I got to Vegas in time to get a rental car and pick up my family from the airport... 350 miles empty.

Even if what you say is true, and i suspect its not.... You must have had a really poor relationship with you Fleet Manager for him to do something that cold blooded... Even stiil, you didn't go up the chain to
try and make things happen.

 

Its a first empty, first dispatched system - although the load planners do steer the better paying loads to the lease-op side. If you refuse a load, you go to the bottom of the queue. Why? It keeps you from cherry-picking the loads. That makes it fair for the rest of us.

Sure you do - take the load and go. I don't always get the best paying loads on the planet, but it depends on what lane you're in. If it doesn't meet my revenue expectations, I look at where it gets me to - and what I can expect out of that area. My first load last week absolutely sucked - $1.10 per mile - but it got me out of Atlanta, paid for my fuel and overhead, and it got me up to the Chicago area. That's a good freight lane for us. Load no. 2 was a better deal - short miles and $2-something a mile - to get me a little revenue overnight while the week shaped up - a very good-paying deadhead essentially. Load number three? Jackpot! If I'd refused the piss-poor rate out of Atlanta, I'd probably have had a real mediocre week. As it turned out, this was one of my best weeks so far this year.

You said you leased on in September last year? During the period starting in the middle of June, I have never been asked to "SIT" and wait to the point I would collect layover pay. In fact, if there was a shortage of loads, I've been PAID to deadhead as much as 85-cpm.

Huh? I've got to agree with U2 - that one's on you. Missed load? On a repower, I'm on my FM about it as soon as its assigned - and I always get into phone contact with the other driver to make sure it comes off smoothly. According to RMCA its 354 miles Laredo to Houston... bobtail at 9 mpg its only about $100 to DH on your dime.

Do you understand that you could have come to this forum before your ship ran aground, and asked us for help? All of us who post here would have been happy to try to help out. Sazook and I have both sat down with an LO at a truckstop who was complaining about "not making any money," looked over their settlements and shown them that they in fact "are making money." And what they can do to increase their share. Look... its not that Prime is "so good" - so please don't start "yelling" at us. We know that Prime can be better than what you experienced, and that your experience left a bad taste in your mouth. Why?

You started a business (because that's what leasing is) that happened to fail. The SBA estimates that 80% of new small businesses fail within the first year - I tried three other times in different ways before being able to make this work. Instead of screaming that a carrier screwed you, perhaps it would be better to analyze what happened and what you can do in the future to make another attempt successful. Did you know that some of America's most successful people have been abject buisness failures at some point in their lives? It's not about whining about being screwed - its about picking up the pieces, learning the lesson served up to not repeat your mistakes, and getting back at it.