Landstar

There are a lot of big talkers out there.... LOL!!!

 

It's funny how a thread bashing a company has turned into a discussion of how to run a business. Maybe Landstar isn't the problem. Granted they have issues and sometimes drive me past insanity, sometimes they make me angry enough I could spit nails, and sometimes the frustration drives me to distraction. Still I notice that certain companies end up with more defenders than detractors in this section of the forum. Maybe the problem isn't the company's overall culture. Maybe the issue was a bad fit, a bad dispatcher, or a driver that needs a reality check. To be sure, there are plenty of bad companies and good companies with a few bad apples, but I just thought it was interesting how this thread has evolved.

 

I'm sure it's a factor for a lot of companies in this industry, including the mega carriers. Hell I see people spitting venom at my prior employer (Werner) constantly and I never really had an issue with them.

 

I am not even going to bother reading the other comment to your post friend because I agree with you 100%! If I book a load through X broker and I drive there to get the load, and that load is either gone, canceled or just isn't what I was told it was, and won't fit on my trailer (been there) than X broker owes me money! Our time is not free, our service is not free, our fuel is not free and so X broker should pay my TONU fee, the one I set, not the one they set. Now, all that being said,,good luck with that! If we put in our contract that 1/2 day equals $500 no one would except the contract. Even if we put in $250 for half a day, no one would sign the contract,,,unless they didn't even look at it...that would be great..lol

 

New or not, still isn't right and it needs to stop! They can do this crap at anytime, not just LS but any broker or agent. It has happened to me many times and I am lucky to get $150 BS!

 

I am not reading anywhere, where this thread became a bashing of carriers? The OP is talking about a practice in this industry that sucks, and should be addressed. We are talking about TONU BS that brokers or agents refuse to pay. This industry just kills me! Were else can you hire someone to do a job and when they start but don't complete the job, they don't get paid? Try hiring someone to do a job for you, and when they get their equipment on sight and fire up the equipment, tell them "never mind" and see if you don't get a bill in the mail and/or a call from the owner. I get it when people say, "welcome to trucking", I do but, why do we just except all this BS?

 

I always advise my trucks to not move until they have a rate confirmation. Getting TONU money out of a shipper is like getting detention pay. They don't like to do it.

 

I don't move either, unless I have a good relationship with the broker/agent, until I receive the rate con. That being said, it matters not when talking about the TONU.

 

They aren't dispatchers. While some guys will use them as such, others like myself only use our coordinator for fuel advances and empty/loaded calls. Now that being said, a few times a year my coordinator books me on loads that she knows I would have taken but missed for whatever reason. The stupid high paying stuff like 350 miles and paying 1500. But that's only cause I've given her the go ahead to do so.

 

I'm new at this posting. That's all I'm new at. Started truckin in 68 been at Landstar since 83. It wasn't Landstar back then. Came to Inway from Allstates which was at that time a part of the same group. All this stuff that I've read is what I've read and heard for 40 whatever years. You can cut bull a lot of ways but it's still bull. I once told one of the wheels here, when I was mad, that I wasn't leaving today but when I found something better I was gone. That was 30 some years ago. If you are not making money leave now, because if you don't make money long enough you'll be gone anyway. There is a lot goin on in trucking now like oilfield haulers looking to eat like us all. A lot of farmers are getting into trucking, this allows brokers including Landstar to rip more money from you. If you let them. But they only will if you let them.