Contract addendums

I apologize for painting with too broad of a brush. There actually is one that I would recommend to others looking for a better than average broker.
Brenny Transportation MC#: 303059
Saint Cloud, MN.
I would say 75+% of the time they have worked with me on solid rates and so far there have been no problems with being paid on time.

 

Surprise surprise lol. Smallish, old mc, perfect credit. My demographic exactly.

 

When you read the rate cons and have some imagination, it might be a real hurdle to overcome the fear of accepting them. I envy those who are able to care little. Lots of people I know look only at the rate, if it agrees. For example, every Coyote rate con has a pre printed paragraph stating that a broken seal, no matter what the reason, could result in no recourse rejection. I still don't believe this fully. There must be some mitigation. For example, how can a broken seal compromise a full load of canned fruits, if they still wrapped and standing straight. Anyway, I would not mind paying some money and taking a legal course in a local college about the transportation law, if only available. Literature on this subject is limited...is it not? Reading precedent cases and their settlements would be interesting too. There is a nice podcast "Rates and Lanes" on Let's Truck Radio (Internet), where there is a lawyer invited and answers some good questions.

 

The important word there is 'can'... And this is 100% because some of their freight requires the cold chain to be maintained and really will get rejected if the seal is broken.

Transportation law is a touchy and complicated subject. Most of the people I know who really know it backwards and forwards are claims people at freight brokerages. They may not know the letter of the law as well as actual attorneys but as far as knowing what the right thing to do is they are usually pretty correct. MOST transportation issues are not over enough money to justify hiring a lawyer on either side, which means that most of it is going to come down to reputational stuff.

My brokerage generally reads contracts VERY generously and there's any way we could remotely be held at fault my brokerage is going to cave in. They are just very by the book. Which I don't mind, because it keeps the overall reputation of the whole show very clean. There are a ton of brokerages who routinely push the boundaries of legality much less decency. I started out working for such a place and found it to be wildly not worth it. If you have good freight that you want covered you want your 'table image' (poker term referring to how you're perceived by other players in the poker game) to be absolutely squeaky clean.

That squeaky clean image allows me to mitigate a lot of risk by telling people 'no I won't give you that fuel advance because you look fishy... but I'll happily quick pay you as soon as I can verify the load is delivered' and watch the scammers vanish and the legit people hesitate for 10 seconds and say yes.

It also allows me to sometimes pay slightly less than other brokers for the same load or at the very least win ties. Winning ties is a huge deal in terms of winning the majority of the customers freight.

 

Offended? No. That's your prerogative. It might save me a couple of questions in the long run, but... the answer to your question is a bit complicated. On our rate confirmation, it states that Accessorial charges must be approved by our company before they can be added to the invoice, and that a new rate confirmation will be furnished to reflect the new rate with the charges.

What that looks like on my end is this:

Carrier A shows up for pickup and is delayed longer than the two hour window, for X, Y, or Z reason. Carrier calls me to let me know what's going on. I check with them regarding detention. They tell me what their rate is. I call the customer and let them know what's going on. They tell me what the hold up is, and I point out that they're starting to catch detention charges. Usually, I can get them to cough up the cash, and get the driver loaded more quickly, at this point. Now, I tend to work with pretty reasonable customers. Everything's hunky dory, and I turn around and call Carrier A back, and let them know that I was able to get the detention authorized, and send over a revised rate confirmation.

In the very rare event that someone's not paying detention, I start tossing bricks across the offending party's nose, and really driving to get things going. At the least, I'm going to be as big a pain in the ### for the guy holding things up as I can.

 

So unless the customer agrees to pay accessorials, a broker is not obligated to pay any on his own? Are the customers the ones setting up the accessorial terms such as: detention is paid after 2 hours and then 50 an hour 250 max?

 

Pretty much. Technically speaking we aren't on the hook for claims either, but fine lot of good that does us. Obviously the legal minimum standard of behavior isn't good enough for the smaller shops that don't have the size to tell people '#### you' super often.

Technically you can sue the broker and probably win if you can prove damages. But the carrier agreement you signed probably makes that nearly impossible. Also the rate confirmation probably has some nasty line on it that says that the brokerage will only be paying detention it collects from the customer.

At the end of the day it's about what kind of company you're going to be. There are plenty of brokerages that operate under the assumption that if the shoe was on the other foot they'd be getting screwed, so why not screw them back? They are partially right about this, but it's also a cycle where only crummy carriers who screw people are willing to work with them. Dishonest business practices in this business will buy you short term success, but it's just a circle jerk. Eventually you find your level where everyone acts just like you and it stops being an advantage. Then you get to deal with the other scumbags and wish to god you hadn't done everything the easy way.

 

Write a rambling incoherent question and get a rambling incoherent answer.

That being said yeah everything on the rate confirmation that isn't there as a matter of company policy is negotiable. I'll happily spell out my customers terms on the RC as by signing it you've bound yourself to abide by it as well. My personal favorite is spelling out exactly what will happen if the load gets rejected. I'd LOVE to pre-negotiate that on every load I did.

What I won't do is expose myself to risk that isn't being covered by the customer. Unless you're a cheap truck and it's a good bet. You really don't want to be taking my speculative bets. I know a lot more about the situation and I've been gambling for a living on and off since my early 20's.