Do not ever work for RICHARDSON'S AUTO TRANSPORTATION & TOWING INC!!!

Changing information

$1,300 to the truck. Normal car hauler x 25% = $325. According to him, $900 to the truck (I know better, I saw the central Dispatch papers, and I know exactly what the load paid). Then $451 in fuel from south Atlanta to Savannah and back. Each way is 250 miles, for a total of 500 miles. First he said his truck got 6.5 MPG; now it is 6 (even though he never filled up completely - just enough to screw me. Even at 6 MPG, 500 miles is 83.33 gallons X $3.75 a gallon is $312.50. Even with his warped logic, if he was fair with what he promised, 1300-312.50 = 987.50. $987.50 x 25% is $.246.50. That is how he screws folks even worse. Just puts as much diesel in as he wants, and then uses that to justify $150 more in fuel than was actually used. He is trying to pay me $112, then he says it should be $90. There is a slow-roast section in hell for folks like him.

Please PM me if you know of any decent companies that are honest. I am in Marietta, just north of Atlanta right now. I will be moving to Talking Rock (next to Jasper) when we can afford to finish up. I do not want to work for a large company. I would prefer an O/O with under 10 trucks. I want to know the owner and not be a number. I want to stay in the SE, but will go out west if the money is good enough. I know no one wants to give away potential jobs, especially if they are not staying busy enough, but I do have a family to feed, and hate that my wife has to work retail. I love spending time with my kids, but my wife belongs at home and I need to be working. Making this post to show to my boss pretty much ended things as soon as I got started, but I told him he was crazy as hell if he thinks I am going to make trips to Savannah for 18 CPM.

Hey, if there is anyone who wants to trade drilling me a well and/or installing septic for trade in car hauling, let me know... I am dead serious. That is all we need to move in to our home in the beautiful north Georgia mountains. I know my profile said I had been driving 2 years, but I have not updated it in several years. October 15, 2008 is when I got my CDL, and was driving before the month was over. I went through the hard school of knocks. I had no trainer, so I had to figure things out quickly and basically on my own, with help from you guys of course.

 

I no longer work there. After hounding him and pressuring him for several days, he asked for my address to mail me a check, but he did not say how much for. I asked him to let me know when he sent it, and it has been several days. I gave him my PO box so it would be harder for him to do a driveby.

 

Do not ever work for RICHARDSON'S AUTO TRANSPORTATION & TOWING INC!!! He frequently puts up ads on Craigslist.

Should I even bother spending the time taking him to small claims court or trying to report him to DOT? He paid me $112 for 2 days of work. First, he underestimated the total of the gross. Then he subtracted fuel (I would have had to have under 4 mpg in a 7 car hauler to use the fuel he said I did - $450 from Atlanta to Savannah and back, yet he says his truck gets 6-6.5 MPG [like most trucks]. It is 500 miles round trip (well that is from Atlanta, not Ellenwood), which is south Atlanta basically. 470 miles / 6 MPG = 78 gallons. 78 gallons X $3.50 a gallon is $273.00, NOT $450 as he claimed. $1300 was gross to the truck, so a NORMAL car hauler at 25% would have made $325, not $112. Even though I agreed out of desperation to take the job with 25% AFTER fuel, he just made up whatever number he wanted. Put as much diesel in there as he wanted. Did not start from a full tank. The correct number would have been $1300 - $273 for fuel, and 25% of that would have been $256, not $112. As I said before, a normal car hauler would have made $325. I jumped ship after 2 days. No way in hell I am going to run for 11% of the load, or if you break it down to CPM, it is 22 CPM. Screw him. He paid me half of the pathetic number he actually promised.

Don't work there unless you are an idiot, and want to work for free. Any and all help getting back at this POS would be eternally grateful.

 

I understand where you are coming from. First let me tell you he has a long-term habit of doing this. Believe it or not, I worked for him a short while a couple of years ago, and he pulled the same crap. I thought maybe he had changed, but it would take a phone conversation to let someone really know what he does. I know he has been doing this to other drivers as well. That is why he has an ad up on Craigslist almost every two weeks. He needs to be out of business, period, end of story. He drives around certain weigh stations. He says he is not an OTR driver because he only runs the Southeast, and the 11/14/70 rule does not apply to him, or the 30 minute rest break. I may be mistaken, but I thought that only applied to a 100 air-mile radius operation. He has an IFTA sticker on his truck. He thinks he is smarter than DOT and the rules do not apply to him.

