Our experience with Success Leasing

I am posting this little thread about our experience with the lease Prime offers, which is commonly referred to as Success Leasing. Bill drove company for them for about 2 months. His miles were short, and there was a lot of downtime between loads. In our opinion, this is not a proven fact-it seemed that the lease drivers were getting the "good" loads. He was kinda made to feel bad in orientation that he was not leasing to begin with, so after some thought and consideration, we decided to go for it-take the ACE class and sign lease paperwork. Our intention was to run our a@#!5s off and make some money. We had no thoughts of consistent hometime, and planned to take days off when we could afford to, not because we were road weary or homesick, etc. Well, we went into it with eyes wide open but apparently not wide enough. I do believe that the current economy does factor into our situation, but to make a long story short, we have not had a paycheck in 7 weeks. The freight they offer simply does not support the truck well enough to make any money. Yes, I was riding with him, not driving, and that is an added expense-but with a $40 a week grocery bill at Walmart for food-it was not an UNREASONABLE expense. I got a ride back to our hometown yesterday, and my heart is breaking. I was so proud and happy to be back on the road with Bill-and it just hasn't worked out. I have plenty of concrete examples and dollar amounts, etc.... to back up everything I am saying. The lease deal is basically the driver assumes ALL the risk of the truck in the hopes of making a fair wage, and right now it is impossible to do. I have spoken to many other Prime lease operators in a similar situation. Bill's dispatcher flat out told him he was not doing anything wrong. I will be happy to go into greater detail to anyone who wants to hear the rest of the story but I really am hurting right now knowing that he can't afford TO leave and can't afford NOT to. I do believe that at one time Prime was a great company and I do not blame them completely. I do know, however that they get their 28% of everything he does and it's pure profit. I know that there are people out there who will rip me up one side and down the other. I have no reason to make any of this up. I could post extremely negative things about Prime based on our experience but what is the point. I commend anyone driving for them who is earning a decent wage and I am sincerely happy for anyone who is. Unfortunately for us, that is not the case. Oh, one more thing-instead of leasing a brand new Pete or Cascadia, we opted for a one year lease on an 07 Century with the hopes of reducing our fixed cost a little. Still in the hole about 1000.00 with no way out that I can see for the time being. Thanks for listening...annie
PS For anyone who tried to warn us before, we shoulda listened!

 

Thanks 4 writing! Bill is a little leery of running teams-the whole trying to sleep while someone else is in control of the truck thing kinda unnerves him. He had the talk with his FM last weekend when we were in Pittston-told him things needed to turn around or he would not be able to stay. I just talked to him-he is bobtailing 675 miles to Smithfield VA and he doesn't have a load when he gets there. We did a 600 mile deadhead not too long ago and it came back to bite us-so this one has got my head spinning. I agree that ACE 2 class is in order but to be honest, without a laptop and just by keeping track of fuel, any advances, the settlement amounts, etc.. I have been able to be within $25 or 30 bucks every week of his settlements (although they have been negative for a long time) so I think I do ok with that end of it, I just use a pencil and a calculator. I think I screw up with tolls cuz I don't know how much they are to run, if we get discounts, all that. We never expected to get rich or have huge paychecks every week, just want to earn a living and have our ducks in a row, pay the bills on time. Thanks again

 

Yeah its funny, the company drivers think that they are getting starved in favor of the lease drivers and the lease drivers think the opposite. I tend to think if a load meant for a lease driver ends up with a company driver( like a load of a certain beer that pays horrible) then Prime would take a loss because they have to buy the fuel, pay the driver by the mile, etc. but who really knows, we were told that there no "lease" loads and no "company" loads and Im not too sure about that either. There are company FM's and lease FM's so it seems the freight would be set up that way too. The computer is supposed to look at over 100 different things before attaching a load to a driver that supposedly benefits the driver best but if that was completely accurate I don't think we would be over a grand in the hole. I think the computer and planners look at the available loads in the area and who is nearby to grab them. I don't want him to leave Prime, it looks so much better in the long run if you tough it out for at least a year before moving on, but man, it's been a lot more than tough. Thanks again for any input Oh one more thing, he has NEVER had a preplan. At least not one that he is aware of.

 

Thanks! I will do that in a few minutes!!