My Final verdict of CRST Malone

First, I'm not here to slander a company out of revenge in hope that other drivers will stay away and praying that my review will cause the company to go out of business (like I have seen many drivers doing). I AM turning my truck in tomorrow as of the time I am writing this post, and will only give an Honest review to those who are open minded about where they stand as to becoming a potential owner operator with CRST Malone. There are definitely things about this company that any driver would frown on, and I will start now with that, so that I can leave you all at least on the positive notes.
The breaking point for me occurred yesterday when I looked over this last pay statement. While I am supposed to have a bumper to bumper warranty which does include tires, the tires I had replaced last week which were at 3-4/32nds (nearly time to change) aside from a bald spot on each of the duallys located at the driver side of axle two. This tire replacement was charged back to me @ $800. When I called Malone to question them about this, they said it is because the pictures taken at the TA truck stop (yeah, they are that picky) shows that this was the result of driver abuse. However, when you have a bald spot on two duallys side by side, this is the result of nothing other than those tires skidding to a stop. Now, the anti-lock brake error light is not on in my truck, so there is no reason for me to assume my tires would skid at all. The maintenance plan you pay for at CRST Malone is one of the bigger drawbacks when comparing their Lease program to many others. At 15cpm on all dispatched miles, not only is it steeper than others I have seen, but this is not an account that you are building up, it is really just a warranty that you are paying for. In my time as a truck driver over the last 12 years, I still do not have on my record, an accident, preventable or not. One of the reasons I can say this, is because I will in fact perform a hard brake when it is required, and I will not be stingy with my brakes at all if no one is behind me, and if it can get me out of a potentially hazardous situation. I'm not perfect, and there is always a chance for any driver to have an accident, but when those types of occurrences are rare, then you must accept at least that their is a reason for it. One of those reasons, is because I'm abusive to my brakes and my tires when something that breaths is in front of me and doing something they shouldn't be doing. I am not going to feel guilty about this, and I am not going to argue it with a company that never even checked with me first and just charged me for tires that were about due to be replaced anyways. They will just learn the effectiveness of lexington law, which I'm sure they already know about. In my opinion, while I can't be sure that the anti-lock brake system isn't working in my truck, I do believe I know what caused those tires to skid. I may be wrong, as I am not an expert mechanic, but just one week before those tires were replaced, I had someone put 26,000 lbs on my trailer, while never putting any weight on my drivers. I did ask the guy to load it forward more, but he was incoherently telling me "this is my favorite rodeo". What it is, the method for loading my flatbed from the rear was a lot easier for him, than doing it from the side, as it was like loading rolls of carpet. One forklift has a long nose designed for loading the rear, and the other has forks which the rolls must be harnessed to in order to load from the side. Now, after he did at least push them as far forward from the rear as he could, Iike I asked him to, I felt inclined at that point to accept the load the way it was loaded. I feel, that being too heavy on the rear, with little weight on the drives actually tricks the anti-lock brake system into the wrong behavior, so somewhere in all of this, you can decide if it's driver abuse and I got what I deserve, or if it is a company just trying to get as much money out of the people already at the bottom of the barrel as they can.
That was a long paragraph, and if my personally hasn't annoyed you away yet, then let's now talk about these words "bottom of the barrel". I chose compliance as my method of succeeding with CRST Malone. I honestly believe that if you do what people say, without too much painful confrontation, then they will enjoy giving you some good loads. Therefore, I never turned down what was offered me, at least not in 2015, and I let those in charge take the helm over my business. In my opinion, if you are working for a company worth staying with, then this at the very least should be a successful work ethic. Yet, my average payroll for 2015 was $486/ week after I have just figured my taxes. Some of the expenses I still had to pay for out of that includes Tolls, Scales, Tickets, securement equipment, and pretty much everything a driver mich have to use cash for while out on the road. After subtracting my expenses out of my pay, as I just tallied up my taxes last weekend, the money I had to spend on myself was down to $220/ week. I was shocked, I hoinestly felt it was higher than that, but that's because some of the things I bought that were tax deductible were things I also enjoyed (hotels, folding bicycle, power inverter etc...), as I do enjoy my job. After per Diem allowance is figured in, I'm making well below zero. How pathetic that makes me feel.... All