Why should I take down the personal information? It could save countless drivers many days or perhaps weeks of being cheated before they say enough is enough. Want my personal opinion? He runs these ads all the time because he is too lazy to drive. He doesn't mind telling the forklift driver where to put the inop or chain it down. The first run with this guy, I was basically training HIM on how to load a 7 car hauler. He drove the Dodge dully with the 3 car, and I drove the tractor with the 7 car last time. He wants a chauffeur really, and he goes through drivers at least weekly. It is my duty as a driver who has personal knowledge of this man to steer others away from him. I had no idea why I thought he had changed. He had not. I could go on and on, but other drivers have the right to know. My gut instinct tells me this is the same guy who had similar ads 5 years ago when posting ads on CL was free, and there was ALWAYS someone posting stuff about staying away from him, not getting paid, etc, but now most drivers are not going to pay $25 to post a negative ad about him.

I may, and if I am going to be a man of my word, I MUST take him to court, and I may post an ad on CL for ALL drivers who have worked for him to get in touch with me, and see if they have the same stories. If so, then a class-action lawsuit is in order, and not only will I get the measly several hundred dollars he owes me from the few trip I ran for/with him, BUT depending on the jury, he may be hit with HUGE putative damages. Yes I would love to get the money, but I want to save other drivers the heartache and lost opportunities I got working for this guy. I lost out on a decent job because I went with this guy instead so I would have more home time, but it is not worth it. Would you work for 8% of gross after all is said and done? The problem is too many drivers have done just what you said: chalk it up to lesson learned and move on. This guy needs to be stopped. He thinks we can't find his money if he is too lazy to go to court and we get a default judgement? He uses Central Dispatch, and that is the paper trail to all of his money. If you were a Jew in 1942, would you not do everything in your power to stop Hitler? No I am not advocating any illegal activities, only using the judicial system. If I had read this, I NEVER, EVER would have worked for him. If it was a one time thing, that would be different, but he has and is abusing God only knows how many drivers.

 

I need you guys advice and support! Do it not only for me, but for all of the other drivers he has abused! I am doing this not only for myself, but all the other drivers he has screwed, and all of the future drivers he will screw if they are not warned. That is why I am asking for as much help as possible. I would like him shut down, but short of that, an example needs to be made of him, hopefully in the case of punitive damages so great he tanks. Maybe if he saw this would not be tolerated, he would stop, and this would also serve to warn other employers of the risks assumed by doing unethical business: lying, cheating and stealing.

I know I should just move on, but knowing this guy screwed me over twice over two periods covering a 3 year period shows me that he is doing this to other drivers. I do want the money he promised me, and while it is only a couple hundred dollars, there needs to be an example made of him for several reasons:

1) Innocent drivers should steer clear of this man and his operation. He abuses drivers and the system, and I am sure has been doing this AT LEAST 5 years.

2) He pays 25% AFTER fuel is deducted from gross to the truck. He told me to keep the Central Dispatch papers as a way to prove that I got what I earned, so I could only screw myself. He said if the shipper or receiver wanted the dispatch paper, let them make a copy of it so I will have the record and the proof I need to get paid. It tells which cars are going where, where to pick them up, and where they are to be delivered. It also shows what each car pays. Well as it turns out, when we went out, he let EVERYONE who asked keep the shipping documents from Central Dispatch, even though he told me to hold on to them. Pretty good way to underpay me, but I did write down what each car paid, and he claimed far less than what I recorded, and without the sheets, I had no way to prove what I had earned. As I had never worked with inops or had cars loaded by forklift, it was a learning experience for me. In the past, I drove all of my cars onto the trailer, but that is neither here nor there.

3) I know that as a car hauler, the normal pay is 25% of GROSS revenue to the truck, but out of desperation, I took the job, but he ended up paying less than half of what he promised. Normal companies do not deduct fuel first. The industry standard is 25% of GROSS to the truck for those that do not know.
a) Normal car haulers would make $325 for a $1,300 run. If he paid what he promised, which was 25% after fuel, he would have paid me $250. Instead, he concocted a ridiculous formula to pay me $112, less than half promised, and a third of industry standards. As I said before, I worked for 8.6%!!! For those that are paid by the mile, this translates to less than 24 CPM, for hauling cars, not drop and hook. I have been driving over 5 years, and made $.35 CPM straight out of driving school!

