Hoosier Tradewinds

Don't tell me they SUCK

 

Hoosier Tradewinds is nothing but a lying company who cheats you out of money.

Here is their motto
"We exist to revolutionize the transportation industry by modeling Christ in the way we do business"

Well let me rephrase that "We exist to repulse others AGAINST the transportation industry by modeling the most UN-Christ like behavior in the way we screw you out of business"

My husband started working for them a month ago after talking to one of their Supervisors- (we'll call him Kent W.) who said that he would make really good money and be treated like a valued driver, not a number.

I should have known from the first paycheck when they said there was no direct deposit yet (it wasn't up and running.. hmm.. doing some research I come to find this company has been in business how long? TEN YEARS??.. ok I agree with being Christ like but no use living in Biblical times here people!)

Well, no direct deposit I can deal with, that's what Wal-mart is for right? We didn't have a bank account anyways so my parents were going to do it for us. Well, this is where it gets REALLY nasty

So, after the second week, the fist pay check was negative 100 due to gas.. ok... I can deal with that.. well the second paycheck was 800 some odd dollars. GREAT!! I was excited. This may ACTUALLY be worth it! So.. I waited.. and waited.. and waited... and waited! By Wednesday I had NO check and these checks were supposedly mailed out on Friday.. from Indianapolis.. and I live in Bloomington Indiana.. let's do the math here.. 5 days to go less than 100 miles? Gosh.. is it just me or is that really fishy?

Ok it gets worse! If you can believe it. So my husband calls and raises seven kinds of hell. All apologetically they overnight a check to me. I'm excited, I can finally get some groceries, make a few payments, get my daughter some diapers.... so forth. My parents take the check and cash it for me.. ( I should have noted that the other check NEVER really did arrive- and they said they were putting a stop payment on that other one so that it wouldn't get mixed up with the one they overnighted.. what other one?) I put it from my mind, just happy to get a paycheck.

EVEN WORSE! So, I look at his settlement on line that Friday after we got the first paycheck to see what the next paycheck would be... They PROMISED and SWORE up and down that all the rest of the paychecks would be here by monday at the latest. Well, I look at his paycheck and it's THIRTY NINE DOLLARS! I about fell out of my chair. I thought we had accounted for everything- insane gas prices, truck payment.. they issued TWO com checks in one day. we didn't even know they were allowed to do that and my husband NEVER got or cashed the second one, but they said they had no way of knowing that and once it was issued it was issued (in my opinion just another way to screw us out of 500 dollars) They said they'd fix it and try to get it on the NEXT paycheck. Well, I never saw that thirty nine dollar paycheck EITHER.

Then... yes it gets worse.. my husband decides he wants to run hard to try to get us some money because we need a vehicle and my daughter decides to go through her 3-4 month growth spurt... so I'm out of money, no way to get diapers, living off of my parents (thank God I was here with them or else I'd probably be on the street by this point) Sooooo he takes a load out to Oregon.. good miles huh? Well, it takes 8 hours to get loaded on Saturday in Indianapolis and this thing needsto be there Wednesday-- 2200 miles aways NOT gonna happen! but that happens all the time so that's besides the point and isn't even the worst part! Wednesday he gets to Idaho- calls Wal-mart finds out that they had moved his appt time to 6 AM so he definitely wasn't going to get there, rescheduled him for Thursday at 5 pm. Doesn't stop here. Tradewinds calls and tells him that they don't know if they put the stop payment on the first check they mailed or the one they overnighted! (keep in mind we NEVER got the snail mailedone) FISHY FISHY!!! I smell rotting fish. SOO, they issue him a com check for the check amount and then a com check for the 39 dollar one (tells me they never mailed THAT one either!!!) oh but it gets better! They're out of money for fuel! and can't cash that com check that is supposedly supposed to cover if the other check was stopped and would bounce. So.. he's stuck in Idaho, can't cash any com check and my parents and I are sitting here wondering if the check they cashed for me is going to bounce.

Thursday passes-- no fuel.. they apparently had 750,000 held up by 5/3rd due to economy and fuel prices? For three weeks? COME ON PEOPLE!

Friday comes. My husband is getting pissed. At this rate with the 2500 he already put in fuel getting out there he'd end up OWING trade winds by the time he heads home. (since they pay saturday to saturday miles) So he takes it in his own hands to call the broker and the broker has to break out three hundred to get my husband at least to his destination.

Well this is Friday- two REALLY bad things happen.
1) the paycheck they overnighted bounced! who would have guessed! Now my parents are pissed

2) Guess what happens Fridays- I get on and look at settlements- 181 dollars!!! *&*^!# I'm sitting here wondering how the hell they expect a family of three to survive on 181 dollars. and that was grossing over 3500!!! Running over 2500 miles!! Something is obviously screwed up.. yes I know that fuel is horrible but then pay a higher surcharge! I know that he is making the company money... East coast don't pay no 1.50 a mile.. And no company would haul a load for 1.50 a mile.. so why is MY husband only making 1.38 and paying all his fuel and insurance and truck payments and not being compensated for more? (don't even get me onto the whole surcharge thing)

Well, it's Thursday.. and still no paycheck.. surprise surprise..

