Posting For Good and Bad Brokers

I had a broker tell me they lost 30k in month of June due to trucker price gouging loads. Seems to me it takes to to make a deal.
I have noticed a lot of loads posted are under 3mi and the 90day avg are 400 500 more than the rate brokers are offering.

 

I hope they do get gouged. They gouge us on each load at a minimum of 15-20 percent. Hearing them cry about things like accessorials make me want to vomit.

 

Maybe they’ll learn to bid the jobs a little higher instead of constantly trying to undercut the other guys. Every time I see someone hauling flatbed scrap metal around MT I know they’re hauling $1.40/mile freight which is bad for everyone.

 

Good solid point there Gumper. There's always a heated debate on the topic of what the brokers are offering vs. what the load actually pays, and it usually ends up in a big, messy argument and snide remark throwing contest. I got into one yesterday on some "new" forum I stumbled across and expressed my opinion, and got called everything from a socialist to a Marxist to a bottom feeder, LOL.

The topic was started off saying that there should be a cap of what the broker should be able to earn for the service. (Hoo boy, here it comes...) I've had multiple customers that I delivered something to just flat out in disgust tell me what they paid to have that thing hauled and said "I don't know what they paid YOU, but we sure got raked over the coals..." Then you find out that the scumbags skimmed 50% off the top and you want to go find that weasel and kill him or her. After all the labor and all it takes as we know to get things accomplished and they make a phone call and make a grand and give us a grand...that's tough to swallow....sorry.

Yeah, I know...I didn't have to take the load yeah, yeah, yeah. But during negotiations when I was dancing around with the jerk broker trying to up the antie another lousy hundred bucks so I felt like I was getting somewhat of a "good deal," and they come out with the scripted "sorry, this is all we got in it" BS...to find in the end they robbed 1/2 of the ACTUAL revenue. Makes my blood boil and if anyone doesn't get that, there's something wrong with you.

Then the peanut gallery wakes up and starts calling me and a few other guys that are trying to make our point clear all kinds of names, although we could care LESS what the broker MAKES, and it isn't any of our business....but allowing the unscrupulous practices like that to continue should constitute some form of restrictions on their business practices. Just like we have to comply with certain criteria, so should "they".

These broker/carrier agreement contracts I've been reading lately are getting more and more out of hand too. A lawyer drafts them up, and they are designed to eliminate ALL liability from the broker and customer, and everything is shouldered by the carrier. The last one that screwed me out of a load a week ago that wasn't there when I arrived on time...it said in the agreement basically that "the carrier shall waive all rights to litigation and collections of any and ALL monies owed to them" in black and white. It's tough to sign those things for me, but it's a matter of taking a chance on something (called RISK) and hoping for the best in the end. I wouldn't be searching for a load on a loadboard at all if I didn't want to at least be productive on my way to get my main load that is the driving force of it all.

I'm a slow learner, but it's given me the determination to work a little harder on the total and final elimination of "brokers" altogether for the duration of my time in this business, and I'm working on it now. No sense in being miserable and feeling betrayed every time you have to go somewhere to get somewhere else.

I'm sure the guys here "get it", and the brokers feelings are probably hurt...but try doing this job yourselves for 6 months in the current environment and come tell me if you think it's a fair way to do business after you're wiped out mentally and physically from the lifestyle alone, aside from the business end of it.

I get a kick out of the old "if you don't like it, then get your own direct customers" line. Yup, that's the answer to all the world's problems indeed...

 

I don’t agree with government restrictions on anyone, and we certainly don’t need any more of them in our industry. Next thing they’ll be putting caps on our rates from what they deem to be fair. Some brokers are just like used car salesman, and we should avoid the ones we don’t like to work for. Some guys don’t care they are getting screwed, so long as they get their $x.xx/mile rate. That’s why this will never change.

It’s difficult to get direct customers. Most of them use brokers because they want to get a truck whenever they feel like it, and unless you have one just sitting around waiting it’s hard to meet that demand as a small company. Either that, or they use their own trucks which cuts us out completely. It’s not an easy business for most small guys, but that’s just how it is.

 

You make some valid points here and I tend to agree for the most part. However, I don't agree with more government interference. In fact, I blame most our issues today on their meddling with the free market in the first place. Generally, I feel as long as everyone gets what they think is fair then it's all good. Problem is that many are led to believe that a certain rate is fair but the broker is getting the same if not more of the piece. I'm not a greedy man but if they're making more than 20 percent I not cool with that at all. We have to bear all the risk and have the most invested than they do if they're non-asset based. We should be getting the lion's share of the total rate.

 

Your last sentence speaks volumes.

 

I agree. Believe me, if I had MY way, I'd disassemble the entire government, lol. I hate regulations PERIOD, but we all know we need them and cannot be a lawless society. These regs get piled onto a lot of the WRONG people that shouldn't have to co-mingle with the ones that are creating the need in the first place.
I'm old school to the core, and I get worse as I age. It's too late for me to change now, so I adapt to what I think I have to to survive and screw the rest, lol.

