Anderson Trucking / ATS

Did you bump your head?

Of course it's a lease. You sign lease paperwork, you drive a lease truck.

The ats lease is not a lease purchase so no one cares about the owner operator title.

Fact is at ats lease drivers are paid well. Better than company. I don't even work there anymore and I will still vouch for them.

You guys can listen to @MOGLAR if you want. He talks a big game and pretends to know all about leasing. He has evidently sat through 700 lease pitches and has acquired twice as many lease contracts through nefarious methods.

If you try to read his drivel you will see he is a regurgitater of Kevin Rutherford. Anything he says is gospel. Look at his comments. Many are cut and paste from other anti lease threads. He doesn't have an original thought in his head.

 

Need an escort back to your SAFE space where your teddy bear and pacifier are waiting for you?
It's awfully funny to me how much time you seem to spend on these threads, bemoaning the "fleece purchase" programs out there, and the drivers who are interested in information regarding them, while simultaneously attempting to sound like a knowledgeable "true owner operator." In reality, my contention is that you've probably never even owned a truck. I don't know many true O/O's who whine like a little ###### the way you do.

Wouldn't be surprised if you were burned in the past by a lease deal and therefore continue to endlessly berate anyone who shows the slightest interest in such a program, DESPITE the fact that it's unlikely to be the same program with the same company.

Regardless of WHAT you think, these programs will probably always exist. And so will the drivers who have interest in them. The reasons for that are multitudinous. I'll bet someone like you has never even considered what might happen when, someone does as you say, saving up 10's of thousands to put down on a truck, leases onto a company, only to find out that, not only is said company not that great, but despite his time served as a company driver and the laborious hours of research into becoming a leased on O/O, he is still WOEFULLY out of his depth when it comes to running his business. Add that to a mediocre to bad company, and disaster strikes with little warning. Now, he has a truck that inevitably he needs to sell. What is he to do? Wait for months on end for that run of the mill truck to sell on truckpaper.com? Take less than he needs to sell it for because is currently a down market? And all this while trying to keep up with making those truck payments on a company driver's pay? (Don't forget that he's now a company driver at the same company if he didn't lease onto an O/O ONLY company). If he gets away from that situation with a wash on the truck deal, it'll be nothing short of a miracle.
Alternatively, if he'd gone to a GOOD lease program, and just found out that despite the program being good, he's just not cut out to be a truck driving business owner, he'd be in a walk away lease and worst that happens is he owes them some money for repairs, which would probably be minimal considering he would've probably figured things out relatively quickly. (Few weeks to a few months).
I'll say this once. Repeat after me. ALL leases are NOT created equal.
Just like there are good trucking companies out there and there are bad...and there are companies who got somewhere in the middle.
But you assume because you either A. Got burned by a lease deal at some point, that EVERY lease deal at EVERY company is a bad deal. I know, and know OF quite a number of people who have experienced otherwise.
OR....B. You have actually NEVER leased, and are just going off what you've heard. Don't really care what you've heard. Be it from OOIDA, or Kevin Rutherford or the man in the moon. These people are going based off PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and what has worked out very WELL for them.
Oh. And for the record, no, I'm NOT a lease operator. I just know the advantages and how they can be manipulated to work FOR the driver, if it's the right deal and said driver knows what they're doing and have actually READ their contact.

 

I talked to a recruiter today about the LP flatbed/stepdeck side and from what I got out of it, it sounded OK. She said $1200-1500 a week which is OK for flatbed freight. You can make that doing van though. My attention is on the experience I'll get from the year as I move up. She said I would be a class 4 with the experience I got but I'll need to train since it's been 2 years doing flatbed/stepdeck. Does anyone on here know if that pay is accurate? Would rather it be $1500 or more.

As far MOGLAR, he sounds like the typical person that hates on anything. Lease Purchase gets most of its bad rep from drivers who don't know how to manage their money. I call those guys Swifters. Im walking into the LP thing with bills at $1500 a month, no bills for my first 30 days, and a full paycheck from my last job. First goal is to set aside $10k for the truck and save everything else over my monthly personal bills and road money. I've done this once already so I know what to look forward to. I understand there are also O/O, LP, and company drivers who will bash on any trend about becoming a LP or O/O because it's possible competition against them. I would suggest to anyone to read between the lines of all posts.

Again, anyone who knows the average weekly pay for flatbed/stepdeck your comment would be appreciated.

 

Zack - have you read most of the ATS lease forum pages yet? Particularly all of this one you're on? The OP, Rooster, shares his experience, including numbers for the better part of a year or more. It was pretty interesting stuff if you're wanting to get into that...especially if you're looking to conn up into their tiers of OSOW. I'd stay there...or maybe even contact the OP with a few questions you have. Beyond that, just reading a lot of the HH forums isn't a bad idea either.

 

I'm not the op.

 

Oops...looks like I was....dare I say it¿? "Cross-threading!" *snicker*

 

I've read I think like 30-40 reviews and not just on here. Seems to be more negative reviews than good about any company coming from this site. I've seen drivers say they liked or like ATS then talk negative about them in another post...Smh. There is obviously a lot of bipolar drivers out there so getting a GOOD review I guess depends on the attitude of the driver at that moment. Lol

I've looked good and hard and it's either ATS or Bennett

 

Rule of thumb I've noticed when it comes to reviewing companies especially, but really anything: Most people only take the time to go on some forum to pay a review if they're pissed about something that happened to them. They feel burned by it and want sympathy our to feel like someone's on their side of things. The exception is if they're reviewing because they had an exceptionally GOOD experience. For example, there was some old hand that reviewed ATS on here (forget his handle), and his take was that he really wished he'd find them 20 years ago...best company he's EVER worked for I guess. I think forums like this just give the whiners the outlet they seek to vent/whine. Of course, I'm sure there are a few legitimate gripes, as well.

 

Hey what a man does in his bunk on break is his business. No judgement. Lol.

 

I do have a long thread about the ats lease. I'm honest about the good and bad. I would say ats is a good company overall. Run smart, run hard and don't be afraid of tarping or od loads and you will be fine.