SO my husband has worked for them for over a month and has not seen a single penny and in fact my parents bank account is now NEGATIVE.

Stay away from this company! They screw you out of money and then go home every night at 5. I'm a Christian but I'm ashamed to even say that this is a Christian company- Christ did not lie or cheat or steal people out of money. I know my husband has made that company money and he has yet to see a dollar of it! This is unacceptable!

There.. I got to vent.. It does me no good to email the company and vent.. I either don't get a response or one that does not even pertain to what was in my email.. like when I emailed asking why the hell my husband was stuck in Idaho not moving for two days and why we were cheated out of money.. they respond and say "our fuel problem will be remedied in the morning, we're sorry for any pain you've incurred"What do I care about your fuel problem.. fixing your fuel isn't going to put clothes on my daughter or food in my mouth or get me a dependable vehicle!

And, unlike most other truck drivers who after being screwed like that may not be able to afford a lawyer, since they screwed with my parents, my parents have an attorney after them. I hope he milks them for all they are worth! NO ONE deserves this! Least of all me and my daughter who needs clothing and diapers. Thank God for actual real people who try to help who are donating clothes and diapers to me and my daughter.. at least some people out there CARE!

 

Sounds like a great company. Where do I sign up to be a fleece driver there?

 

Don't do it man, you'd make more as a company driver somewhere making .30 to 32 cpm.. sad to say.. but with fuel prices the way they are and lease purchase companies not being willing to cough up extra for a fuel surcharge you may gross over three grand a week but after 2 grand for fuel and 800 dollars worth of misc payments including a truck payment you won't bring home nada.. now if you're an o/o then it may be the way to go if you only want to bring home about 700 bucks.. which you and I BOTH know an o/o can make more than that if they know what they're doing.

 

On their site it says that you can avg. 1.37 a mile including stops and fsc. It sounds like that is what they are paying you. Fuel is running me about .78 cents a mile so after fuel, payment, and meals on the road there wont be much left at the end of te week at that rate. I dont know about the bounced checks but for that rate it will be hard to get money home.

 

To hell with everybody's advice. I'm gonna be a stubborn idiot and pull the wool over my eyes. I'm makin' the leap to fleece operator. When you guys are proven correct, I WILL of course sneak off into the corner with my tail between my legs instead of owning up to the fact that YOU WERE RIGHT. It'd be a typical outcome. I get my warning, I ignore said warning, I fall flat, and I then fall off the earth, never to be heard from again.

 

Well, after being stuck in Idaho for two days and then having to have the C.H. Robinson Broker get him the money for gas to actually get to Oregon, they ran out of money for him AGAIN on the way home.. it took them 5 days to get him from Oregon to Iowa.... the load was supposed to be in New York Friday morning.. which leaving Monday night that's only three days to actually drive.. don't even get me started on the unrealistic goals that shippers and receivers set for the drivers to me.. well, finally in Sioux City, IA, he sat ALL day waiting for them to get him money to keep heading on home (this is Friday so you know if they don't get him money they'll just let him sit there, 600 miles away from home, when he's already been gone three weeks) and to top it off the Broker called my husband and was arguing with my husband about the load and why he was setting in Iowa.. my husband was furious! he told that Broker where to go.. my husband can't do anything if they're only giving him 2-300 dollars a day for fuel.. you can only go about 300 miles on that with the way fuel prices are.. and they're not going to go down! So finally the broker called Tradewinds and told tradewinds to give my husband money for gas so he got money for gas but only enough to make it to Crawfordsville Indiana where he parked that rig and I picked him up. He had had it and was done.

But it doesn't stop there.. yes I know.. it never does.. They couldn't just give us the money they owe us from the whole past month and let bygones be bygones.. they had to screw us over even more. My parents had been on the phone with their director of driver managers or whatever he's called off and on all week trying to resolve the bounced check issue and on Friday (before he quit) they overnighted another check (not a good sign seeing their track records with checks) to my parents and included the other two paychecks he had made 2 and 3 weeks ago (the 39 and 180 dollar ones) well we should have just taken them to wal-mart and cashed them and been done with it but my dad took them and deposited them in his bank and then called monday to make sure everything was going to go through.. .WELL... those guys froze the checks because my husband quit. Well of course he's going to quit when you drag him around the continental united states for three weeks and not even pay him a frickin dime of what you owe him for a whole month. They had no right to do that. Yes he quit, but that was money we should have had free and clear a month ago! they got paid for those loads already so where is our money!

Well, I'm sure this will have a happy ending as my dad is sueing their ### for the detrimental situation that they have put my parents bank account in because they just want to screw around.

Happy courting Tradewinds..

 

why does a company, like tradewinds, who can't afford to the pay the drivers they have now, keep hiring new ones? I couldn't believe after my paycheck had bounced, the TCH express codes they had given me were bad and I set out west for two days without fuel, that they had a group of drivers in orintation! LOL, get the heck outa here with that! So, the sooner they go out of buisness, the better.