Did I just get ripped off?

If you get a job with another company, you can make payment arrangements with whoever they assign it to. They won't put it on your credit if you attempt to make arrangements.

 

I agree bro that is twice as much as it should cost but sadly it really does cost that much. I went to roadmaster school and if you paid Cash it was $5500 the VA is charged $6450 and if you Financed $5500+hotel+finance charges lands you around $11-$12k and the hotel is only paid for the weekdays you're at school. All I'm trying to say is you're really not screwed so to speak you're starting out the same way a lot of us had to. I'm glad you're applying for jobs so you can started making money. Some companies will pay for you're school if they hire you like Schneider, TMC and a hand full of others so you still may get off the hook for the bill. Good luck and keep us posted how things workout.

 

Just dont pay like wooly and all the other people said. Your not screwed out of any money.

 

Wow this guy only has his cdl and is already complaining like a trucker. Goodness gracious dude take a chill pill. I see some of these people talking about 7500 and you are crying about 6,000. I doubt if you would of made that up by working with pam. That's what you are looking at is you now have a bill. What you don't know is these companies treat you like dirt and dang near starve you to death. They dare you to quit, because then they got the cheep labor. As well as you having to pay them back for the school. You might have caught a big break. So see where the needle drops and keep it moving.

 

JBS Carriers out of Greeley, CO. I thought they covered the cost as long as you stayed a year, but maybe they have changed in the last couple of years.

 

Muk, I drive for Roehl. This is where I started with the industry and have been here about 15 months. They just opened a terminal in Dallas. You should call them and be straight with them. Maybe they can help you out.

 

PAM is one of the worst companies I had dealt with when when I was looking for a job way back. They never return phone calls, then offer peanuts to drive for them. Today all they care about is getting a rebate from the government for training drivers-so the more they put through the school the more money they make. Stevens, USA Truck, Swift, CR England are the same.

Stevens hires over 2000 drivers a year for their 2000 or so truck operation-that should tell you something, and that as straight from the manager of recruiting as told to a class at Great Lakes in Columbia Station Ohio-I was there. He thought he was bragging about how many opportunities there were at Stevens until I asked him how many trucks do you have-then he realized he dug is grave on that question. PAM is (in my opinion) NOT a legitimate trucking company.

If there was ever a scum-bag outfit-PAM is.

 

The whole industry is infected with this attitude of hiring drivers for nothing. I have 13 years, but was out for over a year-thus my past experience does not apply to almost all companies. They say "we cannot count anything past 10 years, or you need X amount in the last year. Thus its like saying your previous 13 years does not count as an excuse to pay me 25-26 cents a mile. They don't want experienced drivers whom they would have to pay higher mileage to.

Part of the problem is insurance companies dictating who they can and cannot hire. As stated in this months "The Trucker' news paper-there is no shortage of drivers-only that companies cannot retain drivers, and it also points out that drivers from schools cannot get hired because they must have experience and cannot be insured if they are inexperienced OTR. You would think the government would address this problem to get new drivers driving somehow-after all, they are subsidizing millions each month to get people trained for employment, but they just overlook this.

An example is Carretta (now out of business) which paid me 30 cents a mile back in 1992. Today companies are just above that at 32 cents a mile-20 years later! It is no wonder that older drivers leave the industry (as also stated in "The Trucker" newspaper. I called PAM just to see what they would offer me for the fun of it and guess what-the recruiter said he would hire me at 26 cents a mile-when I told him I made 30 back in 92 he just hung the phone up on me. I also called Ozark, and when they found out they would have to pay me 39 cents a mile-I was suddenly unhireable; for what reason "we don't know' was their reply.

As mentioned, if you want to driver, you may have to put up with barely making a living for a year or so until you can get on with another company. Stay away (if all possible) from:

PAM
Stevens
USA Truck
CRST
CR England
US Express
Heartland

 

USA called today... Driver Solution recruits for them as well as PAM so they'll take care of my school costs. It's not ideal, because I hear some really bad things about USA But it seems to be my best shot to maintain my credit and keep me out of trouble and if it turns out to be as bad as I hear, then I'll just stick it out for the experience and move on to other opportunities.

 

He did put the speeding ticket on his app