Watch out for--> robert@crenglandlogistic.com

What kind of scam is this guy running?

 

I gotcha.

 

Wow - this is actually a brilliant idea.

 

This is a pretty standard fuel advance scam. He'll call freight brokers pretending to be a carrier and book a load. Then he'll call carriers pretending to be a freight broker and book the load. He'll usually offer to do it for nearly nothing with the broker and more money than anyone would ever pay to the carrier so that both say yes. He then calls the broker after the load picks up as the carrier and gets a fuel advance. Then he cashes it and disappears.

Always, always, always verify the information on everyone you do business with. When you guys get a fuel advance and the brokerage makes you jump through flaming hoops this is the reason why. They are doing it to protect themselves, and to a lesser extent you. You need to be doing the same thing when you interact with independent agents for freight brokerages. My brokerages website allows you to verify my phone number to make sure I'm a legit agent without even having to call in and check.

EDIT: Such a slow pony lol

 

If I was a broker, I would not deal with someone who needs a fuel advance.

 

Not gonna lie I'm not a fan of fuel advances. They are basically all risk and no reward for the individual broker (we do not get a cut of the fuel advance charge... pretty much anywhere in the industry). That being said I probably make 3-5k a year personally off trucks that need fuel advances so there would be a meaningful cost to refusing to do them.

 

I could also see this from the carrier side. If you are unsure of the broker, at least get the cost of fuel covered in the event of nonpayment or slow pay.

 

If you're unsure of the broker don't haul the load. Lord knows I don't give freight to carriers I'm not sure of. If something seems too good to be true it almost certainly is. Always look a gift horse in the mouth in this business.

EDIT: The reality is that you have to make up a lot of revenue to make up for not getting paid. Customers and brokers both will try to screw you by charging back stuff that they shouldn't or simply not paying you at all. Yeah a load might pay a couple hundred bucks better than another load, but you don't have to not get paid very often for that to be a bad deal.

Looking at it mathematically let's say load A pays better than load B by 300 dollars. The load is for 3000 dollars. You have to get paid 90% of the time to break even on load A vs load B. In real life it's often more like 150 dollars into 3000 and you need to get paid 95% of the time. If you feel uncomfortable about the situation at all you probably aren't getting enough extra money to make it a justified risk.

In my world it's much more stark. Customers frequently owe me mid six figure sums of money. If one of them decides not to pay I'm going to be involved in at least two lawsuits, possibly more and my entire business will get shaken to its core. I'll have to go out and get a new brokerage, transition all of my existing customers to that new brokerage, and fight the lawsuit from my current brokerage until I win or lose everything I own that the bankruptcy court can take. By the time the fat lady sings on that scenario my life will be a smoking ruin.

Getting screwed by customers who refuse to pay what they owe is probably one of the leading causes of small business owners like us going out of business. It's very important to treat it as the massive risk factor that it is.

All of the above is why when your factoring company turns down someone you want to haul a load for you should be grateful. You just dodged a potentially very harmful bullet. It's why I certainly don't get pissed when my brokerage looks at someone's credit and says it's a hard pass.