the while, I'm not refusing freight, I'm doing what they ask of me, and what they are asking of me to do is changing as they are trying to locate the reason i'm making so little themselves. I averaged 2,200 miles per week in 2015 (Oct-dec) so it's fair to say that I made less than 25cpm and still had to cover all expenses with that. Finally, the word is, that I was supposed to stay within their freight lanes, and utilize their agents. So, when they cannot explain why a driver is doing so poorly, they have a way to make it out as the drivers fault. So what is it like trying to contact agents at CRST Malone? Well, I'll start by saying that there are many times that there is no answer. Many times when I call them a day in advance, they tell me to just call them when I'm empty. Most of the time (at least 90%) when I call them, there is no freight available, and last but not least... When I ask them what I am doing wrong, they just tell me that freight is bad this year. In the end, I tried to take a dedicated run which I was supposed to start monday. This would consist of going back and forth between OH and IN everyday, and seeing my home town (Fort Wayne) every other day and hopefully on sunday. There was supposed to be a load going back and forth every day, and I woulld hope so, as any less than that and it wouldn't have paid. The first day I was supposed to get loaded, there was no load available. I sat, after already sitting and then found out I'm being charged for tires I technically already paid $4,000 @ 15cpm for
. Tomorrow they get my truck back
Now I will summarize. Perhaps many of you are too meek as I am or Maybe, you aren't willing to accept a truck that has less than 1/8th of a tank when you start working the program, and you will speak up until someone offers you justice, but I just accepted it. Maybe you will annoy the crap out of people on the phone until they finally give you something thats worth your time and effort but I just accepted it. Maybe you will learn the little tricks of scrounging around for freight, but I didn't. I'm just a very accepting kind of individual, but only to the point that the people around me learn that about me and treat me with a similar respect. Malone is far from that. You cannot be nice here, you have to be hard, and you have to go through hell while putting others through hell to make it. My advise is to get out of hell, but if you know how to make a lot of money there, and would rather live that way, then go for it. I'm sure once you've learned the ropes, and have some agents in your back pocket that you can in fact make a decent living here, but that truly is not the way I want to develop my life for the rest of my days. I wish you all the best in how you select your methods of making a living tho. Maybe you can develop a completely different point of view with CRST Malone as I have, and maybe I am still doing something wrong. I'm doing what they asked of me, so if that is wrong, then you might want to learn what actually NEEDS to be done to succeed here, instead of what they tell you needs to be done.
From my point of view, it's not really a big deal to me. I don't have a wife and kids. I don't have a home. I don't buy luxuries. I don't do alcohol or drugs. So, to hop another job is not really a big deal. My fiancee is in the Philippines and doesn't require much to survive. I am a hard worker in spite of all of these things, I didn't just roll over for everyone, but I did bark on their terms in hope to make them happy. Right now I should be having a $7,000 tax refund, and another $5,000 of items to sell. Believe it or not, this is plenty to start a life in the Philippines, so it's really up in the air at this moment. I applied to get my girl here, and I also have all the money I need to make it there. It just comes down to what US immigration puts us through, what kind of job opportunity comes up for me in the weeks coming, and what kinds of opportunities I learn about in the Philippines. I'm starting to feel like our whole nation is Dog eat Dog, while my friends abroad work together more for sustainability. The whole neighborhood knows each other, families meet family, they work together, they pay with many other forms of currency other than money and they sustain each other with the closeness of those who are close to them. There's little keeping me in the USA at this point, the only thing I could hope for is a really good Job where I get the same feeling about the people I work with, as I get about my family and neighbors in the Philippines. My point is, don't settle for death, even when the american economy collapses and we are all killing each other, and assuming all nations will fall apart without our arrogant nonsense, you must remember, that they are mostly surviving off of each other too, and not so much off of America. If we start behaving more neighborly, then the revenges we seek that stifle our economy, and our abilities to sustain, will become less of a problem. Thats just my two cents, take it for all that it is worth. I will be living just fine in a third world country without any of you, but as I was born a neighbor and a family member to the USA, I could achieve these things much better if the people around me followed suit.

 

Writing with a celpphone, and letting you give then the benefit of the doubt

 

The whole situation is hopelessly, I generally feel sorry for the lot of you.