I would like your input on this.

hockeylover

Member
Jul 5, 2010
124
2
18
2
Hello all you educated peeps.

I hired a carrier to pick up in Calgary, AB. It was a truckload with two drops, one in Regina and one in Saskatoon.

After the truck was booked and possibly dropped to load already, we were informed by the client that they need to transfer some items.

We were to tell the carrier that they had a transfer to add to the shipment for Saskatoon. I totally forgot to tell him this. When the driver saw they were putting more freight on, he called his dispatch and advised him. The carrier fipped out and said he had his own half truckload to deliver to Saskatoon and that he intended to go back to his yard and load it now.

The driver apparently unloaded the half load of product back to their dock and left.

The carrier ends up talking to my client and the carrier claims the client said he would not be paid in full because of this.

My customer claims he told him that Debut may not pay him in full due to this, something I never said.

The carrier put the shipment in his yard and demanded a credit card payment before he would deliver the rest of the shipment. I paid him a credit card this morning so he will deliver today at noon.

My client feels that he paid for a truckload service and is entitled to demand that no other freight be loaded on with his product as he paid for the whole truck with two drops.

My customer was angry yesterday and wanted to call the police on the carrier involved, as he says he was holding the freight hostage.

I have dealt with the carrier for several years and was insulted that he asked for pre-payment but if he felt he was going to be shorted or not paid, perhaps that is okay.

Tell me what you think.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Wrong

Hello all you educated peeps.

I have dealt with the carrier for several years and was insulted that he asked for pre-payment but if he felt he was going to be shorted or not paid, perhaps that is okay.

Tell me what you think.

OK, what if after dealing with a customer for 2 years - then out of the blue, the carrier, broker demands credit card payment before they will move the product after they have picked up? _ Ethically in this case, the carrier was un-reasonable. I can see if this carrier never dealt with you before and this was their 1st shipment with you.....but this incident....carrier was wrong.
 
If your customer requested a full load with an extra drop or two, why did the carrier think he could load 'his half truckload" onto that same trailer? Was a truckload requested by the customer and if so, did you request the same from the carrier? I can sympathise with your customer who expected a level of service that wasn't provided and in addition, had his freight held due to what appears to be some serious confusion between you and the carrier. Your customer's anger and the carriers reluctance to proceed without payment isn't surprising based on your version of the story.
 
T Doyle Service issues and Judy attitudy from the dispatch

Yes the carrier was booked as a truckload with two drops.

Maggs thanks for the input. I have dealt with him for almost all twelve years since we opened. Of course I paid him to diffuse the situation and get the freight delivered, but I too felt he was being unreasonable.

I even called him this morning hoping he had calmed down and I said "do you still need pre-payment before you will deliver?" and he said "yes". This was his chance to be reasonable and work it out with us.

Is he entitled to reload his customer on with the truck I have paid for to Saskatoon?


Hockeylover
 
Last edited by a moderator:
No way, Jose! If you paid for an FTL then that carrier should not be entitled to load up more freight after drop one. Though many carriers do it, it doesn't mean it is right. We all want to make more $$ but this guy is, without a doubt, biting the hand that feeds him. And to demand a credit card payment with that kind of history...86 that carrier and "Judy Attitudy" (love this, by the way).

Sandy
 
T. Doyle Transport has been serving Western Canada for more than 20 years. Honesty, reliability and customer satisfaction are the elements that have made us a success. Do business with us and you'll see why our customers keep coming back.


thats their slogan.......so hockeylover....are you going to come back?
 
Incorrect Information

Im Tyrone Doyle, I would like to clear some of the information regarding this Shipment we are in the process of delivering for Debut Transport.

First of all I would like to say we have never had an issue with them although we have not done a lot of business together.

On this particular delivery with the Regina/Saskatoon split, this was in effect backwards delivery for us because of the weekend. So in effect if we would have done it the Logical way being Saskatoon First then for sure the shipper would have had the right to fill out out the trailer to Regina. But as it was backwards the extra miles was at a loss to us, so we make up the shortfall if we can.

