CLAIM

I saw a contract for Schram out of the US today and it states that they will charge $10 to write a check and are unable to deposit EFT into Canadian accounts. It also stated that if you did not sign back their load sheet within 15 minutes they could repost the load and charge you $25 for not signing.

I didn't even get into the rest of their fine print I just decided to find another load.
 
Yep, and it probably took them less than 5 minutes to find another truck.
As long as there are carriers out there that are only in this business for a quick buck, and really have no clue what they are doing, there will be contracts out there just like that one.
What was it P.T. Barnum said ... "There's a sucker born every minute"
 
Michael Ludwig said:
Yep, and it probably took them less than 5 minutes to find another truck.
As long as there are carriers out there that are only in this business for a quick buck, and really have no clue what they are doing, there will be contracts out there just like that one.
What was it P.T. Barnum said ... "There's a sucker born every minute"
Click to expand...

I like the "Greater Fool Theory" myself.
 
By no means am I going to try and defend these one sided contracts. They are as many have said already, heavily biased in favour of the contractor and place excessive terms and conditions on the carriers. However, I really don't think that these large brokerage firms woke up one day and said "lets force all of our carriers into a really lop -sided contract". It is my belief (backed by personal experience) that in most cases it is the large shippers who are driving this. In order to do business with a large multi-national company, either as a broker or as a carrier, you are forced to dance to their tune, meaning either sign their contract or walk away. As the courts in the US continue to award larger and larger settlements resulting from motor vehicle accidents, everyone is trying to avoid or at least shift the blame onto any other party they can, as Jim L said....Hold Harmless. In most cases that means the carrier is left holding the bag. One can only wonder what the truck insurance companies must think about the prevalence of these onerous contracts?
 
That's why your insurance company wants to review every contract you sign ... so you don't contract them into something they won't do.
In my experience, large multinational corporations usually use the correct wording in their contracts ... "Save and hold harmless as far as their interests are concerned" or words to that effect, which is acceptable all day long.
Also in my experience, lopsided load broker agreements typically come from the medium sized "I wanna be a big brokerage" houses that used their local real estate lawyer for their legal advice.
A blanket save and hold harmless clause could mean that the worker that fell into the saw blades at the meat cutting plant and lost his leg, could conceivably claim on your insurance, and would probably win, especially if the meat packing plant was underinsured.
If that doesn't scare anyone into not signing those types of agreements then you are simply destined for failure, and will do so spectacularly. Surely another candidate for the Darwin Awards.
 
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