Buggers finally got me, double broker scam.

100% on the money.. there needs to be punishment and accountability somewhere..

 

I appreciate you saying that. I just wanted to share my perspective.

But yeah, I can't speak to what others are doing. I have no doubt that there's plenty of dirtbags out there.

As far as it goes, we paid out the actual hauling carrier. It's not their fault, nor was it my customers'. If fault can be found from the parties involved after the fact, it'd be with our process. Which we're taking steps on addressing now. Where it actually originates is with the actual criminal elements and the system which enables it.

 

I don't think any broker worth a S*#t is saying carriers are at fault with all of these double brokers. And realistically the broker is almost always the party that gets burned in a double broker scam (the carrier who hauled the actual load can go after shippers/receivers if the double broker doesn't pay, and the shipper/receiver requires the broker to indemnify in those scenarios). The only realistic solution we have (at least today) is to increase vetting standards to weed out the bad players, and unfortunately that makes it harder for smaller carriers to get access to loads.

I'm definitely in agreement that I wish the government would ruthlessly go after and punish these bad players.

 

It isn't so much the double brokering where the delivering carrier gets paid, though that is a problem
if anything happens to the load.

The big problem is when it's done with no intention of paying the delivering carrier. That means the
carrier that calls the broker, excepts the load is the first one that needs to be vetted carefully. And that
means a lot of questions to that carrier.

Just look on this forum at all the authorities for "sale". So the scammer buys it, use's it to book loads and then
fold up when the FG reports start hitting.

 

Some of this lies at the carrier’s feet as well. If more small carriers vetted brokers the way they should it wouldn’t happen as often either. The barrier of entry is too low on both sides imo. Couple that with the internet and technology it is super easy to scam or be scammed.

I personally shield myself by limiting who I work with and the area of the country I operate. I got popped early on in my career to the tune of about 20k. I took those hard lessons to heart and thankfully I haven’t had it happen again.

 

I think it'd be a lot easier for carriers to detect double brokering if they were able to have access to the freight bills from all parties involved. But I don't think brokers are a fan of that, and I don't think the customers want to deal with a bunch of different carriers calling them.

 

Only problem with that is unscrupulous carriers trying to back door the broker.

 

Would do nothing to stop the scammer that isn't going to pay you. How hard would it be to fake up a freight bill?

 

Carrier would get it directly from the shipper, not the broker.

 

Still doesn't stop the broker that isn't going to pay you. You're confusing two different types of "double brokering"