crst/van expedited?

As with everything expectations dictate a large part of happiness.....

Just a few words or not.........................J

 

The amount of trucks is not the issue.
COntrol of tolls.........If a driver has it they will use it when they are not supposed to, SO if they have to come out of pocket for it first they won't do it.
Rack hundreds of dollars a month before acct. catches up and the driver might not even work for them anymore to get it back..........

 

Blondie are you still running with crst, and have things gotten better or not?

 

I answered my own question......................DUH

 

I'm doing some research for my brother who is planning on going with CRST and this might be the first post I have found so far that have some people say possitive things about them.

I'm trying to help him with this research so he doesn't make a mistake and get hooked up with a company that's going to screw him.

Would like to here more from other guys that have experiecne with CRST...

Thanks,

Joe

 

Joe I went in under their contract. I finish that contract up tomorrow. I could go on for hours and hours about the horrors of CRST. The simple truth of it is they are the worst company known to mankind. They will do nothing, let me repeat, NOTHING but lie to and steal from your brother. Please do your best to talk him out of this. CRST is not a trucking company at all. They are in the business of getting government grants for training people. The faster they can make your brother quit the faster they can

1) File suit on him for the schooling he recieved

2) Claim a "loss" on their taxes and

3) Get a new student in his place that brings in a new grant.

Reapeat this process about 5200 times a year and you tell me what their largest source of income is?

If you have a hard time believing me just call a VP at CRST....they wont deny it.

 

Wow, that sucks..

He has his CDL from a local school called Key Power. My brother indicated that it's not accepted and he'll have to go through the training again. Key Power was a 40 hour class, not sure if this is why. Not sure if there is a difference, he'll be doing van expidite, not sure if CRST has different divisions.

He is suppose to go to Alabama for the class, then Oklahoma for orientation. At that point, he'll be teamed up with someone else, which could be a bad thing.

Which other carrier do you recommend he look into? Are they all just about the same? Which ones are better?

The problem he has is he lives in Miami, Fl. and CRST is the only one that indicated 20 days on and 5 days off. Is there another company that could provide hometime frequenty?

Thanks for your reply. I'm just looking for his best interest...

Thanks again.

 

Florida does seem to be an area where lots of companies dont like to hire from. But definately not impossible. As far as the 20 days out and 5 days home, that falls under the lies they give you. The first time he climbs in the truck and sends in his home time request he will get a message back that will read, "The home time calander is full for that period". No indication of when he might be approved. So he can send in another message and ask, usually wait a few days for a response. Eventually they will tell him when he will be allowed to go home. And rest assured that will never ever be less than 4 weeks (usually 6-8 weeks) since the day he sent in his original request.

You would think once you get home once you would fall into a normal 'rotattion' or cycle. Nope not gonna happen. It all comes down to when your dispatcher thinks he is ready for you to take a few days off.

Then once you get home he will call you 1-2 days before you were scheduled to go back to work and ask why you arent there yet. I just got myself in the habit of heading back to work the day before I was scheduled to be back. Otherwise once you do get back then that same dispatcher will treat you like you offended him personally and give you low miles and trashy runs. For example, I got one recently that picked up on Thursday night in Carlisle Pa at one of our terminals. It delivered Monday evening at 2 PM in Baltimore Md. Thats 75 paid miles. About 82 actual miles. Why in the world would that even be on the boards yet? Simple answer....dispatch revenge for my truck having broke down.

Pay...forget it!!!! In the first 7 months I grossed less than $6,000. And 90% of that was taken in deductions. As for reimbursments, they dont exactly do those. They will show up on your pay check yes. They will also be taxed, used for child support, health insurance you name it. They pay them ONLY when your income is too low to pay weekly deductions and they can hold all of your reimbursments so you get no pay at all.

