F2F Transport / Farm2Fleet: My story with no happy end...

I didn't think anything could top the lease driver going
Broke threads.
But these f2f threads are awesome.
Nothing but raw emotion from both sides.
I can feel the anger and pain.
I love it.

 

You're savvy, I know you'll be better off in the long run. You've got contacts and experience, I see good things for you.

 

My first truck, almost 20 years ago, I was leased on to PBX (part of IBP before Tyson) @ 90%. I was aggravated then that they kept a full 10% on return loads I booked. It would be a very cold day in hell before I'd sign on with someone who wanted more than that, and all the load booking was on me! I don't know what these guys are thinking, giving ~20% to a carrier for what sounds like a glorified factoring agreement.

 

The "bad thing" that is being complained about here is the great bigbadbill and f2f not honoring their contractual obligations,and paying their contractors. I'm sure that you are referring to some of the owner operators that the great bill hired,when you speak of "anyone with a pulse".
However you want to disparage some of these owner operators, i'm interested in finding out how you blame them( these o/o's) for not getting paid by the great bill.

 

Bad things may happen when you hire any one with a pulse,but it's not as bad as the things that happen when financial and business geniuses dont pay people what is owed to them.
I hear that prime and c r england and other lease companies, hire anyone with a pulse . Does that cause them to not pay their lease operators what is on their settlement?

 

I think what he meant by his statement is that hiring a risky O/O cost the company money that's not normal expense so while you're prob a guy who does everything by the book and hold your end of the deal but Billy screws up and the company has to cover especially Finacial screw ups. Now with all that said I agree with the majority when it comes to paying a person ALL the money they're owed. But me taking a guess is either F2F covered to many people mistakes to were they got too deep or the company just got it in their mind that they could care less about the drivers and they keep moving on like nothing happened all the while somebody has/had the money but they have it in there minds that they're not gonna settle because they see no consequence. Based on my highly educated observation I believe it's B they don't care.

 

probably even more simple than that, just a case of of spending more than was coming in, with the spending not paying operators. same thing as arrow trucking fell victim to. they got away from the " i get paid last" deal.

 

actually there is a very valid reason the 75/25 split is the most used model, or th 65/35 with a drop and hook operation. it simply takes that to cover costs for the screwups and problems. with maintaining back office costs, and all the other necessities with growing that model works. the vast majority of guys leased on always think they are giving away 25 per cent, but in reality after ins, cargo, drug consortium etc etc that 25 per cent shrinks quickly. if you lease at 90 percent either you are paying part of the insurance costs or there is one truck with insurance and copies of the same card for everyone. there is nothing free is this life, it also depends on 90 per cent of what. i know a guy who told bill that the 90 per cent model wouldnt hold water, he also told him that the 80 per model would have to be managed ultra carefully. but all in all, hiring the wrong people wasnt the problem here, that happens in even 2 truck operations. the problem was simply losing focus and more outlay then income and the 80 per cent destined for owners was used to float the ship. thats it, its pretty simple, he aint the first and wont be the last. but there is no need to sugarcoat it, it is what it is. folks should learn, where theres smoke theres fire has held true since time began

 

And therein is the biggest reason why these threads go south so fast. F2F uses every social media outlet it can find to pump itself up as the newest thing in trucking, reinvented wheel, greatest thing since the invention of the truck. And even when there are holes blown in the whole story-line F2F still promotes itself and offers up these wonderful webinars to teach owner-operators how to become great.

There have been MANY companies long before F2F was even an idea that promoted self dispatch. Those companies are far larger than F2F will ever become, far more profitable and here's the big one, they don't "forget" to pay settlements. Yes they hold more percentage but that's the cost of doing business and these companies have figured out you cannot run a support system on 10% or even 20%.

I think the time has passed for F2F to come clean and admit that the business model didn't work but if they had done that when things first started popping up on social media about the money problems they would have a whole lot more credibility in the industry. As it stands now they are essentially a twice failed company that still brands itself as the greatest thing in trucking. It's very sad that the person/people in charge of this cannot admit to failing and learn from that. Instead they keep climbing to the top of the pile of failures trying to call out to the newest group of unknowing operators that they have something better to offer.

 

I don't understand why some of you feel keeping 20% of total revenue is such a borderline proposition. This seems pretty standard in the industry. I'd be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of companies using the agent+owner/operator model(i.e. Landstar, Mercer, and many others) are keeping that or less.

I'm not suggesting that retaining 20% of total revenue to cover operating expenses guarantees success. But the carriers that are successfull or have at least remained in business over the long term are making it work. And I don't think we will see any changes to the model for the forseeable future.

The rule of thumb for a long time has been 80% of small businesses will fail within the first five years. Most likely because sooner rather than later they will they hit a rough patch that they can't survive. Farm to Fleet Trucking is part of that 80%.