DO LARGE COMPANIES REALLY THINK THE COMPETITION DOESN'T KNOW THEIR PRICES

martinetav

Well-Known Member
20
Okay, so driver picks up a load for a major chemical company. Internationally know, this company DOES NOT GIVE THE DRIVER A COPY OF THE INVOICE. They apparently think that this will prevent the competition from getting their prices... Really? They really think that this is PROTECTING their information? The only thing it is doing is KEEPING MY DRIVER FROM CROSSING THE BORDER. The paperwork was supposedly sent electronically on FRIDAY. Of course the shipper sends it without taking my driver's PARS number and border information. (That's the way they always do it...) Anyone catching on to the fact that Livingston is the broker...
So, Being the responsible carrier that we are, I have sent FYI e-mails to the load broker through out the day. Eventually this broker decides that I am probably NOT FOLLOWING PROPER PROCEDURE FOR PRESENTING PAPERWORK TO LIVINGSTON... and proceeds to give me a a course on the proper procedure. I stopped him in his tracks when part of this procedure he is explaining to me tells me to INCLUDE THE BOL AND THE INVOICE which I have been asking for since Friday and which they have told me they DO NOT GIVE TO THE DRIVER OR THE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY... anyone catching on to the fact that if my driver sleeps near Detroit, MI he will not be at his 14h00 rdvs tomorrow in St-Jerome, QC.
once again, my question: DOES ANYONE REALLY THINK THAT THE COMPETITION DOES NOT KNOW HOW MUCH THEY SELL THEIR PRODUCT???
 

theman

Well-Known Member
30
Are you sure that's the real reason? Not that there is a blind party ... as in the product is being bought through someone else?
 

martinetav

Well-Known Member
20
Are you sure that's the real reason? Not that there is a blind party ... as in the product is being bought through someone else?
Well, Livingston would have to tell me what the real problem is then. All I know is that if I had a copy of the invoice I would know more than I do right now. We are talking Dow Chemical. Livingston has stated that there are some 'concerns' about the account because Dow is not on the Invoice. They are indicated on the BOL as being Livingston's customer with the account number and everything. Once again, I don't know what is on the invoice they didn't give us lowly little trucks a copy.
 

theman

Well-Known Member
30
Sounds like it's not a direct selling arrangement. Also, it could have to do with the Dow-Dupont merger too.
 

Rob

Site Supporter
30
Martineav If you did a Dow load out of Louisiana if you just send the BOL with the fax cover sheet for where you are crossing with pars etc on it I have never yet have it fail to work. I do those loads all the time and never had an issue. Not saying that not getting paperwork cannot cause an issue but never had one with Livingston and Dow doing them this way.
 

loaders

Site Supporter
30
As the man was suggesting, it could be a case where the shipper does not want the end user to know what the cost of the goods is, or a "blind" shipment. In a case where a third party is involved and they are doing the billing to the end user, it could cause them problems if their cost was made available. Unfortunately, there are some drivers who blindly hand over to the receiver, every piece of paper associated with the load, even when instructed to just get the B/L signed. Of course, none of this excuses the shipper, broker, purchaser, etc. from not providing the documentation required to get the shipment across the border.
 

lowmiler88

Site Supporter
30
I can't tell you how many times we get the Customs Doc's back signed as a POD and the actual BOL not in the paperwork even tho the carrier is given them both at the same time. I can see why people do it we are considering it because Martinetav we don't want the competition to see the cost of goods (in our business pennies make a big difference) and as long as drivers keep doing things wrong then that will be the end result. You don't have to lecture me on drivers because I have 60+ on the other side and trust me they do not always do everything right.
 

martinetav

Well-Known Member
20
So after a full day of working on this, we finally got cleared yesterday evening at about 18h00. The BOL info was entered wrong and then they realized that the wrong invoice was sent to them. This was all solved because I was finally able, after a full day of dealing with the call center, to actually talk to someone on the team assigned to the client. Jessica, you rock! Once I was connected to this young lady things moved forward like a hot knife in butter.
As for driver's screwing things up, yes I can see that. But, we are not a big company that can't be bothered to give proper instructions to the drivers. We are the small company that "ruins" drivers, we've been told. Because we treat them like human beings and actually consult with them before we take our loads. That way, once we say yes, we are certain that there aren't too many surprises, for what we can control.
After all of the crap from yesterday and telling them that our driver was stuck behind an accident in the GTA this morning, the load broker actually insisted that we deliver at 14h00 today... I put it out there pretty clearly... Since the driver wasted 500 miles of time waiting at the border yesterday, that it is impossible to be in St-Jerome for 14h00... They are also ignoring my request for waiting time...
 

MikeJr

Moderator
Staff member
30
I do find interesting (and we follow the same procedure), that we pay carrier WT for border delays like this one, the customer will compensate us, and they will go to the customs broker to collect who will point at the shipper and say they are not liable. I say doing nothing to remedy a situation is as bad or worse than causing the issue to begin with because no one knows how to fix the issue until it's made apparent. Number of times I've seen a customs broker pick up the phone and call their customer to fix a problem: 0 times. And I've seen over 100 000 shipments.

