Broker Detention Scam

For instance, yesterday a broker called me and offered me a load he really needed picked up.

I negotiated a really good southbound rate after a few days off. The shipper hung me up for for a cpl extra hrs.

Instead of trying to squeeze him for detention, what I really wanted was for him to reschedule the delivery from tomorrow morning early to Friday morning early.

Which he gladly obliged, especially after I told him I wasn't worried about detention.

Sometimes it's leveraging your position to get what you need or want to happen in a particular situation. Not about muscling or demanding your way.

 

Everybody wants to be the tough guy. I had a carrier threaten to destroy a load of product over a paperwork dispute last week. Basically he thought I said one number and I thought I said something else. I sent over a Rate Confirmation and his wife signed it and sent it back. I had no idea anything was wrong at this point. Guy gets to the delivery and I mention the rate and he goes ballistic and starts threatening this and that.

A few things to unpack here:

1) the paperwork isn't on this guys side. This means that he has nothing at all leverage wise besides extra-legal options like threatening to not deliver the load or damage the product. A very extreme position to take over 200 bucks.

2) He can try to talk to me like I'm some dishonest scumbag broker but I'm 90% sure that I was clear and he misunderstood me... As evidence I'll put forward the fact that this is the first time I've had a conversation like this is over a year. Regardless his office signed the paperwork without confirming the rate with him. I've already booked the load with the customer for a rate based on the rate I thought he was running it for.

3) This guys behavior has already made him a lifetime no load. You don't threaten to destroy product or threaten to take a load hostage. Ever. Period. There's no universe where I can ever do business with you again at this point.

4) This guy is sending me all this stuff via text so I have paper proof that he's threatening me. This gives me the opportunity to give him the paperwork he wants without having to honor it later. Contracts signed under threat of illegal behavior don't hold up so well in court.

Obviously he gets the paperwork on the 'rate correction' and obviously he hasn't got a prayer of ever seeing that money. He probably could have talked me into giving him an extra hundred bucks by being reasonable and just sounding upset. He was an older MC out of a better state so I would have spent a hundred bucks to not piss him off... But the second he made himself unusable I had no reason to do a single solitary thing for him.

The tough guy approach is great for scaring newbies, but use it on veteran brokers at your own peril. We do not scare that easy and we have a lot of nasty tricks if you want to go that way. You want to consider who you are playing hardball with before going that way. Even with newbies it's really risky because they are more than capable of misjudging the situation and doing something disastrous that ends in a claim. Playing chicken with idiots is smarter than playing chicken with me, but only barely.

 

Haha, broker don't pay for detention. I have only gotten One detention/layover pay in the last 12 years dealing with brokers. Last month, i did a crane appt load from FL to VA with Landstar and was heldup all day on friday 7am to 7pm. Landstar broker assure me that he will pay me detention but would not send me an updated ratesheet with detention fee added due to his system issues. Guess what, after I delivered and sent POD, the broker never got back to me. I lost my weekend load and could of netted $2000 after expense. Instead, i sat all weekend with no load because it was late friday night before i empty.

The government needs to hold shippers and consignee accountable.

 

Guess it depends on the broker. I've paid detention on thirty or so loads over the past year. Most of my shippers are very efficient, but occassionally something comes up on either end. Where it's not the carrier's fault, I try to swing them detention. I recall paying an additional four hundred for a guy who got hung up because a crane went down and they had to fix it before they could offload. Suppose that was in March or so. Usually my shippers get it, but then I also don't do any work with massive corporations, either.

 

Yeah I've paid detention on 20-30 of my produce loads this year. Generally speaking if the truck loses an entire day I get the customer to pay something. This was out of ~800 loads so it's not exactly a common occurrence. Thank god. Nobody has ever been happy after getting detention from me.

 

The government doesn't need to do anything. If you've only collected detention from 1 broker in the past 12 years obviously go look in a mirror and there's your problem. I get detention #### near every time I ask for it. I've worked exclusively with brokers for the past, almost 7 years now, and I'd say roughly 95 out of a 100 pay it like they're supposed to... ....as long as I have followed their procedures for documenting it.

And of those 5 left over 4 are slow to process for approval and 1 jerk off that skips out not paying resulting in a post like OP's. Are you lousy at keeping your paperwork in order? Do you not communicate with your brokers and ask for their procedures on documenting it? People can't read your mind. If you don't ask and most certainly if you don't document you're never going to collect it.

You better listen to these brokers telling you that you'll catch more flies with honey than you will turds. Granted, whenever I have run all out of Mr Nice Guy doing everything I was supposed to and that 1 out of 100 screws me they'll get an ear full. If someone is offering me a load from customers that are known time wasters that automatically inflates my line haul rate to help cover the headache. Detention is just a bonus then but sometimes so cheap and for 30 minutes or something stupid like that I'm not going to waste time trying to collect that.

 

I remember reading a thread here about a guy who got tired of them wasting his time so he left with the load and put it in a warehouse somewhere.

 

That's a radical move!

 

Ive thought about that a time or two. It would not be difficult. I would not know if I still had the job a week later when they quit yelling but it would have been so satisfying in a rebel sort of way.

 

With CHR you have to call the representative you are working the load with and get a new rate confirmation with detention added or they don't pay it. I have a dedicated rep that I work with and we do this on the fly whenever I get held up on one of their loads.