Lodestar Logistics - Burlington

LogisticaIntl

LogisticaIntl

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Mar 1, 2010
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Has anyone had any experiences, good or bad, with Lodestar Logistics out of Burlington?

They offered to move a skid for me that I posted on LoadLink last week and, despite the fact that Peter there told me the driver was "ON HIS WAY AS WE SPEAK" he never put the order in his dispatch system or bothered to pick up the skid.

Now I have to tell my customer that we didn't pick up the load we said we were going to pick up Tuesday and deliver Wednesday and it's now Thursday.

They've earned their way onto our DNU list.
 
That is unfortunate, I broker freight to them, infact I have given them 2 loads this week and their service was excellent.
 
that is odd for them... we use them all the time for our Buffalo freight - and we love their service!!
 
No prob with Lodestar and last payment was in 34 days 2 weeks ago.
 
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Thanks for the comments everyone.

Sandy at Lodestar was very apologetic and I guess every once in awhile these things happen.

They picked up the freight yesterday and have promised to deliver today before lunch. Assuming all goes well we won't keep them on the DNU list permanently.
 
This carrier now has an opportunity to shine. 50% discount at least would validate their apology..
 
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TRUCKIT said:
This carrier now has an opportunity to shine. 50% discount at least would validate there apology..
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Truckit

Do you give the trucking company 50% of the freight rate if they show up at a shipper and he cancels the load when the truck is there? I didn't think so. Oh...and would your customer see the rate reduction or would your bartender??? Comments like that are from a freight pimp not a load broker. Did the trucking company screw up? Yes. Was it an honest mistake? Sounds like it was. The 50% comment was uncalled for. When someone calls - do you answer the phone "what's your rate???" That was me hanging up on the other end........:)
 
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Rob said:
Truckit do you give the trucking company 50% of the freight rate if they show up at a shipper and he cancels the load when the truck is there? I didn,t think so oh and would your customer see the rate reduction or would your bartender??? Comments like that are from a freight pimp not a load broker. Did the trucking company screw up yes was it an honest mistake sounds like it was. The 50% comment was uncalled for. When someone calls do you answer the phone whats your rate??? that was me hanging up on the other end........:)
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Okay Rob - where do we start? First off, I am a Trucker - let's get that clear. Secondly, based on the info provided by the original poster the shipment was not cancelled. The carrier clearly screwed up here and if you were not so concerned about money you would understand that this broker has now been put in a very embarassing position. His customer could get that type of service anywhere and I am sure he did not sell himself that way. Thirdly, I don't drink. If you are not prepared to put your service where your mouth is then you belong with the bottom feeders. I have provided many such discounts when (for whatever reason) we have screwed-up. It is the right thing to do! Finally, I have only excelled in this industry for 32 years mostly because the money is just a result of doing things right. Have a nice weekend.
 
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Jumping to conclusions and ethical benchmarks

I agree with truckit, in that this otherwise good carrier has an ideal opportunity to demonstrate their business ethics or philosophy. Everybody, and I mean everybody, screws up sometime. When I do, I own it, it's mine, and I fix it, and I pay for it. To do otherwise, would set my personal and business ethics benchmark in a much lower elevation with the so called "freight pimp, bottom feeder, what's your rate" freight brokers. I have no desire to lose my self respect and join them.

I'm not a carrier, however if I were the carrier in this instance, I would do my best to complete this work forthwith, and send the broker the POD with my invoice that would say "NO CHARGE - sorry for the service failure". I see this as an "opportunity to shine", as truckit so rightly put it. If a carrier demonstrated this to me, I wouldn't let him go for nothing - he'd be gold for me and my customers! It's not that mistakes are made, it's how they are dealt with that matters most. These are the type of people that you can build an excellent working relationship with and maybe even become friends.

Passing this discount on in it's entirety to the broker's customer would also ably demonstrate the broker's high level of integrity.

One last thing - if I disagree with someone's opinion in this forum, or any other setting, and want to say so, being insulting while doing so would lend absolutely no credence to any argument I might make, and cause me to lower my personal benchmark down among the broker's I mentioned in the first paragraph.
 
I agree but,

The way this was explained as it was an honest mistake of dispatch - why should the carrier have to take a 50% rate reduction for an honest mistake? We have all had to eat our mistakes in this business. I was maybe a little hard on Truckit and for that I apologize. But the way I read his post it came across to me as a broker trying to take money out of a carrier's pocket.
 
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All well and good intentions to give the broker a 50% discount or even no charge because of the honest mistake.

But, would you offer the same discount or no charge if it was a FTL Toronto to Dallas, if you made the same honest mistake again? If you said no, then where is your consistency? If you do it once, you will be expected to do it everytime there is a mix up or delay, no matter whose honest mistake it actually was.

But, as anyone on this forum who knows me, I am perfect and I never make mistakes so I never have to worry about discounts or freebies.
:p
 
Thanks for the comments everyone. As mentioned earlier, Sandy was very apologetic (and offered a 40% discount fyi, which I passed on to my customer) and a promise to deliver in Buffalo "before lunch" on Friday.

Now this morning I found out it was delivered just after 4pm Friday. Either someone had plans for a very late lunch or they failed on the promise of an AM delivery.

To me it is a case of managing expectations. If you promise "before lunch" than my expectation, as the broker or the client, is that it's delivered by 12 or 1pm... 2pm at the latest.

Thankfully I didn't tell my client of that promise because it just would have made me look even worse.
 
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