Being Threatened To Call our Customer

lowmiler88

lowmiler88

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Feb 22, 2008
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Here is the situation in point form:
Hired a Carrier last week to deliver LTL in VA (last delivery on truck) for Friday 8:00 AM
They where held up by the receiver and did not get unloaded till around 14:00 hrs which we paid them for all of their waiting time.
We have worked with and for this Carrier in the past with no issues at all.
At 14:30 hrs on Friday we where informed by a dispatcher that we would have to pay for them to come back empty as they could not get a back haul - our issue with this was how do you throw in the towel in the middle of the afternoon?
Still being threatened that they will go to the customer because their driver is incurring the expense of driving back empty which tells me they are screwing over a broker.
They are still threatening even after I tell them that we will have a conference call to discuss and come to a resolution.
So my question is ultimately do we have any responsibility to pay their way back? We where going to offer to pay the brokers fuel but the continued threats are starting to piss me off.
By the way she can call the customer as it is our own product so she would have to talk to me, which tells me she is not smart enough to look at the BOL.
I'm not posting a name yet because I'm hoping it is an over zealous dispatcher but I will update as to the outcome. I would like peoples thoughts on this.
 
2.30 in VA does seem a little early to have lost your load home. That being said not sure where in Virginia it was.( I am thinking Dollar General in South Boston with it being that long on a ltl)

That being said if it was me and a receiver holding me up that long if I was not able to find something I too would try and get the broker to pay me to come home empty. Lots of places load 24 /7 in that area and we all know freight in the SE is real plentiful right now with produce season upon us. Good luck I hope you are able to come to an amicable understanding on this.
 
Actually yes the receiver is responsible for the driver loosing his back haul when its appointment freight; however most times the shipper will pay the costs as it is the fault of there customer and they want to maintain the customer relationship. The driver should not have to incur the costs of diesel and time. This is especially true when during the winter the drivers must keep the trucks running or risk freezing in some areas. Looking at my calendar it also looks as if this occurred before a holiday weekend? Driver layover for 3 nights may have been must higher. Hope this helps
 
Did they have a backhaul in advance? from what I'm reading below they had nothing booked. What saying they would of gotten something anyways?
 
HI there Lowmiler.
I don't want to say what you should end up agreeing to with the carrier. I just have a bit of input from an experience I had in the past. I was going to book an 8:00 delivery on a Friday also. It was a lane I was not all too familiar with. I was speaking with the broker and he actually took the time to explain to me that the receiver had a history of taking a long time to offload and he was quite concerned that I would run into the same situation (not being able to find a backhaul). He gave me the opportunity to look around and make sure I could find a reload that was available to load later in the day. It all worked out very well for both of us. I found a suitable reload and he got his freight covered. I felt he went above and beyond to not only help me but help himself by being proactive. Sorry to ramble on...but I will always appreciate the honesty of this broker. Going forward for next time...would that be an option for you? (I mean discussing with the carrier ahead of time the likelihood of delays at receiver)
 
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Your issue is quite simple to resolve, request a copy of the backhaul that was cancelled and the drivers manifest from customs that he returned empty.
 
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Why is the driver and carrier in this situation. Because the receiver on the dock couldn't get the truck unloaded in a timely fashion. Why bother to make a delivery appointment for 8.00am. Had the driver showed up late the shoe would be on the other foot. You say this was LTL and they tied the truck up this long. Pay up fast and resonable and you won't have carriers getting this way. Build a reciprical relationship with your carriers based on respect, trust, service and pay them fairly and in a timely fashion and together you will build long and lasting business. Why should the carrier have to give up what might have been a premium return load for some last minute cheap backhaul if even possible that late on a Friday. Years ago I worked for a Carrier who would let driver run home empty if they couldn't find them a load by 1.00pm on a Friday. Hope you come to an ammicable conclusion
 
Lowmiler I know that you guys are fair... and this will eventually work itself out when folks cool off a little.

I'm sure that we'll all agree... (I've been in this business all my life (I'm 50-something now))... these receivers have gotten WAY out of hand with this bloody APPOINTMENT FREIGHT! Book an appointment for a skid that pays 350.00 going 2500 miles away... come on. it's getting ridiculous. TL's i can see... but the walmarts, targets, bestbuys and the rest have just gotten way out of hand.