The 50.00 extra that was offered for the half trailer to Saskatoon was not enough and we asked for more and both driver and dispatcher were victim to verbal abuse by the Recieving Manager(not Debut) who demanded we do these or he will make sure we do not get paid for the entire shipment.. This put up a Red Flags for us and we asked for Visa payment before the balance of load was delivered.

I must add that this is the only legal tool we have for this type of situation and the police have no legal jurisdiction in these matters.


Aslo, we just recieved that Visa payment at approx 2 pm local time .

Im not saying Debut would not have paid us for these, but we have enough bad debt in this industry to make us weary of any potential threat of non payment.

This would have been a non-issue if there would have been clear communciation on all the requirements of the shipments.

So there you have it ...hope this clears up some of the issues,

Thanks for your time.
 
The perfect example of "2 sides to every story". Good on ya for giving your side. I some what understand your reasoning behind the scenario, however, why wouldn't you have just asked for the credit card info to secure the funds, in case Debut didn't pay? Why would you have agreed to take the freight if it didn't pay enough? Did you tell Debut that since they were running the deliveries backwards and the weekend issue, you were going to throw more freight on. If they weren't going to toss more money in for the run-around, then they could have let you put more freight on.
The whole freight/ransom thing is a scary thought for any carrier or broker. Maybe things could have been done a different way.
Just a thought.

Sandy
 
Tyrone, I see why you got your back up. But it's really just rhetoric, nobody with any ethics would ever do that. Over the years, I've had other receivers who in fact weren't the customer claim they weren't going to pay, and generally hotheads like that don't have any buying power anyway. I'm not saying we should screw them up on purpose, but sometimes just take it and go forward.

Sometimes you just have to know which fights to pick. I definitely see why Debut was upset about this though.
 
My two cents

You can clearly see that there are some pertinent factors that were not divulged in the earlier conversations.
The fear here was not specifically that Debut would not pay but red flags went up anyway.

As a carrier you cannot hold freight from one shipment in order to pay for a previously outstanding invoice , although you can ask for COD.

I myself spent part of the afternoon Friday March 2nd, at the local police station in a suburb of Montreal charging another carrier with fraud.
The officer tried in vain to discourage me from proceeding. I simply answered that I was a good corporate citizen and paid all my taxes and now was here to get what I pay my taxes for. I would not leave until the complaint was filed.

What led to the fraud charge was the carrier putting a stop payment on a check that was given under the understanding that extra charges of $375.00 were added to the original contract.
We felt that the extra charges were not going to be paid if we did not go this route. The amount of the check was made out including the extra charge.

We honored our deal and delivered, all the other carrier had to do was pay. Of course they did not and sent some bogus letter saying their accounting had made a mistake and issued the check in error , they would now correct it to the original amount including an offer of the 5% discount which was really good seeing they now were admitting to usurism as well, the officer was stunned when he saw that.

The end result is that we have laid fraud charges ( look up the definition of transport fraud on the Canadian Justice website) and you will see that you are in your right.
The Carrier now has a criminal history and file , all for $375.00.

When we pursue in small claims court, we will let the judge know there is a concurrent criminal investigation on the same matter.

The cancellation of the check was clearly a simple ruse to get us to the deliver the freight, that is clear fraud.
We are no longer giving in, waiting from 7:30am until 1:30 pm on a week day in South Carolina for LTL with other commitments on our trailer for $100.00 is simple not going to happen. If the carriers customer will not pay, that is their problem and not mine. They are my customer not the end user, we will not back solicit but on the other hand we expect what is due.
 
Definitely lacking ethics in my opinion (on the broker's part). I'm surprised you would take freight from them with your opinion on them making good on accessorials though.
 
First off, NO carrier should demand payment for a load before it is delivered...If you feel like you may not get paid, or have a bad feeling about something, pull out and decline the load.


That being said, the 1 question I have is....

How was this load rated??? Everyone knows it should go Saskatoon then Regina.. However being a weekend with a carrier based in Regina, did the broker rate it Regina then Saskatoon?

That is the question I would like to know.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Madbooker

Events in this business a very fluid, it is not always clear cut.

