H & M Bay, Federalsburg, MD....AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Discussion in 'Freight Broker Forum' started by woofless, Oct 8, 2008.

  1. woofless

    woofless Light Load Member

    185
    174
    May 24, 2008
    Armour, SD
    0
    This shipper makes a tempting sounding offer on the load boards. Maryland to Portland, OR....paying $5300 to the truck. Sounds nice.

    Never mind that the load requires a total of 15 stops, with the schedule spread out over a full WEEK, even when they knew there was a TEAM on the truck. The guy we dealt with on the phone wasn't exactly friendly, either....but then, it's the Northeast, so we didn't expect too much.

    They have you make several pick-ups before you can even go to the Maryland warehouse to load. What you pick up isn't what you'll be hauling, you just bring it to the warehouse where they unload it, sort it all out, and re-load it onto the appropriate trucks. Once you make it to the warehouse, expect to sit for 8-12 hours.

    Finally, we were loaded & on our way to Portland via Denver, CO. They had all our stops, schedules, phone numbers, etc...in order, on a piece of paper. Everything went smoothly until we got to Portland.

    Now listen closely- this becomes important later on. One of the stops to Albertsons near Troutdale, CANCELLED on us but nobody thought to TELL US. Thankfully, WE took the initiative to call the reciever and see if we could unload it early since we were at a stop 3 miles away, but our appointment for Albertsons was for the next morning, and they had us going 40 miles into Washington before coming all the way back to Albertsons. Albertsons had NO clue who we were.

    Called H&M Bay....and they said, "Oh, yeah....that pallet was mistakenly left off your load. That stop was cancelled. We figured you knew?" NO....because no one CALLED US TO TELL US. Thankfully we thought to call. Finding out about the cancellation early saved us a 50 mile trip! Thanks for nothing, H&M.

    So 3 days and 10 stops in Portland later, we were finally finished and free to proceed with our lives.

    Until the time came to settle up with H&M Bay and get paid for the load. No dice. Seems the CANCELLED STOP...the one that H&M Bay was AWARE OF....the one that THEY FORGOT TO LOAD ON OUR TRUCK.....

    ....IS NOW BEING CHARGED TO US. They're saying the pallet of fish or whatever has "disappeared"....they claimed at the time they were sending it on another truck, but some moron probably simply lost track of it and they're trying to cover their butts by charging it to OUR COMPANY!!

    So this nice $5300 dollar load has turned into a load that didn't even pay for the fuel to haul it. Obviously, we are disputing the claim, but from what I have heard from some other folks, this is par for the course for H&M Bay. Bunch of crooks they are. Wouldn't haul for them in a million years if they were the last bit of freight left in the country. Seems they serve only gourmet and high-end food suppliers, hopefully they'll be the first to go under when the economy tanks and people stop spending so much money on fancy fish. :smt074
     
    izifaddag, Lite bug and Baack Thank this.
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  3. 88Pete

    88Pete Bobtail Member

    14
    1
    Oct 9, 2008
    MD/DE
    0
    I can concur with most of everything you said. we hauled a load last month for them with 12 stops on it winding up in the LA area. but without going into a lot of my details, basically, what happened with us was that they did not schedule enough time to legally drive from stop1 to stop 2. They didn't "have a load manifest" for me until my driver was well on his way. Even tho, my driver still arrived within a "reasonable" amount of time and was not a real problem. The problem was the next stop the he arrived to early and was refused because H&M never confirmed that appt time. So that has toi wait til the next day and threw everything back a day. Then when arriving in LA on Fri instead of Thursday, 2 of those stops do not receive on Friday and waited til Monday delaying my guy for 3 more days. h&M would not pay any detention time because they laid it on us because we had a reefer problem earlier in the week. That had nothing to do with any delay because we got caught up with no other problems until we hit that unconfirmed appt stop when everything snowballed from there. My other point to them was that when things did change, they never contacted our dispatch either yet they say they "left messages" for our driver which I countered with if that was a problem, they should call our office as well. Sorry to go into the details I said i wouldn't. :biggrin_25525:
    But a note for others that may consider pulling for them, beware of these "retieval loads" that they require. Our paperwork says that they charge you $400 if you don't do a retieval for them. This will probably not be discussed over the phone as well as others things. Just make sure you have a load manifest with all pu and del times on the confirmation as well as other things discussed, ie lumper reimbursement etc. i will not say that this is a common practice of their's but next time, if their is a next, things will be done with more scrutiny, to say the least.
     
  4. fasterandeasier

    fasterandeasier Bobtail Member

    1
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    Oct 26, 2012
    Miami, FL
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    If you dont mind me asking. Which load boards do you use??
     
