Freight Capital for factoring - your experience?

I deal with them for accounts that are slower pay and i am very happy with them. Over two years now and not one issue, allways get someone on the phone and very helpfull. They also over a fuel card with some pretty good discounts if you need one. I personally do not use it. There fee was the cheapest i could fined and only a one page aplication not like some of the others that want your first born.

 

Worst customer service. I actually called Monday to cancel and was told a retention person would get back to me by 3 pm PST. It's Wednesday evening and still no call.

And that is the norm. If I wasted my time with them on more than a couple invoices I am sure I could go on forever.

Sent invoices in on my own fedex account. Still have not seen the credit due to me for the only two packets I sent. They charged me for using there account. EVEN after on the second one in big red letters I wrote "personal fedex account - due not charge for fedex lable".

Had one invoice that I sent and the customer said they had already paid me. 45-days later after several calls each week (with no follow-up from FC) I find out from the customer that they had sent check to FC. Even got copy of check. And now armed with that information it still took me a week to get FC to send me my money. And to top it all off they charged me a factoring fee FOR HOLDING MONEY FOR OVER A MONTH. I did get that back.

 

I don't factor. Didn't need to when I went with FC. But was independet and doing all my own invoicing and was getting behind on collections. When I figured in cost of factoring compared to what I would get with fuel discounts and not having to worry about collections it seemed worth it for about half of the invoices that I would need to do it with.

But they don't even do any collections. Had one invoice that was recourse. At 45-days (and that was based on the date of my invoice not when they got it 6-days later) I called to find out the status. "We have no idea. We don't make collections calls."

I am not kidding.

I have grown and have an office now so that part is not an issue anymore. Plus we are doing some of our own factoring. It is a little different. Rather than have 24-hour turn around we fund weekly with ACH into checking account for invoices received by Moday for a 3-4% fee. My feeling is most don't need 24-hour turn around and if someone does then there are plenty of companies doing that for the extra fee.

 

I have to agree with BBB, i was with FC and had an invoice that was 75 days late. I called FC and they told me that the broker wasnt answering the phone. I called the broker and they pulled up my information. It took me one phone call to get my money. FC claims they made several attempts to contact broker. To be honest i dont think they every call , when invoice is late. IM with schneider now, doing their choice program.

Factoring can help and hurt you....

 

Yes, got the same thing. Messages not returned and I get someone on the phone on first try.

 

My experience with FC has been generally positive. I cannot dispute anything Bill says as i know him well enough to know he's not making it up. I feel bad about that as I highly recommended them when Bill was considering factoring.

Since then, my advice is: caveat emptor. My experience has been good, but that's been proven to be no guarantee yours will too.

Early on (invoice number 1 and 2, in fact) I butted heads with an account director there about what exactly they do for collections (#1 was late pay) and promptly notifying carriers on claims (#2 had a claim). We finally worked it out to this: they might call and ask where the check is when an invoice goes 45+ days. They will note claims and charge back to reserves, but no specific call or email notification. They cannot chase claims, as the carrier has to actively work with the customer since the factor has no visibility to the details of how the load went.

FWIW: The claim on #2 could have been avoided. It was a learning moment for me and my son about two things:

1. Getting OS&D worked out at the dock if possible, if not get on it fast. The longer it lags, the worse people's memory gets. In their favor of course.

2. Clearly articulate everything on the invoice, especially OS&D. That will get the customer's attention right away versus a month later when someone gets around to reviewing the bills.

Bottom line: They told me it was up to me to monitor the aging and take action. I didn't really care for that, but since setting that expectation there's been no more problems. When I see one getting up north of 45 days, I check in with the customer and that's usually all it's taken. If a claim or mistake on my invoice is discovered, I call FC and tell them how to handle it and it gets done. I use their credit check tool and do not load customers that come back negative. The credit decision usually has a note to why they were declined. I even check the customers I direct bill.

The fuel card is good, except the discounts really will only offset the fees. Since I've gone to weekly packages, I'm ahead of that by just a little. The big downside is that you can only fund it with factoring. Not possible to deposit cash on it. So that means if you're like me and using it as a primary, you have to float a balance on it high enough to stretch between funding events. I don't factor customers that pay fast to start or offer quick pay 3% or less.

Except for no deposit, the fuel card is a fully functional Comdata card. FC will supply checks on request. Drivers can issue checks for accessorials or washouts. I have two driver cards out with cash/purchase limits set to prevent loss in case a card gets lifted. I can manage them online realtime to either give them a one-time increase for double fuel or repairs or cancel the card if it gets gone. I can also do that over the phone if needed. If my balance gets low and I need to do an interim funding, the trucks have printers and scanners on board. Drivers scan and send me the bills, I email them the rest of the package to be dropped in a Fedex bin at a truckstop, since the original bills go in the package.

IMO they're not the best game out there, nor are they the worst. I feel like they are a victim of their over-hyped glossy marketing package that makes it seem that they do more than they actually do. With the exception of two 1-day fedex hiccups, their funding cycle has been very predictable and consistent - an attribute that is very important to me when floating a fuel balance. A couple of hungry trucks will decimate a cash balance real fast if you don't stay on top of it. Really, that could be said with any fuel card, although funding it with invoices adds moving parts to the timeline.