Possibly going 100% Independent....

That's the story of my life. Thing is, once you get through it once you have the knowledge to handle a lot more than you did before. Teach a man to fish and all that..

Seriously.. consider getting someone here to walk you through this for a lot less than $800. For these you fill out a form. I think you're in NGa - if you have time and a little gas in your car to get here, I'd be glad to show you what I've done first hand, for free. It's really not that hard. Once you see it, the following will make more sense: Even if OOIDA or someone else does this for a fee, you still have to do the legwork and walk thru the form with them to fill it out for you. I'm no trucking industry veteran, but I can tell you that this was not that hard to do. It took less than an hour to do the authority and less than 15 minutes to do the form for KY numbers. NY, NM, and OR I haven't done as I haven't had a need to go to those states.

This is true. You will have to work a little harder to get loaded at first, especially the first couple of weeks. After a month it gets easier. Trick is to sound like you know what you're doing when calling them, and catch the ones that really need to move something and may be willing to make an exception - if you have some trade references, that can be the ticket in. In fact, half of the new brokers I've called on require some trade references be provided. Once you've hauled one load with someone, they are your newest reference LOL. Since you're already with Mercer, many brokers may accept that as a trade reference even though you haven't hauled for them as a carrier.

In two months, I have seen only one posting that mentioned anything like this and they required a trailer less than 10 years old. I did not call on them since mine is a 2000. Only two out of over a dozen brokers have even asked about my equipment and a 2004 Century and 2000 Trailmaster with a 2004 Carrier reefer was ok. I never asked about what their limits were. One asked about my service intervals. When I shared that along with the most recent detail there were no more questions and I got the load. They just want to make sure your equipment will make the trip on time. I've read here about some restrictions from some shippers at some ports but haven't run into it yet.

Some of these you may have to wait for your authority to "age" a little. TQL won't load you for your first month. I didn't call on Landstar until after a month, but they didn't say anything when I did. Since you're already with Mercer, you'd probably get a pass with them.

They do 2-day pay for 1.5% discount with electronic submittals. The one load I've hauled for them didn't work out that way and I waited 2 weeks. I'm chalking that up to "new carrier setup blues," as I've heard others generally speak good of them.

Main thing will be credit reports, your experience, and word of mouth. First and foremost, do they pay their bills and how fast. The rest is an individual opinion. A broker I don't mind dealing with might just piss off the next guy or vice-versa.

About the only thing I could suggest is take your time making a decision, making sure their plan meets your expectation. Ask lots of questions and read the fine print. I was just about to sign up with one until they sent over their agreement, which included an unlimited power of attorney. That's right - they would be able to take title to everything I own without going in front of a judge. The subsequent call with the "supervisor" to clarify went like a timeshare sales pitch and ended when he suggested I was planning to rip them off. Were using Freight Capital now and I'm satisfied with them.

 

this has been a great form thaks for all the info. i have been pulling this way as well. but i think my time frame is 8 to 10 months down the road

 

No worries Redd. Just ping me with a PM when you're ready. I'm running this out of a home office with my son doing the driving. So I'm usually more flexible on time than a lot of guys doing this from the driver's seat. I definitely don't have all the answers, but with at least one example in sight, you will have better questions to ask the others. Or as it's gone for me a couple times already, maybe some things you will think of will turn out to be questions I should have asked already LOL.

 

I believe the $800 covers everything, including the filing fees. It also includes a 1 year membership in their drug testing consortium, which you'll need to have whether they do it or you do it yourself so it will cost you money one way or the other.

I understand all the people who want to go the "do it yourself" route, but I have found through the years that when you let professionals do their job, while you do yours, it actually costs less in the long run.

Just my .02, which it probably isn't worth.

 

Mr. Redforeman I don't know if you had ever contacted OOIDA about this or just knew from the start you were going to apply yourself. The reality on using OOIDA is you wont save a lot less than $800.

