Prime INC.

Actually, Prime no longer has the lease the way you described it. It is $0 down and no buyout at the end unless the truck is of a certain age. I spoke with OOIDA today and they said all they have ever sued Prime for were a problems with Worker's Comp premiums. In Missouri the law is written such that the company has to pay the premium even for lease operators in the situation where the lease operator has no stake in the truck. In other words in a lease purchase situation, the driver would be responsible for the Worker's Comp premiums. If you look at many other companies that are headquartered outside Missouri, the L/O has to pay the Worker's Comp premium. When pressed the OOIDA Rep finally said that Prime really has cleaned up their program and the only complaints they now receive are from individuals who did not make it and were most likely not cut out to be O/O in the first place.

I have talked with numerous Prime L/O who are on second, third or fourth leases and they said the old concept of starving the driver out at the end of the lease apparently doesn't happen any more as they have never seen a decrease in miles near the end of their previous leases.

 

Midwest Transport. I remember Charlie D. and the "Road Gang" on WWL, New Orleans, hyping that company many years ago.

"Want to become an owner-operator, then Midwest has the deal for you. For only a buck, you can get a truck.

"A buck and a truck" was the motto. I ran into a few of the "bucksters" who hadn't slept in days, back to back to back dispatches, and broke as a church mouse, wondering how to get out of the mess they were in.

To top it all off, the Freightliners they were leasing were some kind of ugly.

 

I remember reading many a story in Landline magazine about Prime O/Os taking Prime to court over various problems back in the late 90s. Maybe OOIDA wasn't involved, but I, with my elephant's memory for this type of thing, remember what I read. Prime was sued more than just a couple of times by ex-O/Os, mostly because of truth-in-leasing violations and because they failed to return escrow monies to former O/Os. Let me see what I can dig up on the web about it.

 

Hmmm. Somebody is tellling fibs somewhere with this story. Check out the links:

http://www.ooida.com/legal_action/Prime/prime_index.html

http://www.ooida.com/legal_action/Prime/Prime_update_4-15-02.html

The escrow account funds issue is what had Prime in hot water back in the day. Up to 10,000 drivers could have been affected by the ruling.

I don't know who told you OOIDA had never sued Prime, Paw. Maybe the janitor at OOIDA's headquarters. Those guys have been sued more than a few times. Some of those cases involved OOIDA.

THE LATEST:
Former O/Os can't pursue claims against Prime on the truth-in-leasing issue.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7541651_ITM

 

He was probably talking of cases they sued on and won. The first two links all apply to ONE lawsuit. OOIDA, in effect, lost that suit (if you read through the entire documentation) because they were trying to apply retroactivity. The implication, from what I read, is when the law became clear that escrow funds had to be refunded to the O/O, those who had lease agreements prior to the law felt they should receive theirs back, as well, and sued. The court ruled otherwise. On the upside of that argument, OOIDA states that Prime is refunding escrow amounts at this time. (Mind you that Prime is one of many who were sued over escrow fund returns.)

The Worker's Comp case deals with Missouri law. The OODA rep read to me the summary of the Missouri statute regarding Worker's Comp and stated that Missouri law is different then most other states. Contact companies whose principle place of business is in other states and you will find that O/O are paying for their own Worker's Comp (listed as Occupational Hazard Insurance) in their contracts.

Again, from what OOIDA stated yesterday, it appears that Prime has cleaned up its act since the late 1990's or early 2000's. McDonalds was sued for serving hot coffee but how many of us buy coffee at McDonalds? We need to learn to forgive and move on in life. Just as a lot of us did some really stupid things years ago, we have improved and would prefer that people give us a new chance. We should be willing to afford others then same thing we expect for ourselves. I think that is called the Golden Rule.

 

This sounds like a scenario that I have read on several different message boards about several different companies. This is trucking. This is how it is when you work for a bigger company. It sucks but a fact of life. Sometimes when you own your own business your store will sit there. A person that owns a donut shop (since this was used before) still had to make the donuts, manage the storefront, and be there whether or not customers came in and bought anything. Everything I have heard bad about Prime is from people who lease. A large percentage of bad things are said when anyone leases from any company. This is why I will never lease. I know an owner op that hauls for Prime and he makes the money because he knew how to run the donut shop. When you lease a truck it seems you are still at the mercy of the company like a company driver except the driver is paying the cost on a lease.

You pay the cost to be the boss.

 

There is a Prime driver's website now, which has lots of information on it.
There are several L/O's on there that claim to be doing quite well.
The drivers who started it are former Pumkin drivers, so it is a legitimate site.
Also, the Prime L/O's claim that the dispatchers are on an incentive based salary.
So it is in their best interest to keep them moving. The lease is a walk-away, so if
you tire of it, there is no further commitment. They also have a fuel surcharge.
I'm not a fan of lease agreements either, but Prime's sound better then most of them.

 

I agree. None of them seem to be griping about much. Even in their personal blogs.

 

Let me know what this prime driver nets after taxes, fuel , repairs, health care, etc, etc are deducted from the gross.

Also remember that it is common knowledge that Primes business model is designed to keep the driver away from the house or lose the house. If your single and you have no life outside of driving the interstates, then you might be able to make more then a company driver, but with the added work that a company driver does not have to worry about comes the destruction of your health and your family eventually calling someone else daddy because your never around.


I would definitely pick FedEx or Landstar over Prime if I was considering chaining myself to a truck at a big company in 2008.