As with any other business , certain customers are better than others.

A broker may have to use a carrier he does not really like , as a carrier may deal with a freight broker that he uses in last resort.

When extra charges are incurred there needs to be reasonable agreement on the additional cost.
Unfortunately, this does not always occur.

In the case that you are dealing with a marginal client, getting paid what is owed is more important than retaining a marginal customer. Hence COD is requested. You well know that you will hopefully end up on their DNU list.

Now if this client is such a good customer of the freight broker, it is then a no brainer to pay the COD to satisfy his customer.
 
alx I agree with you totally being a carrier if someone threatens not to pay we will do anything to secure payment because the fuel company expects to be paid and the driver expects to be paid. I don't think the relationship between broker and carrier was one of doing a lot a business with each other so their may not have been a great relationship, if you do a lot of loads with one Broker you do have the relationship and it would not have gotten to hold the load point.
 
alx... lowmiler.....

I hear ya and agree ... As a broker i have had to use some carriers I don't like, and i'm sure some carriers have taken some loads from me just to move a truck.
What I was refering to with my post was that the carrier held the load and demanded visa payment before delivering.I don't consider that COD...
Also i am in no way blaming the carrier in this certain post until i find out how the load was rated.
 
Madbooker

We comprehend.

Once took a two dropper from a good client.
Load MTL. deliver near Toledo , then the bottom of Kentucky.

Once loaded the 2nd half to Kentucky became urgent as the client was running out of stock.

We ran the load that way just getting unloaded in Ohio on Friday pm.
We found a p/u on Saturday to get back.

We never changed the rate and kept things as they were and we still do business together. The client is of course well like by our staff!
 
we all need to get along here. lol

Thank you everyone for the input.

After discussing with my dispatch I learned that T. Doyle requested that we deliver Regina first the, Sasky. Not the other way around.

Also you are located in Regina, so perhaps you had a plan all along to bring the truck back to your yard to fill up the half a truckload of freight on your dock for Sasky.

Personally I have not had a problem with a carrier doing this in the past, but not without me knowing about it.

First reason is my product was plastic wrapped mattresess. I would not like a variant of other products on the truck without knowing what the product first

Not all product is skidded and packaged like a nice square so damage to my product due this or an odourous substance, is plausible.

So therefore this may risk damage to the mattesess and their packaging.

There was never any mention of wanting to go to Sasky first, in fact the opposite so why suggest that we made you incurr extra milage.

I appolgize about all the misunderstanding but I truly was insulted. Transportation specialists have feelings too. I did fax the Visa authorization at first to an older telephone number of yours. This is why you never received my approval until 2:00 pm on March 6th.

Delivery was only completed on March 7th.

One of our industry peeps has brought up a good point. In the future maybe you could request the Visa info just in case the invoice is not paid. That may have been more reasonable.

I will admit that my customer had suggested that I don't pay you in full.

My reply was " in twelve years I have never done that" and I won't start now. Especially if a service is completed, regardless of the events enroute, as drivers need to be paid and the freight did arrive so a client may try to use this a copout to get out of paying all his bill. Like another peep mentioned if you are a good client, you may decide to swallow, take a deep breath, count to ten, hold your breath, scream and then offer them a reasonable discount for the inconveience the bad service has caused.

Next time I will demand exclusive use, which is my right and ask the first receiver to re-seal the truck for the second. I will advise my carrier in advance so they can decide if the order will work for them first.

Unfortunately I am guilty of not advising the carrier that there would be a transfer of goods at the first pick up and offereing him a $50.00 second pick up fee.

Debbie:)
 
Well after reading both sides, I'm going to have to side with the broker on this one....

As I have mentioned in an earlier post , NO carrier should hold a load thinking he won't get paid... COD fine but in my opinion this was not the case...He held your load hostage ...

I understand everyone wants to make money however the agreed rate was an FTL with a drop.

It is NOT a carriers decision to automatically think he can add freight to the other half of a load...

Most of the time it goes un noticed however in this case more frieght was added

As a carrier you gotta suck that up and deliver the freight as per the rate agreement...
 
Last edited by a moderator: