New business owners, be careful of all the scams out there.

My favorite are the ones who call and claim they have a magic potion that will increase your fuel mileage by some outrageous claim, maybe 20%. They will not send a free sample. (not that I would use it anyway). Their answer, when questioned why they don't sell this to a large carrier or one particular fuel chain, was "we are looking out for the little guy". That sure makes sense. Watch for the little guy who has less than 1% the need for your product (if it did even work) compared to the guy going through significantly more fuel than I use. Always a number from "unknown". I eventually got them to say they were based out of some place on Long Island, NY. It felt like an identity scam. You can google anyone's DOT number, see they have one truck and have their likely home address. You can make up fake phone bills and utility bills, all you need now is a credit card number. God knows the financial damage. No thank you!

 

I get one that looks official from the state labor department, selling posters with workers rights for the work place.
They come with a paid return envelope, so I cram other junk mail(no addresses) so it cost them at the post office.

 

Thats what i do with all spam mail that has postage paid. Add stuff in the envelope and mail it. Helps the usps stay in business and costs the spammers.

 

Recently visited an O/O friend's house and he had a DOL worker's rights poster in his hallway. I didn't say anything but man, I wanted to.

 

Brilliant - my new pastime . . .

 

"my fmcsa biennial update" - I never heard of it. Is it something real?


edit:

Never mind ....I looked it up already.
Biennial Updates
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) requires all entities under its jurisdiction to update their information every two years. You are required to provide this update every two years even if your company has not changed its information, has ceased interstate operations since the last update, or is no longer in business and you did not notify FMCSA.

Failure to complete a Biennial Update will result in deactivation of your USDOT number and may result in civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day, not to exceed $10,000.


I am glad I looked into this thread, otherwise, I'd never know about this. Glad it has not been 2 years for me yet.

 

No kidding. I know my state does that yearly for my LLC, but didn't know FMCSA did it.

 

I would suggest to get virtual office, email just for registration purposes (not your main one that you use every day) and virtual phone number (there is plenty of mobile apps for this) for anything that goes public. When you open new authority you start getting a bunch of different offers, such as factoring, etc. and your phone rings non stop. There were no single official call I recieved on that phone number or email. I'm using different phone number and email for actually business needs and it's not published anywhere, however I didn't really missed anything important because of it. This way it keeps me off scammers. Any phone call that contains they want to "help me" to make my life easier automatically idetify scammer.
Then you start getting junk mail that your registrations, updates etc DUE NOW otherwise you will have large penalty.
I had few different companies by now both transportation and non transportation. And at this point I can figure out any scammer envelope I receive before even open it.