Landstar is getting cheap.

Over the years, there have been dozens of threads on this very topic.
The actual math gets posted, not "possibilities". The guys who DH back make more money at the end of it all.

Don't get so caught up on who the broker is that you have to defend them bc you're leased there. This isn't a thread about being leased to them: this is a thread about their brokerage side.

 

Cheap customers are cheap. The biggest problem with them isn't that they don't pay fairly, the biggest issue (from my perspective) is that when you don't pay fairly you get what you pay for. And they (because of their experiences with getting what they pay for) typically treat trucks VERY poorly. It's a vicious cycle.

There absolutely are exceptions to this of course. A 'cheap' shipper in FL/CO/MA/UT/etc may actually be paying the market rate, getting normal trucks, and treat everyone great. The typical cheap customer sucks. Usually they suck in a variety of ways too.

 

Again, that's why I don't work with cheap customers. I don't want to spin my wheels.all day to cover something that will neither make me, nor the carrier any money, assuming I can even find a guy to schlep the load for me.

Now, that said- I'm sure Landstar treats you guys who are leased there great. But we've caught them, on more than one occassion, trying to double broker our freight. In the time I've been doing this, I've come across one solid Landstar agent. She knows my parameters (needs to be a Landstar truck, and don't backdoor me) and I never use her to do work for my primary customers.

 

Here's a comparison: waiters/waitresses get paid "commission" as a tip avg 15%. Yes they get a pitiful hourly and the tips make up the difference..
My father asked me as a kid: if you're working for 15% of the bill, would it make sense to work at a diner where the avg customer spends $10-15 or a high end steak house where the average customer spends $85-100?


Comparatively, whole lot of folks are fighting for that diner job.

 

Ain't that the truth...

 

Amen. A lot of people really can't see what's possible in their lives. In the case of most of the poor people I still know they could completely change their lives in 6 months of making something close to the right decisions. I don't care if you're homeless. This America and we have 17 dollar an hour warehouse jobs everywhere.

In many cases the poor aren't lazy. In fact some of them work pretty hard physically just to survive. It's just that when they have a money problem their solution is to get a second minimum wage job instead of trying to figure out how to boost their hourly. That failure of vision causes people to feel trapped, get depressed, and eventually stop trying... Because who in their right mind works 60 hours a week for 5-10k a year more than welfare?

 

I've noticed that blue star on a lot of beat up trucks with some dingy looking drivers in them lately too.

 

Everyone is different, and we all have our own strategy.

In your example, $2100 on 1000 miles, to a poor freight area is not enough to get me there. That is not good money for going to a dead area with 1.00 a mile heavy freight coming out.

Florida/Denver are good examples. I will not go to those places for mediocre rates. I went to Florida last week, 3200 on 610 miles. Deadheaded out, that was the plan all along.

Just my 2 cents....

 

Not defending anyone. LS is rife with scumbags.
It's simple math. Why would you not make the money on the return trip. You have two days of travel no matter what. Why not make something.
You post examples of trips that people would use as fill in trips, and say it's all evil.

 

It's not a poor freight area, depending on where you want to go.

People post and talk of logic that describes the "Goldie Locks" load.

This one is too heavy.
This one is too cheap.
This one is too the wrong area.
This one is too hard.
This one is too soft.

Oh this one is just right.........except 27 people were also sitting on their laptops looking for that one, and it's gone, now it's 1600, and you have nothing.