Out of the $800, $300 goes to the feds for the authority and $100 is for a year in OOIDA's drug and alcohol consortium. There is now $400 left out of $800. OOIDA gives you your driver qualification file with everything you need in it. Yes you can buy a file folder for a nickle. Yes you can spend time finding all the releases you will need, and no matter whether you did it yourself or OOIDA provided it. You still gotta fill them out and send them off for all the info from former employers. The $800 covers the sate fees for KY,NY and NM. I believe these are not real pricey.

Unless I misunderstood OOIDA when I spoke to them. They expedite your letter of authority file your UCR and BOC-3. I know the UCR is $75 roughly not sure about the BOC-3. Out of the $800 what is left now? $100-$200?

Yes you are right doing it yourself will be cheaper, but it won't be $500-$700 dollars cheaper than the original $800. You are getting a decent amount from OOIDA for your money.

 

redd, i had my own authority for 16 years. as one poster stated, the 25 per cent mercer gets isnt just theirs to keep.

with your own authority, you will pay your own cargo ins and liability ins. now provided under mercer, you will need to join a drug test consortium, you will have to keep all your records( logs, driver qualification , etc.) for a possible dot audit. and trust me ga. will audit you. and fiugre at least 10 per cent broker fee when you broker a load, so in reality mercer is only getting 15 per cent.

now add in factoring charges of 5 per cent and you are down to 10 per cent. the question is , can you pay the additional insurance, look for all the loads yourself, and it be worth the 10 per cent.

dont misunderstand my post, i am in no way trying to talk you out of this. just trying to point out everything you will become responsible for that you currently are not.

all i have to do to reinstate my authority is get the insurance reinstated and update everything, but at the moment i like running with mercer, takes a lot of the pressure off, it is frankly as close to having your own authority without having it as one can get in my opinion.

my suggestion is also to stay with flatbed freight, the van rates aint that great for the most part.

i also reccommend if you get your authority to work with mercer when you leave to ensure you can keep hauling loads for them, would make the transition much easier to your own authority, and would give a quick paying source of revenue from the start until you can work yourself into relationships with other broker carriers. be very wary of small brokers, they can promise fantastic rates but if they never pay you actually got a rate of $0.00.

i understand completely why you want to do this as i probably will again myself one day.

again the biggest suggestion is to take the 25 per cent mercer gets and see what it will cost you from that 25 per cent to operate your own authority.

 

Well, I wasn't going to bring this up because I don't usually say yeah or nay on something I don't personally know a lot about (full service from OOIDA). But since you did, here's what I do know as of a few months ago LOL.

When I called OOIDA back in February of this year, they didn't offer a service like that. I actually did ask, and they said "no." As-in: could I pay a sum like $800 and they do everything, more or less acting as my agent. What they did offer (with membership) was unlimited free advice on what you need to do yourself. That's not me knocking it, I got a lot of value and good advice from their business support people. They also offered to do the BOC-3 filing for free with my membership. Later, I joined their drug test consortium and bought their driver folders.

So maybe I didn't get told about this service then, or it's something new they are doing. If it's new and fee inclusive as you say, I agree with you - it's not a bad deal. On the other hand, everything you need to do is posted in the stickies at the top of the o/o section here, whether you fill out the forms yourself or pay someone else to type them in for you.

In fact, it was OOIDA that first warned me that the companies offering a soup to nuts service would really only provide a system that would cover all the bases but that I would still have to do a lot of legwork. They didn't say don't do it, but made sure I understood exactly what I was getting for the money.

I would still highly recommend OOIDA membership as the benefits are worth it. They did give me some help with an FMCSA screwup on my application that worked out in the end. I don't know about expediting anything - there's a pretty fixed 15-20 business day timeline that is driven only by your BOC-3 and insurance filings. You can pay a service 10 bucks to watch for your status to go active and provide you an immediate pdf download of the authority letter. Beyond that, everyone is a little spoke in the big government wheel that takes 3-4 weeks to make a turn LOL.

 

just want to say thanx to all you guys---you are giving a lot of great information that cant be found in a book or taught in a school,nice to see that there are decent people out there--and redd too

 

I don't know anything about it so I can't help you Redd but please know I'm praying for your success and happiness.