Should Carriers be held accountable?

T

TRUCKIT

Site Supporter
Jul 25, 2008
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Southern Ontario
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First off I would state that we are both a Carrier and Load Broker with a valid MC#).

Recently we moved (2) flatbed loads to Toronto ex. USA with a well established Carrier. Our load sheets were very specific regarding P.O. No's and B.O.L. No's. Both loads delivered on time, however, the first load was totally different than ordered. In fact it was destined to another province altogether. When we contacted the Carrier to mitigate the damage we were greeted with denial, foul language and threats.

It cost us more than we were paying on the load to fix the error so we setoff all of the funds from load 1 and the balance from load 2 to cover the full cost of fixing the error. Of course the shipper / consignee denied any wrongdoing and insisted we fix it.

Although our agreement was with the Carrier they want to blame the Shipper. My point is we did not contract with the shipper. We gave them (the Carrier) specific instructions which were not carried out. In light of the treatment we received when contacting the Carrier we did what we beleive was reasonable to rectify the problem and satisfy our Customer.


The Carrier did not even afford us the courtesy of a phone call when they said they noticed the load was not destined to the location on our load sheet at Origin. They state they move "Blind" shipments all the time.

The Carrier has now threatened us with small claims court if we do not pay them the agreed upon amount.

I am just wondering how others may have handled this situation. Would you pay them in full and take the loss yourself ?
 
if the carrier did what you asked them to on your load confirmation, you're at fault, unless you told him to check it out first or any exceptions, etc, but their are A LOT of loads out there that have completely different BOLs, etc, he should have called but you could have called the shipper to verify everything.

usually these types of problems never end well for anyone...
 
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Truckit, did the carrier not ask for the specific PO#'s you provided to them? I wonder how the shipper decided to give them any freight at all, or was it a "load to Canada" situation? It would appear from your explanation, that the shipper simply gave the carrier the wrong load. Could they perhaps recoup some of their expenses by delivering this wrong load to it's proper destination and then bill the shipper or the correct consignee? The carrier is at fault for not notifying you as soon as he was loaded with a completely different shipment than the one you contracted for. It's unfortunate that the carrier wasn't willing to work with you to fix the problem, there might have been an opportunity missed to establish either a better relationship with you or a new customer with the wrong load. As far as the billing is concerned, I believe you are responsible to pay for the 1 correct load without any offset. The second, incorrect load, did not belong to, or have anything to do with you or your customer and it should be the carriers responsibility to track down the party responsible to pay the freight charges, i.e. collect or prepaid or third party billing.
 
Truckitt I think you will find that you are responsible for both loads it is the shippers responsibility to assure they are shipping the right load if you leave this up to the carrier then you are asking and have recieved trouble. I'm not sure what kind of company (shipper) you are dealing with but for the shipper to wipe there hands in this is completely wrong. I'm not saying the carrier was right they definitely should check but if it goes to court I'm almost certain you will be paying and the shipper is ultimately responsible for ensuring the right product was loaded. Who runs there business thinking that a truck driver is there last line of defence to make sure everything is right?
 
Hey Truck it... As a company that is primarily a broker, I have run into this situation before.

Fortunately for us... the truck was only 30 minutes down the road when the error was discovered. And after "tuning in" the shipper (He called saying "YOUR DRIVER TOOK THE WRONG FREIGHT" - this is the same guy that doesn't allow drivers on the dock. I had asked if the driver loaded himself. "Ummm No." To that I replied... "let's get on the same page here - you loaded the wrong freight on him... now, lets try to fix this.").

Agreed it's important for drivers to give the correct PO numbers and to identify who they're picking up for etc. I've been called hundreds of times by a confused shipper saying "I might have your truck here... all the driver knows is that he's picking up 2 skids."

For this shipper to wash his hands of the entire situation here is wrong. I agree that the carrier is partly to blame but more so the shipper is at fault. I think that the fair thing to do here is to split up the extra expense to make things right and keep the end customer happy.

No, you probably wont show a profit on this. But sometimes, that's the cost you pay to secure future business.

In the end... everyone is a little wiser.

Good luck.
 
I was a traffic manager for 20 years and, unless the driver loaded their own freight, we never held the carrier or the broker responsible for picking up the wrong freight.

My staff had a procedure to follow and were held accountable if the freight was shipped incorrectly.

I can also tell you that 90% of the drivers had no clue as to what they were picking up or where it was going? I always told them to contact thier dispatcher and get all the details before they come in to get loaded. There should be no guess work in this situation.

Ultimately, it's the shipper's responsability to make sure the carrier leaves with the correct load.

Good luck with this and keep us posted.
 
Although I completely agree the Shipper obviously screwed up, I think something else needs to be questioned. Isn't the BOL the legal agreement?? If the carrier accepted and signed then you would think they should have partial responsibility
 
cdaustransporter said:
Although I completely agree the Shipper obviously screwed up, I think something else needs to be questioned. Isn't the BOL the legal agreement?? If the carrier accepted and signed then you would think they should have partial responsibility
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well if you assign him a load that tells him to go from point A to point B and the BOL says differently he should call asap
 
cdaustransporter said:
Although I completely agree the Shipper obviously screwed up, I think something else needs to be questioned. Isn't the BOL the legal agreement?? If the carrier accepted and signed then you would think they should have partial responsibility
Click to expand...

You are correct unless there is a seperate agreement that supercedes the BOL. In this case our load confirmation sheet setting out all the conditions including P.O. & BOL numbers was signed by the Carrier. By the way neither the shipper or consignee were our customer.
 
If the driver is given all of the pertinent information such as PO #'s, description, BOL #'s, then they have to be held accountable to a degree. It is their responsibility to ensure the shipper knows the PO's they are there to pick up, and it is their responsibility to confirm the shipper puts the right PO's on their truck.

If they fail to do this then the carrier has to accept part of the blame. It's when the driver is not given any other information other than "2 skids", the shipper loads "2 skids" and off the driver goes. Then the infamous "YOUR DRIVER TOOK THE WRONG FREIGHT" call comes in.

In Truckits case, I would say the carrier is definitely to blame, at least partially. They were given all of the pertinent information, the driver chose not to confirm he was given the proper freight, even though he had all of the information available to him. The fact that it was destined for a different province should have been the first clue that something was wrong.

I agree with lowmiler, Truckit is responsible for paying full rate for the load that did get delivered correctly, and try to work an agreement out for the other incorrect load.

Good luck.
 
First of all, I'm a carrier not a broker. That said I'm not sure what the discussion is all about. If it happened as Truckit said, the carrier screwed up and should make it right end of story. If one of my guys picks up a shipment and there is anything different from what I told him, he calls me. If he doesn't, he makes it right out of his own pocket.
 
Obviously, if the driver signed the BOL and the paperwork was incorrect, then that should have tipped them off.

It's becomes very difficult to speculate on what actually happened in this situation.
The driver could have asked for the correct load, received the proper documentation and still be loaded with the wrong freight.
However, we do know that the BOL was incorrect and the driver should have seen that.

Unfortunately, the driver that picks up the load isn't always the driver that is doing the delivery, so that could also be a factor. Some companies provide the driver with a run sheet or pick-up slip and, although it's not the preferred way to operate, many drivers do not even read the BOL other than to sign for the shipper's load count.

I know the carrier should take some responsibility for what is loaded on the trailer but, as mentioned before, many shippers do not allow drivers to be present during loading.

There's no question that the carrier should have caught this, but the shipper should not have allowed it to happen in the first place.
 
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