Summing up CRST Malone

Yep, and we made good money on the out-going loads. It was finding loads back, fighting with CRST/dispatch to get us booked on a load, and even rivalry between agents. When we heard that CRST was looking to get rid of the best agents (IOHO) and there was an instance, when my husband wanted to quit, on the spot. We decided it was time to move. We did very well them and get calls, e-mails, etc. to return. As I understand things, even Copeland's pet driver isn't happy.

We're better off, with our new lease. We loved some things about CRST. Mainly, Darrell at Copeland's and Al's place in Fontana was fabulous! We enjoyed the drivers and miss them. If we could have got on Al's board, we'd probably still be with CRST.

We'd still roll up in Al's place, regardless of the name on the door. When we're there, we feel at home. We cook, we clean, we load trucks and it's like the way we grew up.

 

The lease/purchase program is the worst way to go into trucking. It benefits the company, not the driver.

We started CRST with $200 cash and our truck. My husband was supposed to to have a contract, for our business. We waited and waited and waited. The contract never started and we were broke. The guy called a month later, after we had signed with CRST and was pissed off. We waited 4 months on that contract, before my husband contacted CRST. It took a month to get on with CRST. We went 6 months paying bills and truck payments. He used to haul cattle and that went bankrupt, as well.

We also pay as we go. Sometimes, it takes cash money to pay for fuel, if there's not a load. I have thousands stashed, but I don't want to touch it. There are times, we have to tap the house account, for fuel, or repairs. If we gross $15,000, half of that goes to the truck. Thirty-five percent goes to our lease, that's 85% we'll never see. That leaves $2250 for the house, maybe. We live well within our means, but a $900 diesel ticket hurts.

I completely agree with you. When we were with CRST, I had thousands stashed. I got complacent and transferred our money to our stock account/IRA. I messed up. We need to have 10k for maintenance and I knew it. Regardless, we always have money for fuel.

If the truck can't run, we don't make money. We shouldn't need advances.

 

We made about that, but we had to pay out, as well. We grossed $145k, from the get-go. Our friends were grossing over 200K.

While we grossed 145K, we made a whopping $35,000, maybe. Maybe our friends made $60,000, net. What did you get to keep?

Are you including taxes? Maintenance on the truck? Self-employment taxes? Insurance? Tires? Interest on the loan?

Running a truck is expensive. Malone drivers have to pay for everything, out of pocket.

 

your always advancing fuel. you have a fuel card. you buy fuel and it comes out of your settlement. you shouldn't EVER have to buy your own fuel.

 

I worked there for about 6 weeks. I know what you mean about not bringing money home with that company.

 

actually snowwy thats not how it works at malone,when you are dispatched they put a certain percentage on your fuel card and its up to you to use it how its supposed to be spent,on fuel if you take it out and go gambling its all on you,never had a problem with fuel when i was there

 

O.K. you booked a load, knowing the deadhead miles, Malone loaned you some money to cover most of your expenses, you put it in the tanks and just kept driving til you found yourself on the shoulder with your triangles up. And you did this not once but FOUR TIMES IN FIVE MONTHS. Personally I'd be reluctant to post your story online because some people might think I'm an incompetent idiot, but that's just me. You are the victim here because Malone won't loan you limitless amounts of money. Apperently you missed this at orientation so I'll try to explain the system for you. The Comdata card at Malone is not a fleet "fuel card". It's your personal account where they load your settlements and advances if you don't have the cash to cover your expenses. You can send it all home to mama, leave it all there, get big cash advances and eat steak everynight at the truck stop or maybe have enough to put fuel in the truck, It's entirely up to you. Malone doesn't pay for deadhead fuel or idle fuel. In fact, Malone doesn't pay for fuel at all, you do. They will loan you .82 on the quoted miles, accurate or not, for a fee if you request it. They also don't pay for coffee, lunch, straps, tarps or anything else you will need to deliver the load, you do.
Let's try to look at this situation from Malone's perspective. You have proven that you're completely unable to manage your cashflow. You've probably got a big IFTA bill for the quarter because you like to fuel up in the low tax states and drive around in the high tax states and pay for it three montha later. You're probably negative on you next few settlements because your charging off all of your roadside fuel stops to the company. You haven't paid enough into your bond to cover any of this. You haven't made any profit for the company because you spend a lot of time sitting on the shoulder waiting to be raped by road service instead of delivering freight. I wouldn't loan you a dime.
Alright finally the last straw. You book a load, get loaded, and reserve another load. Once again you're demanding that CRST loan you more money because you will not put fuel in the tanks any other way. Last time I checked, truck stops were accepting cash, debit cards and credit cards if they don't take Comdata but you apparently do not have any resources of your own. So you dictate to CRST where and how they can recover the truck with a loaded trailer and figure out how to satisfy the customer. And you're worried they might say bad things about you?
Why you couldn't make money with CRST I can only speculate, but if driving around broke and empty all the time is part of your business plan, I'm guessing it may be flawed in other ways as well.

 

I'm just gonna hop in here and say that even though you guys are completely correct on your rips on this guy, you still need to take into consideration what this company promises these guys, so its not entirely these "fleesed" peoples fault even though they do sign up for it, but if you read malones ads they say 750 to 1000 and then 1200 to 1400 after deductions drop so they do kinda promise the world when in reality they just want some guy to haul their load in their wore out junk truck and pay for it. I would never get myself into one of these bad deals because I know how to do simple math and I do own a calculator in case the numbers get to hard, but unfortunantly not everyone gets it

 

So all you had to do was put in a maximum of 4 gallons of fuel ( approximately $18. ) and you would have made it to Chattanooga with no problems

 

What???? They tell you what truck you are going to purchase?? What is that all about?