Why do truckers use uShip?!

Bidders are often people who look at their pickup truck and find the website and think they have discovered a gold mine in their pickup. They often have no commercial insurance or operating authority and have no real idea about running a business moving things from one place to another.

The idea also shows that the customers using u ship are only looking for the absolute lowest price to transport their things. Look how it is setup, a reverse style auction. The end result is often poor equipment and lousy service. The DOT knows this and pull these guys over all the time. These are not quality customers that use u ship and are only looking for the lowest bid. This is a service industry, and you get what you pay for.

 

But some of the stuff shown on the show is high end stuff.

 

All made for the tv show
No way someone with an important load would sell it to some schmuck off u ship
And at a cheap rate at that, and to top it off they always seem to be under a time crunch

A&E just b.s.'ed their way through it, same as storage wars

 

Take a closer look at how they determine "profit"
Gross amount minus fuel and whatever permits
Nothing said for maintenance, or if they had to pay a driver a reasonable wage to do the driving

Most times it looks like they are barely above water, and may be drawing a fraction of what a company driver would earn, while holding all the risk ....

I have my doubts ....more power to them though. The more screw ups there are the easier it is for the rest of us to show we are worth a higher dollar.. it's all good

 

I just looked on there. There is a load of furniture weighing about 130kg being shipped over 3800km for $300. Not even worth my time to load that on and off. The stuff on that site is so inconsistent in where its going that you couldn't even group 3 loads like that. And even $900 isn't worth anyone's time if the stars aligned and you did manage to group 2 or 3 small loads like that. Like I said my pickup would burn that much fuel and my time and mileage would be free.

 

Let me guess, the destination is in some great weather place like California of Florida or similar, and it is being sold as "helping to pay for your fuel money to get there!" Make ya sick, the same places where real estate can find no limits, and they expect people to bring them their stuff for peanuts...unreal

 

I'd have to somewhat disagree with you there. Somewhat.

I bought a motorcycle in miami. Needed to get it to salt lake. I listed it on uship. The dealer i bought it from quoted me $750 to have it shipped. But the bids i got were $900 for open trailer and $1200 for enclosed trailer. Roughly 45 - 60 days to deliver. But then i remembered seeing a company in a truckstop every now and then. All they haul is bikes. Googled and come up with haulbikes. They charge a flat rate of $600 to most areas of the country. Took them a week to pick it up. 2 weeks to make delivery. New trucks and great looking trailers.

 

They afford it by running junk equipment and not having insurance or proper credentials.

 

Friend used Uship to ship a large scooter from Ala. to Az.. Guy charged her $600. He pulled up in a 1 ton Ram with an enclosed trailer hooked on the back. She posted pics of FB when he arrived. The scooter was in the bed, she asked why it wasn't in the trailer, when he opened the doors, he had 10 other bikes and two ATV's in the trailer. He had loaded at various places in the S.E. and was heading West.

She and I had had many talks about how to get that thing shipped. I told her to use UShip, but demand whoever was the winning bid provide her with proof of cargo insurance and USDOT numbers ahead of time. The guy that won the auction balked at her request, she went to the next highest bidder, he had no problem. IIRC, his name was Sergei.