4) Here is how he deducts fuel: Whenever he wants, he simply puts as much diesel in the truck as he feels like, and he deducted that from my total before percentage, all without receipts. He DOES NOT start with a full tank, which is the only fair way to do this, as if it were fair. I should have made $325 from the run, not $112. We hauled a total of $1,300 worth of vehicles (we only had 2 coming back from Savannah). Even though I went with his sick way of doing business out of desperation, were he true to his word, he would have taken $1,300, subtracted $300 for fuel, which left $1,000. 25% of that is $250, not $112.

5) ***Here is how he accomplished this: First, he claimed $950 worth of cars instead of $1,300 (remember how he gave away most all of those Central Dispatch papers - the ones he encouraged me to hold on to). Second, we fueled up twice, and he said the total was $450 of fuel, not my estimate of $300, which is derived from 83 gallons of fuel (but it was actually less due to it being from south Atlanta). From Ellenwood to Savannah, it was 235 miles each way, for a grand total of 470 miles. For him to have spent $450 on fuel, at $3.50 a gallon, I would have had to have had to have driven at 3.65 MPG, not likely with a 2006 Volvo (remember we came back with only 2 cars). He claimed his truck got 6-6.5 MPG, as most trucks do. He said you would get 6.5 MPG if you stayed at or below 70 (I never ran over 80, even though it was not governed).***

He won't budge, and I promised him I would take him to court over the difference, worth it or not. I am currently unemployed, and only my wife works for the time being. Time is nothing to me, but it is his enemy. If he goes to court, he will lose more money from getting loads from the boards than he would by paying me the $113 he still owes me (not including when I ran for him 2-3 years ago for another short period - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I have no idea why I bothered believing this man had changed!).

Let me give you an example his business ethics from a couple three years back. I called his cell phone numerous times and his home phone over a 2 week period, and he refused to return my calls, as I was owed money, (and yes he pulled the same crap back then, and I stupidly believed he had changed). I finally said enough is enough (first trip, up to that point, he had not paid me a dime for driving from Atlanta to NC and back). I decided to play nasty like him, so I repeatedly called his home around midnight, over and over again. Finally his wife answered, and I asked for him and she said I must have the wrong number. I said, "No ma'am, you are incorrect. The number that I am calling you on now is the EXACT SAME NUMBER that I faxed my employment application over to". She became silent. You could have heard a pin drop. I told her he owed me money and was avoiding me. She said she would talk to him about it and he would eventually get back with me. He called later that day, and paid whatever number he came up with - not what we agreed on.

<---I am doing this for myself, other drivers, and to warn future drivers. I want ALL of us to get paid ALL of what he owes us, and as I stated, a class-action lawsuit needs to be filed so EVERYONE HE RIPPED OFF OVER A 5+ YEAR PERIOD GETS PAID!!! Putative damages would just be the icing on the cake if the jury decided to award it to us.--->

I told him as a man that I would take him to court if he did not pay me the remaining $113 he owes me. He has refused, and is accusing me of harassing him! I am not afraid of this man, and not only do I want everyone to get paid, I want to do anything legally that I can to let him see how it feels, and to cause him as much trouble as humanly possible. I want him to squirm, and quite honestly, he needs a new profession, and possibly jail time. He does avoid certain chicken coops. I asked him why we got off of I-16, went through town, and then get back on again on I-16, headed to I-95, when 16 went straight through to 95. He said it was to avoid that particular weigh station. He thinks he is above the law, and can rip off employees as he sees fit. As he puts ads on Craigslist all of the time, I am thinking of making a copy of his ad, paying the $25 to post a modified version encouraging former employees he has done this to to contact me. I HAVE to take him to court, or I am not a man of my word. If I back down and let it go, I am a liar just like him!

Please, anyone reading this, give me ideas on how to screw him and hopefully put him out of business. I won't make enough money to make it worth my time, but it is for the greater good! I would LOVE any and all advice that anyone can give me. This is more about principal than the few dollars I may recover. I know for me it is probably personally not worth it, but someone needs to pull the plug on this guy. Did I mention that even though I drove for him he does not have a filled out application NOR does he have a negative (or any) drug screen from me. He does not have a list of my employers for the last 10 years. My cell phone records and locations would mirror his trip with his route of travel, proving we were together, and Central Dispatch keeps records of his transactions, as well as employees that could testify that we were together. Please help me nail this SOB!