My one and only gripe I continue to carry around is not that I want gov. regulation on ANYTHING...but I just feel like you just said, with all the burden, liability, expense, labor, time, sacrifice we have to shoulder to get the work done, we should get the lion's share indeed. My blood boils when I get a rate confirmation sent to me that is an explicit contract to sign away any and all rights to recourse if something doesn't go quite right, and make it so that the offered rate on any particular load doesn't correspond with the going current market conditions, or meet the necessary bottom line to operate a trucking business without shortcomings. I for one, don't like to be shorted when I work, no matter what the work entails.

This whole issue with me just became a real sore subject after a handful of people I brought equipment to blatantly expressed their frustrations about what they were charged for the delivery, having to pay in advance for the freight, and then tell me what that figure was only to find out it was 1/2 of what I did it for. Yes, I agreed to do the load, no denying it. Just erks a man when he does the bullwork and the kid on the phone made the same amount of money as the trucker just with a cellphone and a laptop. That's all.

Simply put, we're in the WRONG business.

The goal for me is to eliminate the need to deal with brokers altogether, and we're in the process of just that. Getting screwed around by one too many of them has fueled the fire needed to go to the next level and do something about it rather than sit on some forum and complain, lol.

There should be absolutely NO debate, when a carrier is inquiring about a certain load, that when he feels the sensible rate is X and the broker or agent is offering Y...that the numbers shouldn't be somewhat in line with what it is worth to do without having to haggle over a lousy, stinking hundred bucks when it should be no question that it is worth $400-$500.00 more than the offer on the table.

Yes, the market fluctuates rapidly, spot markets vary, lanes change...but no matter what it does up or down, every carrier has their fixed costs. Mine are not high, but average. I shoot for a taller number it seems EVERY stinking time I discuss a load with a broker, and it's a reasonable number based on what I have for specialized equipment and I factor in the over 3 decades of experience I can bring to the table, yet I still get the old run-around that "it's all they have in it."

Well, if that's the case then, why don't they (brokers) go after some better quality freight, or renegotiate with their current clients for some better rates? They are quick to tell us, if we don't like the rate, go find your own direct customers, etc...so that's my rebuttal when I hear that.

It's not easy on their end either, I am the first to admit. They have to tolerate things too. But again, my main objective was to bring to light the unethical, illegitimate practices that a few of the "more well known one's" operate on. They're quick to mention a blemish on a carrier's SAFER status, refusing to load them, but speak out both sides of their mouths about how they do business.

It's a lost cause to think anything will ever get better. Look at this "lumper fee" stuff at warehouses. I have a tough time fathoming that concept. Drive like a nut to get there on time, to be refused entry to the back of your trailer, and are forced to pay $350.00 to have a couple of half wits unload and COUNT the freight. That truly is a bewildering concept, but it never got better with time, only worse.

But this topic has been worn out already. Just like most other issues we live with daily, I doubt anything will ever be done to correct or improve it. So life goes on. It's your choice how you wanna live it. I choose to be the head and not the tail is all.

"That's Truckin'.

 

No, you're 100% right Gumper. Getting your own customers isn't easy. I've been since the early '90's trying to put together the "perfect deal". It's either too good to be true, or never what you expected in the first place.

I have an oversized load to do Wednesday this week coming from a manufacturer that I loaded and delivered 3 oversized vessels for all the same day about 6 months ago, and made a small fortune in one day doing it. The vice president came to me as I was securing the last one to leave and asked for my card. Said they were "always looking for more carriers". I take that 2 ways. Either they are having trouble with the one's they've been using, or they can't get them to work for them for some reason as not wanting to pay, etc.

Regardless, they contacted me last week to quote them a price to move a piece 70 miles in state, I gave them my number, and I'm headed there Wednesday. And you can rest assured it was more than a broker would be paying out, LOL...

I wish I could just deal with a handful of brokers that I have grown to trust, and they reciprocate as well. But they seem to only have eastbound freight and never outbound like I always need to get out of the northeast with, which forces me to "fish around" all the time on these lousy loadboards. that's where I seem to always find these miserable-to-deal-with shysters that don't care what they do in the end to you.

We're working on it though. I got burnt one too many times, so now it's time to brush off and get to work. All you really need is 3-4 good steady clients and you can have a decent little business. We're "almost" there...30+ years later, LOL.

 

Real simple recourse in those instances where the broker hosed the customer. Tell them what you were paid. That broker probably won't be moving much freight for that customer anymore. This is precisely why I try to keep my percentage in the 10-15% range. A one off where I make a huge margin doesn't pay as well as long term business. I sell myself on service at a reasonable rate. A lot of times that means being a professional babysitter. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find carriers who do what they say they'll do, as the market fills up with new entrants. And that's not even necessarily a function of rates. Things that should be common sense, such as, "Don't exit your truck on a jobsite wearing pajamas and flipflops," are increasingly uncommon sense.

Either way, best of luck to you. I don't begrudge you anything- my read on you has been that you're pretty professional, and I like to see the good folks do well.