  5. Autocar

    Autocar Road Train Member

    3,167
    2,358
    Apr 28, 2012
    The Hot Rod Shop Oxford, AL
    0
    It has been many years since I've run dead fish, but I used H&M alot. Never had a problem, but I also counted every box of fish. That was my job to do, not believe someone else's count.
    Be glad it was only fish, not King crab clusters.
     
    pearcetrucking Thanks this.
  6. maddoxtransport

    maddoxtransport Bobtail Member

    1
    1
    Jan 9, 2013
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    Agreed Avoid at all costs!!!! The pay is not worth it. We have hauled 2 loads for them NEVER AGAIN !!!! William is very unprofessional and rude and LIES A LOT!!!! he talks with driver and dispatcher will say driver said ... and then dispatcher said... Problem is he did not realize the dispatcher (me) was with the Driver (owner/driver / my husband ) though out the load.
    while booking the load with Ed agreed to 1 pick up in newport news va to deliver to federalsburg md which would be unloaded and we would get loaded with freight going to Cookeville Lebanon and Memphis TN. (3 stops)
    received the rate confirmation which would not load on my computer. called to get the pick up info did not get that info for hours...was told pick up time was 6pm then changed to 8 pm then changed to add another pickup down the street for pick up at 8 am.
    got there to pick up at 5:45 had to come back at 10 pm. got loaded with 22 pallets 5 feet high was asked by this receiver where and how much our next pick was because he said only 2 more pallets would fit. could not get a hold of H & M Bay all evening to get the info for our second pick. we even contacted the emergency lady Debbie becuase we had to be in maryland the next morning for a load they were going to give us for over the weekend. debbie gave us a cell phone number for Chris who did not answer. now loaded at 3 am with the first pick up we deceided to wait til morning for the 2nd pickup info.(which we did not agree to but wanted to be considerate of them) so we waited til they opened for the info Chris was very rude in the morning said we were only supposed to get 10 pallets at the first pick up and 12 at the second...My husband said well 10 + 12 = 22 ??? finally after Chris figuring this out for himself had Driver look in the trailer and go over the Bill of Lading word for word to see what was loaded on out trailer Chris then realized that the second pick up was at the same place and they loaded us with all the freight they were supposed and we got both pick up ...So then he wanted us to pick up more thinking 10 more pallets would fit on a 53 foot trailer loaded with 22 pallets 5 foot high??? I think Chris is bad at Math??? driver told chris it was his descion if he wanted us to pick up more then we would ...he said its ok just come to maryland don't pick up more. on our way there we asked about the load they were going to give us for saturday to make up some money ..this is what they offered . 480 miles 600.00 on a frozen load. that would not have covered fuel , reefer fuel , tolls, and driver pay. we declined and got a hotel. This did not make them very happy. so we got there to deliver and Chris was furious he took pictures and swears we could have fit 10 more pallets on our 53 foot trailer loaded with 22 pallets 5 foot high he said they could have double stacked the pallets ...5 + 5 = 10 ...trailer is 8 .5 foot tall ( you can't double stack 5 foot pallets) he said this would cost him 600.00 ??? at this point we were already fed up with them and were talking about trying to find a different load thing is it was a weekend in maryland and it also happended to be our sons 6th birthday weekend so we didn't want to hang out in maryland on his birthday waiting for Monday to find something else so against our better judgement we stuck with it. Ed said don't worry about Chris and we made sure they were not going to take any money from our agreed rate because Chris thought we could fit 10 more pallets. went to a hotel let our sons swim had good night had to be up at 4 am to get loaded with the freight to Tennessee. Driver went to check in someone came running toward him yelling "we DONT do that here ...We Don't do that here...Someone will find you stay in your truck someone will find you and tell you what dock to back into. someone in a ranger came to our truck and started taking pictures...I was thinking this is weird? so I asked them if there was a problem? they said no we do this for every truck go ahead and back into door 35 telling me this... when my husband got back to the truck I told him so we pulled around to door 35 it was taken by a yard truck ... so we were looking around trying to find the ranger finally did they said no door 25 we told you 25 ... NO they told ME 35...so we got loaded hours laters about noon . Driver goes to see if were were loaded no one said we were same guy comes out yelling we don't do that here ...he goes to the office a lady throws a packet at him he asks what is this she said rudly this is your bills. so we leave. All freight was supposed to be unloaded by Tuesday . we get to Cookeville first load doesn't come off til 12:30 in the afternoon ...then we are told they are 3 stops in lebanon another in mount juilet and another in nashville which do not come off til Tuesday leaving memphis for Wednesday. We are getting pretty upset now an extra day running the reefer is an extra 100.00 and 4 extra drops . I called that morning to et the delivery info and appointment times got transfered to William I am the dispatcher and he is giving me a problem will not tell me the delivery info until he talks to the driver. driver was at receiver but had no signal to call driver had to leave and drive down the road to get signal to call before Willaim would help us. William did not ask driver anything was only rude and did not need to speak with the driver at all in any way just wanted to give us a hard time wanted to know if he was going to be late driver was already there had to leave to get siganl to call to get the appointment number to deliver which he was 3 hours early. Very inconvinient ! would not give dispatch the lumper comdata code until he talked to the driver and took 3 hours to get it to him . I asked him what they are going top do about getting us unloaded on Tuesday as promised we already had another load booked he said we could work it just had to get all the deliveries off and be in memphis by 1 pm all of these were us foods sysco and pfg all require appointments. William said all the appointment info is in the packet with the driver (which no one told us about until MOnday ) *they did not put all the BOL's and deliver info in the packet which he swore it was all in there...but it wasn't. after busting his butt to get unloaded at 3 lebanon 1 mount juilet and 1 nashville( Willaiam at each stop took a very long time getting the lumpers paid said it was because most drivers usually unload this FOR FREE lol LIE LIE LIE he did not want to pay for the unloading he said he had to get each lumper approved becuase drivers normally do it) * does any driver down stack fro free??? these lumper were charging $45, 150.00 ,150.00, 75 .40 ...these guys are getting paid pretty good why would a driver do it for free???
    william took too long to pay the lumpers so Don (driver could make it to memphis by 1 so he could get unloaded on tuesday for our next load we had booked ...this costed an extra 100.00 in reefer fuel and costed us our load BAD BUSINESS... We got to Memphis that night had to wait til 7 : 30 in the morning got unloaded willaim then gives us the same code for unloading as he did the day before adn driver caught him on it because he writes the comdata codes on the same paper William saya oh ...i must have wrote it down wrong puts him on hold and takes more time before getting a correct code ... driver looks in the trailer and there are 3 more pallets???..WOW another stop with NO Bills and no slip sheet or anything telling us it is there or where it goes we are very aggrevated and ask are they going to pay anymore on this load since they added 5 stops and an extra day ..he says NO WAY this company is unbelieveable ...we picked up and delivered everything early or on time they have treated us like dogs the entire time and had acted as if we have done something wrong as I am writing this review we are still not unloaded we are waiting on a lumper right now and have been waiting 2 and a half hours for them to pay the lumper on the final drop. if my husband would not have been the one who picked up and delivered the load we would pwe money right now between driver detention and drop pay reefer fuel truck fuel tolls we would have owed money so where we sit lucky we don't owe but he did this for free no bring home NOT WORTH IT ...also they only pay with originals mailed to them which is unheard of today and just proves how shady they are ...if driver does not call everyday by 10 they can charge you 100.00 (if they want) p s how can you prove you called in?
    This is a scam that they have going on all the trucks in their parking lot are junky the people that work there look trashy if you are reading this and in the dock RUN save yourself some money and save yourself from the aggravation and hassle and pure disrespect between H & M Bay and interstate transport out of Florida these are the worst companies we have come accross in 8 years
     
