New way to back solicit

loaders

loaders

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Feb 26, 2008
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After 21 years in business, I thought by now there was nothing I haven't heard or seen that would surprise me. Well, today I learned a sneaky new method of back solicitation. We received a call from a customer who had just received a full load we had arranged on their behalf. Low and behold, the carrier had attached to the packing slip, a copy of their invoice made out and addressed as it should be, to us. Fortunately, this was a prepaid shipment from the manufacturer, so the rate we paid the carrier was of no interest to the receiver. However, had this been a collect shipment, how convenient for the carrier to let the receiver know exactly what he was being paid for his services. I am sure that this receiver will probably be getting a follow-up call from the carrier to discuss rates and future opportunities! Needless to say, when we confronted the carrier about this, he had "no idea" how this could happen. I debated about posting the carrier's name in this post and depending on the response from my fellow members, I may reconsider and release the name. Wow, just when you thought you'd seen and heard it all!
 
No idea how it happened....I bet.
The invoice would have been generated by someone in administration prior to the delivery. Can't blame this one on the driver.
It only points in one direction... back solicitiation...
My 2 cents.
 
Hi Loaders, I myself would release the name of the carrier as it shows pure un-ethical practice. YOU dont back solicite - bottom line.
 
I dont believe Loaders was placing blame directly with the driver, but the organization itself, unless it is a one man show. But WOW, I never heard of an invoice being attached to any BOL upon delivery?
 
Exactly what I was thinking Dietcoke. I don't think a driver would have the time or equipment on board to do up an invoice. I mean if they wanted "quick pay", all they had to do was ask, but this is outright back soliciting plain and simple. OK the carrier is B Gill Trucking, 26 Gatesgill St., Brampton, 647-294-6880. Capital DNU!!!!!
 
That sounds like a case of trying to get paid twice. I can't believe they had the cojones to do that, especially when the BOL is prepaid and the relationship is 3rd-party. On the other hand, maybe the company's biller doesn't understand how 3rd-party billing works and was an honest mistake...unless the person doing the billing was the owner, as is sometimes the case with really really small companies. Honest mistake or no, that's a major faux pas.

I suggest this clip as your warning to them:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VopC0g5UViM]Somebody Gonna Get a Hurt Real Bad - YouTube[/ame]
 
The load was given by LOADERS, therefore that is the only company that this carrier should have invoiced. No excuses on this one.
 
I agree this is back-solicitation but is it a new way? No. I've seen this happen years ago actually.

But usually the ones that do it are too stupid to know who the paying party is, and for sure don't know who is in control. When it's happened in the past, my customers just laughed it off. They're not stupid, they knew we were marking it up. The point is they don't want 100000 vendors to move 100000 loads.

As long as you're not putting stupid mark-ups on, you shouldn't worry about it either.
 
Nova67, I don't know if the carrier was paid enough to move the load, that is his decision not mine, I do know however, that he said "yes" and accepted our rate as offered. Again, the invoice was correctly made out to us atthe agreed rate so he wasn't looking to be paid twice. The receiver, who is also a customer wasn't upset or even interested as he wasn't paying the freight this time. I believe that this was an amateurish attempt by the carrier to weasel his way in by ensuring that the receiver saw the rate we were paying. As the man said, most shippers don't want or need hundreds of different vendors to move their freight and are willing to pay a reasonable mark-up for a more simple, streamlined approach.
 
We've just finished our first shipmnet with this company (delivered yesterday) - B. Gill.

Shipment delivered yesterday and I just now received their fax with POD and invoice (I'm impressed). I can not confirm if the same invoice went to the shipper.

Perhaps they have realized the mistake and now are billing the correct party?

Keep well,

Mike
 
I hate to be devils advocate here because if this was done on purpose then it was a low stunt to do.

But maybe......
The company printed an invoice and put it with the rest of the paperwork of the load and it accidently got caught on a paperclip and hitched a free ride with the BOL to the receiver and the driver never caught it.
Our system will not allow us to invoice until it is delivered so that won't happen to us but I have had an 'office' copy of a US Bond hitch a ride with a BOL. Not as big of a deal but we were all wondering where it went.

Maybe we should err on the side of caution on this one.
 
It's really no big deal. So what if the customer sees what the carrier is invoicing you. I don't see how that's back solication. The customer knows you must make something over and above what you pay out to the carrier..surely that can't come as a surprise to him. And if the customer balks at the amount then ask yourself why he hired you in the first place..he's NOT the expert.
 
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Years ago I was moving some loads inbound from NC. Normally a fairly easy lane to cover and I had 3 or 4 regular carriers that did a good job on it. This was back in the day when you could make 3 or $400.00 on a truck load. One day I just couldnt get it moved and had to bring in a carrier from several hundred miles away and pay a pile of empty miles, which brought my mark up down to a small loss. Oh well, didnt care at least we covered the load.
Well, the carrier made an honest mistake and billed my customer. My customer called me and said " How in the world do you make any money doing this?"
I said, we don't, and negotiated an increase. Good times!
 
I had a TL to cover last week. I called a few regulars... none of them were near so I posted it on Load Link.

An American carrier called on it... He said he had trucks in this location daily. We agreed on a price... he sent me his authorities we sent him our credit info. We did a quick check and all seemed in order. We sent him all the info.

Thirty minutes later he calls and says he can't do the load (said one of the other dispatchers booked all the trucks for the next few days)... Today our customer called asking if we'd heard of "XYZ carrier" as they just received a rate quotation from them.

Fortunately, we have a good relationship with this shipper and (for now) the freight is secure.

But jeeze... as the economy struggles... folks are getting more and more creative at screwin' one another.
 
Nawk said:
I had a TL to cover last week. I called a few regulars... none of them were near so I posted it on Load Link.

An American carrier called on it... He said he had trucks in this location daily. We agreed on a price... he sent me his authorities we sent him our credit info. We did a quick check and all seemed in order. We sent him all the info.

Thirty minutes later he calls and says he can't do the load (said one of the other dispatchers booked all the trucks for the next few days)... Today our customer called asking if we'd heard of "XYZ carrier" as they just received a rate quotation from them.

Fortunately, we have a good relationship with this shipper and (for now) the freight is secure.

But jeeze... as the economy struggles... folks are getting more and more creative at screwin' one another.
Click to expand...

Nawk,

You're not going to tell us which US carrier did this to you?

I'd like to avoid them if at all possible...

Thank you for any further info you are able to provide.

Keep well,

Mike
 
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