Deceptive practices at PRIME Inc!

If you lease from Prime Inc. you might slowly go broke like I did. Here are some of my problems with Prime.
1) If you turn in your truck, they will find things wrong with it that in (9 week’s time, the length of time I had their truck) could not possibly be caused by me. I am positive that the person that had my truck before me was charged for those same repairs. The repairs were not done before I took possession, the truck was sent out with me and now I am being charged for them too. And the next guy/gal will be charged after me. What a racket.
2) I was required to have a sleep study (how convenient that they just happen to have that available on-site) and that test was to cost $150.00. I took the study; I was NOT diagnosed with sleep apnea. But, 6 months later I receive a bill for $1,900.00 for the C-PAP machine (that I did not receive because it was not prescribed), for 6 months monitoring of the C-PAP machine (how do you charge for monitoring for a machine that I do not have?) and additional charges for the sleep study.
3) I was told and saw their posters that say they "guarantee" .95 cents a mile. Sounds pretty up-front right? No, not at PRIME. If you take a load for less than 95 cents, they will pay you the difference... but they will deduct that amount from your next weeks’ pay. You will have to pay it back. The problem is you get so many loads from them that are under .95 cents a mile that you will find yourself in the hole. I’m not sure about you, but working 80+ hours a week, 7 days a week, months without getting home is worth more than zero or close to it. They are in control and you don’t have a chance of making a living... only being their indentured servant.
4) I feel they do not pay the 72% of line haul as they promise. I feel that they do not pay the fuel surcharge as promised. I feel they are in the business of making money off of their employees.
This is my opinion and personal experience. I was a woman flatbed driver for them, one that was smart enough to get out quick, not smart enough to never have gone there.

 

I'm not going to argue the other issues, but maybe shed some light on what I do know about the sleep test.

Sounds like a billing error that needs to be corrected. Standard procedure If you had been prescribed the machine would have been charged $55 per week for 30 some weeks out of your settlement.

Sleep Pointe is the company you have issue with here... If Prime was involved in the billing problem, Prime would have taken the $55 from
your check every week.

Another thing you might want to bring up in your argument with Sleep Pointe is that the initial sleep fee ($150) is wrapped into the $1900 total if a CPap was prescribed. If you have a record of that $150 being charged to your settlement, or you paid up front and have a receipt, it just more ammo that you were not prescribed the machine.

Also argue that if you were being serviced by Sleep Pointe for monitoring thsy should have a file on you, and that someone should have been in weekly contact with you the first month, and monthly contact after that. I know from my experience that when itsmtime to check in with you they call daily and leave messages to call them back... When you do, the update your file.. Sort of like checking off a to do list.

Also the doc who did your DOT physical should have a record of your DOT physical with his prescribed sleep test AND your sleep test results. He would have had to review the sleep tests results prior to issuing your
DOT card. If you were prescribed a CPap you would have only been given a 3 month card... After the 3 months he would have reviewed the usage of the machine provided by your memory card to Sleep Pointe... Only then would he issue a 1 year card if the CPap usage was satisfactory.

On a positive note, we can point to you as an example of someone who passed the test... Too many whiners and complainers around saying the test is fixed and that everyone fails so Prime can get their cut from Sleep Pointes business.

 

idrive48,Sorry about your bad experience,I am sure you know we all take our lumps in this biz somewhere along the line. I know NOTHING about Prime,nor do I really care to,as I am confident I will never apply there. That being said,as a heads up to you,there seems to be a Prime team who will probably interrogate you on this thread,interview you,and try to turn everything back on you. (your fault) Much can be learned from this,just sayin to you...,probably get ready for that... Good luck wherever you try next..

 

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. Like U2exit said, you should be able to get that billing problem fixed. Im wondering about that less than .95 stuff though. Do they really offer you loads that pay less than advertised? That seems really shady to me if its actually going on. Maybe someone else can verify this?

 

Why is the carrier getting involved with a sleep study anyway? Isn't that between you and the doctor?

 

He is right about the .95mi guarantee scam. They will try to offer loads paying .70mi & tell you it's a great load! The guarantee scam is as follow: let's say the load pays .75mi well they will give you .20mi to meet guarantee. Well on next load pays $1.20mi well they will take the .20mi away from the $1.20 to payback the .20 you were given on previous load.

 

Just curious. When do they run this so called scam on a driver? It basically sounds like they are paying for your fuel and giving you a small loan to tide you over. Is this done to get you out of a bad freight area? If not, I would hope this would only happen to an uniformed driver one time. The second time would be on the driver.

 

Don't worry.."Iron Pony" will be along any minute to defend (i.e. "cheer-lead") these deadbeats..Aka Prime, the home of the rent an owner operator. I'm sure you will be told that just everything was the OP's fault. Sounds like you were intelligent enough to recognize a rip off when you saw one. Good for you.

 

why did you take the truck, when you saw that things were not fixed? You had every right to refuse to sign for and take the truck.
Just another reson newbies shouldn't go into a lease with out thier lawyers eyeballing the exact contract your going to sign.

 

Actually it a good reason that a newbie should not lease or buy a truck untill they know what a truck consists of!
How to look at every part and see if it's bad!
That PTI training is NOT a lesson on how to understand the mechanics behind a piece of equipment as big and complex as a truck!
Wait at LEASE 2 years before you jump into any contract signing until you can read an owners manual or shop manual and understand what you read!
If you can't understand them you #### sure can't understand the lease or how to understand what the truck is telling you as you look at it!