    izifaddag Thanks this.
  7. 2hellandback

    2hellandback Heavy Load Member

    978
    236
    Dec 19, 2007
    Blackfoot Idaho
    0
    Did one nursery load for them one pick 3 drops ,,,,, never again,,, they are the kings of multiple everything...

    i rarely do multiple picks or drops and i charge a 100.00 bucks each one ,and its still a loosing matter.
     
    izifaddag Thanks this.
  8. rock_smasher

    rock_smasher Bobtail Member

    2
    1
    Apr 5, 2013
    0
    Wish my dispatcher bothered to read these, sure would have saved a bunch of trouble!!

    Multiple pick ups, long waits, rude rep's on the phone, impossible drop schedules, back tracking between drops, and did i mention rude people on the phone?

    Stay far away.
     
  9. topcat1974

    topcat1974 Light Load Member

    119
    31
    Sep 12, 2010
    Charlotte, NC
    0
    I have used them for over 3 years and really no big complaints. If you don't like ltl stay way from them but for the most part they pay the most and treat you far as anyone in the business
     
    Tobytob Thanks this.
  10. Autocar

    Autocar Road Train Member

    3,167
    2,358
    Apr 28, 2012
    The Hot Rod Shop Oxford, AL
    0
    LTL has been their mainstay for 30 years.
     
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