Bubba is right... if the truck was late for that appointment... we'd be talking about who's going to pay the fine for being late.
 
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bubba-one my point is when the first thing out of your mouth is a threat and not how can we work this out is not the best way to approach the situation and we have worked with this carrier for a long time both hauling their loads and they hauling ours with no issues. Why would you not take a "cheap backhaul" and then ask for the difference at least you tried and not gave up. We have no problem paying up but ask professionally........I live by treat people they way you want to be treated...........I can talk professionally about a situation but I can also curse and yell with the best of them I let the person on the other end of the conversation decide how they want it to go.
 
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There is just one more point I would like to throw out there that hasn't been mentioned. We don't really know what the driver was doing in terms of his log book coming up to 8am. It is possible he/she was driving throughout the night and only had available hours until 2, 3, 4 pm to grab a reload. Shippers and receivers still don't seem to understand that point. Just because the driver is sitting there to get offloaded, doesn't mean his/her available hours aren't ticking away. So if they had an 8am delivery apt they probably expected to be empty by 10am at the very, very latest. This would have left plenty of time to travel somewhere and pick up something...even if they had to stop immediately afterwards and rest. But when they leave at mid afternoon, it might very well have left them stranded.
 
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That's a great point Chica. But if that was the case I think the carrier should have mentioned that to Lowmiler. It would make much more sense. I wonder if they simply didn't have a backhaul for the driver or if their backhaul fell through. There is definitely more information needed to make a judgement call.
 
Speaking as a lurker... .thank you all for this thread, its been an eye opener in case we as a company find ourselves on either end of this scenario in the future.

Thanks for the education on this lovely Friday!
 
8am appt, empty at 2pm on LTL, absolutely crazy... why for any reason is this the carrier's fault that they missed there reload if they had one or not?! If someone is selling LTL by appt there should have been some kind of disclaimer discussed much in advance as someone mentioned in this thread; Lowmiler as I am sure you know your product and the DC's you deliver to, was there any discussion ahead of time to advise that the delivery may not be within 1 or 2 hours? We deliver to several different big retailers all over the US and we know which ones are 2 hours for 4 skids and which ones are 8 hours unloading 4 skids and unfortunately right now we have to plan around it. As an industry we really need to give our head a shake it seems; we keep getting regulations, hours of service, and soon to be electronic log books. how will anything get done with these DC's taking up more than half of a drivers in a day hours doing 1 delivery. I am seeing it everyday; drivers fed up, dispatchers fed up and a lot of the talent in this industry has either left or leaving or selling out to the big boys to make these issues someone else's problem. This is a low margin industry and you can bet that that would be my first concern as a dispatcher for both TL and LTL is who is paying my way home when being delayed 6 hours doing an LTL drop. Who is to say that there was not another 2 or 3 drops to do after the 8am delivery? or that there was a noon loading time for the reload 5 miles away based on the 8am delivery time, how can anyone play around a situation like this with a truck?! Unfortunately for most, what this situation does is minimize the carrier base of your available carriers one by one; even we have stopped taking small LTL by apt, it just doesn't make sense or pay enough to be worth the B.S. anymore. I have been doing this myself for 15 years, and have always taken pride what we do but lately it seems no matter what the carrier does, in the mind of some it is never enough. Keep blaming the carrier for everyone else's problems and soon enough you will either have no trucks left to haul the freight or just the carriers that everyone complains about on here anyways that don't follow the rules anyways. My rant for the day.... thanks!
 
I agree with you Packrat. Most certainly any problem can be worked out if the parties are calm and understanding of eachothers point of view. It doesn't sound like this carrier took a very professional approach to resolving the problem. I just sort of put that out there because I don't think shippers and receivers have a clue what a delay can do to the drivers log book. I know Lowmiler would have worked out the probl
 
Funny as I just experienced the same thing with a well known broker today who specifically requested a pick up on Saturday (tommorow) at 7 am. I went above and beyond all curves to schedule a walmart appointment (acutally reschedule as I was going there friday). At 17h45 I received an email stating "I tried to call you but nobody answered..sorry to tell you your load tommorow has got cancelled." What the hell! Not I will come back empty?

