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

Dude needs to work on his Google ##!

 

They should have installed the "Betty White" word filter, not the "Mister Rogers" version.

 

So Bill Hood aka William Niel Hood owes nearly $1M to the IRS, which is unfortunate because the IRS gets paid before business partners or contractors.

However, if you were an employee, and not an independent contractor, you go to the front of the line and get paid before the IRS.

If it isn't too late, NOW is the time to make a claim with the IRS & the bankruptcy court that you were misclassified as a contractor and were really an employee of Bill Hood's. As proof, you'll point out that the work you do (trucking) was the primary business of William Hood/Farm2Fleet and that you were not hired on a project by project basis but were instead employed in that capacity for years. As further proof, you'll explain that the required trucking authority was not in your name, but Bill Hood's. And you'll point out that while working for Farm2Fleet, you were not allowed to work for anyone else. All of your payments came from Farm2Fleet (instead of the shippers or brokers). Therefore, your work was not truly independent of Bill Hood's.

If anyone challenges your status as an employee (they might not), they will probably make the following points: 1) You owned your own truck. 2) You had control of your truck (where you fuel, where you have repairs). 3) You were responsible for your schedule. You won't have much of a response for items 1 & 2, aside to point out that the courts have found that owning equipment alone does not constitute independence. As for point #3, you can counter that while you had some control of your schedule, it was not absolute (and you can point out the guy whose contract was terminated for leaving a trailer at a consignee rather than making a weekend delivery).

If you are successful, you won't just get the $5,000 you are owed, but you'll probably also be able to refile your previous taxes as an employee (getting back half of your self employment tax).

 

His problem will be the IRS, I would just take the loss and write it off because you won't get any money out of this. Not to bash him personally, the entire model had to melt down and he tried to hold it together OR he said screw it and got what he could out of it.

 

Hehe It would be nice to have Facebook right about now.

 

I was with F2F from August - December 2015. Left for the obvious reasons. Had a 3 month struggle to get paid, but I did. Here's how:

-persistence (emailed and called every day. As many different people as possible. She hated that I was involving dispatch folks...)

-got serious about legal action. Read the contract (which was a copy paste job...). All disputes have to be settled by arbitration, not the courts. They never should have done this. Only big companies that give arbitration judges a lot of business go this route (cause the judges will always rule in their favor). All you have to do is go to the Chattanooga courthouse and file a Motion to Compel Arbitration against F2F. You don't need a lawyer. A hearing date will be set and both sides present your arguments to a "judge", who rules immediately and cannot be appealed. You can ask for associated costs (interest, travel expenses, lost revenue for taking a day off to deal with this). Since they are 100% in the wrong, you will get everything you ask for.

I let Lauren know this was my next step and I got the final payment the next day.

Hope this helps. Sorry I didn't see this earlier.

 

Is there any more to this story/this thread? F2F is currently recruiting via social media; saw them on facebook.

 

F2F really doesn't take the risks that Farm2Fleet did, so I don't see them getting stuck in a similar situation.

 

Taking risks is one thing. Sloppy mismanagement is another thing altogether.

 

More than a bunch of folks got screwed out of a bunch of money? What more do you want? Go ahead and sign on drivah! Just don't cry on here when they have to become F3F after they screw the next batch of dumb o/o.