Macropoint - $250 Fine

If the broker is saving all that money not putting tracking devices on the trailer, they can pass those savings onto the increased rate. Macropoint has to be good for another $0.40 cents per mile extra on the load.

 

It isn't the broker saving money for themselves. It's a service. You're in a service industry. If you can't step up and provide the service someone wants then your competitors will be glad to fill in that gap. When I order a $15 baseball cap off Amazon I can track it from start to finish if I want. Some people want that. If a shipper, or even the broker, is paying several thousands for a shipment and asks for tracking, what is the issue here?

 

I am sure they have better things to do than track people after they have offloaded

 

Some people like to have check call every 20 minutes early morning

 

Probably 95% of the loads I pull spend a night at the house. Very rarely do I load & unload same day...more like unload & reload, go home, unload & reload, go home. I don't need to be tracked between pulling into my driveway and pulling out again. If you want to track the load, track the load. If you want to track the trailer the load is on, track the trailer.

It is NOT acceptable to track ME. I'm not the load, and the load is NOT necessarily with me.

The brokers who have requested calls get them. If they have questions, I'll answer them. Even Fedex/UPS/USPS tracking is only updated at terminals when the package is scanned...so when you check their website you don't get to see where it is at this very second, and you can't watch it every minute of its voyage, only where it's last pitstop was along the way...so I don't buy into the whole "I can buy something on Amazon and track it" argument either.

 

Doesn't matter if you think it's bs. What are you going to do if your customers ever require it? So turn it off when you park in your driveway by sending a simple text message.

 

The solution might be to have a separate phone strictly for business. Turn it off whenever the need or want to turn off tracking arises.

 

Obvious some don't know what MP costs. Who wants to pay for it when you're not under their load?

 

Bingo, we have an answer. And the seperate phone would be 100% tax deductible.

 

For those of you who care, CH Robinson purchased MacroPoint at the end of last year. That is why you now find it on their load confirmations. You can opt out. I have and have never been fined, despite the load rate sheets claiming I will be. The brokers know it is only a scare tactic--not anything they can legally do. I have noticed more and more brokers using it. I wonder if they know that they are giving money to their competitor by using it?!