I told them their shipper needs to pay this load as it was agreed, since there is no way I'll hold the driver there for that long.

What do you think is fair? Any opinions on this one? I will not give names here but I'm thinking going to the TIA and after the bond if need be.

By the way, I was sitting in front of my computer and beside the phone when they supposedly called. I think someone did not want to deal with all the mess on a Friday night. We were apparently the 4th truck being told the same thing.
 
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Certainly file a complaint with TIA if the broker is a member. I doubt you would have any success filing against their bond however. The surety bond is to protect monies due to a carrier after the broker has been paid for the shipment. If there is no payment from the shipper to the broker, there is nothing for the bond to "protect". Unfortunately, the surety bond, regardless of it's limit, does not offer restitution for bad behaviour or poor business practises. As a broker, we have experienced similar situations only in reverse. We arrange for a weekend pick up of a rush, hot load and on the morning of the pick-up we're told, " our outbound got cancelled", driver scheduled was out of hours", etc., etc. Can we ask the original carrier to pay for any additional fees we incurred in moving the load he missed? It is my opinion that any recourse for either party, would have to be specified in writing prior to the commencement of the shipment. Having said that however, are there many carriers that would agree to pay a penalty if they missed a load, and conversely, are there many brokers that would guarantee payment to a carrier in the event of a load cancellation? Perhaps.
 
"Funny as i just experienced the same thing with a well known broker today who specifically requeted a pick up on saturday (tommorow) at 7 am. I went above and behond all curves to schedule a walmart appointment (acutally reschedule as i was going there friday). 17h45 i received an email stating well i tried to call you but nobody answered sorry to tell you your load tommorow has got cancelled..... What the hell ! Empty i will come back. I told them their shipper needs to pay this load as it was agreed, since there is no way i'll hold driver there for that long."
Click to expand...

Sorry but I don't understand this. Pickup is for Saturday but you are going to be there Friday? You went above and beyond to deliver Friday? Load canceled and your driver is going to sit how long?
 
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@lowmiler88 ... Darn tootin' you'd be paying me to come home empty. However, having said that, we wouldn't be having an adversarial conversation either because you would have known before we took the load that there would be repercussions were we not able to reload because of delivery problems. No point in the carrier getting mad about it, these things happen, and when they do, the carrier should have the professionalism to seek fair and proper compensation from the broker through calm and rational discussion.

@wiseowl ... After putting that in writing, "Your issue is quite simple to resolve, request a copy of the backhaul that was cancelled and the drivers manifest from customs that he returned empty.", let me know how many of these brokers are going to send you loads, knowing full well that you would without hesitation, should it suit your needs, disclose their business to their competitors. As they are fond of saying in the backwoods of North Carolina ... "That dog just ain't gonna hunt.".

@martinwizz ... In a perfect world, this would never be an issue, but, this isn't a perfect world. As a carrier we have a policy that covers these events, and the cutoff is 12:00 noon Friday. If your delivery takes me past noon on Friday, and I can't reload because of it, you're paying me to come home. However, that doesn't mean that at noon we stop trying. We continue to search until the end of the day. If we get lucky then great, no one pays. If we don't get anything, then we apply the policy. For our established customer base it's driver pay and fuel. For one off type loads, it's all expenses, and they're documented for the customer. The shipper, or load broker, as the case may be, is made well aware of this policy before we ever accept the dispatch. Even our long term customer base is reminded every time this event has the potential to rear its ugly head.

@generalkonrad ... He changed his Walmart delivery to Friday (likely from Monday or Tuesday ... no easy feat that is) so he could be available for the Saturday pick up. Then Friday night, after regular business hours, with the truck already in position, the supplier cancelled that Saturday load. Now his driver is stuck there until probably Tuesday, being as this is a long weekend in the U.S.
 
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Michael the voice of reason...........I knew it would show up. We settled with the carrier as I said someone was being a little over zealous with the threats, everyone is happy and a pretty good discussion on this page.
 
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LOL ... thanks for the compliment :)
Glad it work out for everyone.

Communication, communication, communication ... there never was such a thing as too much communication :)
(Unless of course you're talking about my wife. Sometimes she talks too much ... makes my ears bleed ... LOL)
 
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