If a customs broker was actually liable to perform their piece of the pie in a timely fashion and paid the waiting time charges as described below you'd see how fast all clearances would be set up!!

My 2 cents.
Mike
 

Freight Broker

Well-Known Member
30
This why I insist on getting a copy of the CI.. so many times I find errors and have them corrected prior to the truck arriving at the border. Shippers who do not supply these docuemtns or who lamely state "the driver was given the documents" are asking for trouble..Nothing like a 2:00 am call from somebody along the lines of " hey man you got any paperwork for this load?".. Agh..
 

martinetav

Well-Known Member
20
Most of this mess could have been avoided if the shipper had identified our load with our pars number. When our driver offered up our pars sticker and another sticker that we have them use that has a space for border crossing, seal number and contains our e-mail address and fax number, they wanted nothing to do with it. If they would at the very least match the paperwork with our pars info there would be little room for problems.
As for the CI Freight Broker, we were told that we didn't need it. If anyone out there has dealt with Livingston you all know very well that Livingston won't do anything with out those docs. The freight broker even asked me if I was 'capable of following Livingston procedure'. I responded that 'NO not in this particular case because no one will give me an invoice'. I finally got his attention... never got the invoice though.
Mike Jr, I too find it amazing that custom brokers are not liable for our time wasted waiting at the border when things get screwed up. All day I was told that they had been reaching out to the shipper for more information. I finally asked what the definition of 'reaching out' was. Answer, we have sent them 3 e-mails... Of course, e-mails were sent to the 'contact' person on file. My next comment was a little, shall we say, dramatic. I asked them 'well okay so say that the contact on file... well, I don't know say, DIED over the weekend and will NEVER go into his e-mails again... That is when the call center transferred me to the actual team... I raised three teenager alone, drama and sarcasm were very close friends of mine:D Custom brokers will never take responsibility as long as they can blame things on shippers and customs. Which I would like to add, had delays in processing information all day yesterday and part of today... And then of course they can always blame it on the driver and dispatch:rolleyes:
 

Jim L

Well-Known Member
20
We just slam the load in bond and charge it out as an accessorial fee. No waiting at the border.

If the customs broker wants to passively e-mail some contact for the customer (that probably wasn't updated for years) and not notify us then what am I to do? It happens a lot with Livingston-Canada bound, especially lately, because they are clamping down on the requirements of the paperwork. I just get the name of the call center employee who can never get a hold of the person on the team and then email our customer to let them know there are problems. Here is our PARS number - you figure it out. Most of our border issues come from Livingston who need confirmation from the importer of record (after 4 hours of telling me that they'll get to the paperwork when they get to it).

The industry needs to push the problems back onto the people who create it. Only by charging the customer accessorial fees will they ever follow up on the issues that happen in the middle. I even started charging my direct shipper customers a fee for using Livingston. It's only $25/border crossing but it starts the conversation - a couple of them have dropped Livingston after our conversation and me asking them to perform the extra phone calls that are required to follow up.

As for the process of not receiving an Customs Invoice, I am seeing this more and more often. I rarely have issues with those types of shipments because it seems like this is a tested and true process. It can fail but very rarely. Its real nice for those shippers who have 80 pages of invoices.
 

Freight Broker

Well-Known Member
30
Thankfully no 80 page invoices over here.. the longest I've ever seen is 5 pages..So long as i get a copy then I have something to fight with on Sunday 2:00 am when that call comes in. Without it we're simply playing sherades.. I can't help the driver if he needs the documents he/she doesn't have.
 

martinetav

Well-Known Member
20
We just slam the load in bond and charge it out as an accessorial fee. No waiting at the border.

If the customs broker wants to passively e-mail some contact for the customer (that probably wasn't updated for years) and not notify us then what am I to do? It happens a lot with Livingston-Canada bound, especially lately, because they are clamping down on the requirements of the paperwork. I just get the name of the call center employee who can never get a hold of the person on the team and then email our customer to let them know there are problems. Here is our PARS number - you figure it out. Most of our border issues come from Livingston who need confirmation from the importer of record (after 4 hours of telling me that they'll get to the paperwork when they get to it).

The industry needs to push the problems back onto the people who create it. Only by charging the customer accessorial fees will they ever follow up on the issues that happen in the middle. I even started charging my direct shipper customers a fee for using Livingston. It's only $25/border crossing but it starts the conversation - a couple of them have dropped Livingston after our conversation and me asking them to perform the extra phone calls that are required to follow up.

As for the process of not receiving an Customs Invoice, I am seeing this more and more often. I rarely have issues with those types of shipments because it seems like this is a tested and true process. It can fail but very rarely. Its real nice for those shippers who have 80 pages of invoices.

We avoid ''inbond'' like the plague Jim L. It usually takes much to much energy and time to clear things up afterwards. We also find that compensation is lacking when that happens. Only once have we been properly compensated and he (the load broker) has pouted us ever since. Except that one time in OR when we saved the day at 5 to 5 on a Friday after his truck cancelled on him at the last minute.
 
Top