Open door policy? Yes you can go into any office there and speak your mind. I wouldnt advise it! Tell them the truth and prepare to park for long periods of time. Ask them for better miles and your dispatcher will give you grief. Mine actually told me I made him look bad, he said he was already giving me 2000 miles a week....I was a team driver so thats 1000 paid each. Gave me attitude since I wanted more. I dont see the purpose of having a co-driver if we get less miles than a solo driver elsewhere would.

Maintenance. Absolute joke. I sprung an air leak on my tanks sitting at Little America truck stop atop the mountian in Flagstaff Az. They told the shop there not to fix it, and told me to drive it to Oklohoma City for repairs. Dead of winter, on a mountian, ice covered roads and they think you are going to drive down that mountian with your brakes in question!

I have been suspended for refusing to haul an illegal load. I have over $3000 (closer to $4000) in pay missing. They acknowledge they owe me the money but laugh yes laugh at me for asking for my money.

Friend my wife and kids literally ended up homeless over CRST. Thank god for her mother!!! When I told my dispatcher the troubles I was in and asked for money that was owed to me to help my family out he said he would look into it. SEVEN weeks later with me asking each and every day they offered me 7 days layover pay. "...to help your family but we are going to have to split it up over 2 pay periods so it looks better on our expense account". Imagine trying to tell my wife they offered me $280 instead of the $3000+ that they owed but had to split it up so their accounting looked better.

There are some good companies out there. But I beg of you to not let your brother go thru this nightmare. As I understand it Prime has a great training program, a lot of people hate Swift but they do get miles and get paid correctly and on time, US Express seems pretty good, Schnieder isnt all bad either. Truthfully any 'training company' is not going to be a great place to work. The goal is to find the lesser of all evils.

Have your brother look up the entire orientation class from August 30th 2007. That is the class just coming out of contract. His recruiter CAN do this, but he wont. Fact is out of 27 of us in orientation that week only 2 are left and we both are out of it tomorrow. Several divorced, one disappeared even his wife hasnt heard from him, most found local jobs at home, non driving jobs and are making payments to CRST now to pay off the school cost which btw is FAR more than they paid for our schooling. Guys working for Wal Mart because CRST gave them such a bad feeling of the trucking industry.

Benefits. How about this one. After they started taking out my weekly premuims they sent me a letter that my kids were not covered and would not be covered until next year because they lost a sheet of paper that had my kids birthdates on it. Then they send me another letter that said my wife and I dont have coverage other than ER visits for a year because we did not provide proof of prior coverage so they canot verify pre existing conditions. So we are out $87 a week for a year to pay for benefits we dont even have? Gotta love it!

These stories can go on for days. I encourage you and your brother to stop by any truckstop anywhere in the world and ask drivers. Any company that insterest you. Usually we dont mind taking the time to answer questions. Ask other CRST drivers, you will hear more of the same that I am telling you here. Never take one persons word for it. One person could just be a disgruntled employee. So please dont stop with just me. Assume I am angry and ask others. If you ask 100 CRST drivers you might find 1 happy guy.

 

Thanks for taking the time to explain your situation, I'll make sure he looks into it a lot better...

 

I'll tell you anything you want to know and I can tell you so far, Danc is on the money for the most part. Granted we all have different experiences but most of them are negative. The place is a CDL Mill that lives off Govt. grants. I like the industry and like driving so I won't let them steer me away from trucking, but I doubt I will be there much longer than three more months. I am playing "pin the tail on the co-driver that isn't a scumbag" right now because mine quit to go to Prime....and I don't blame him one bit. So instead of them letting me solo while looking for a co-driver and actually making a little money, I am sitting on my duff at home. Luckily I did find a guy who lives near me that is heading out on Tuesday of next week and if he is cool, I will at least make my 6 months and finish out the rest of my first year with CFI...mainly because their recruiter told me that once I have 6 months, they don't need my driving school certs. So, I have dealt with worse s--t for more than 6 months (being married was one of them, I would take CRST for 8 months over 3 days with my ex-wife anytime!) and from what I hear, CFI is a good place to spend your first year.

Anything else ya wanna know, ask.