Starship Logistics - Georgetown

Status
Not open for further replies.
Add me to the list of companies waiting for payment from Starship Logistics. My invoice is dated November 15 and I have been told it was received on November 19. Their A/P person Maria told us in mid-Jan that our cheque would be mailed by Feb 1 or 2.

The invoice is now over 3 months old so I called today and spoke to Mike who was supposed to call me back by the end of the day. At 4:45 he had not called back so I called him again. He told me his cheque was mailed last Friday.
 
Add me to the list of companies waiting for payment from Starship Logistics. My invoice is dated November 15 and I have been told it was received on November 19. Their A/P person Maria told us in mid-Jan that our cheque would be mailed by Feb 1 or 2.

The invoice is now over 3 months old so I called today and spoke to Mike who was supposed to call me back by the end of the day. At 4:45 he had not called back so I called him again. He told me his cheque was mailed last Friday.

Correction: I advised the chq was signed Friday and likely mailed Mon-Tues.

Johnny, I'm sorry you are not satisfied but am sure you will be when you have been paid for services rendered (and you did a good job of that shipment I might add).

I wish everyone could be paid in 10 days but of course that would mean that we were paid in 10 days by all customers (I'd be dreaming).

If we are fortunate enough to work together again please request at the time of booking payment terms are to be clearly stated on your carrier confirmation sheet. I like this very much as everyone can be on the same page this way.

Thank you for your follow up today,

Mike
 
Mike, how do you relate 10 days to 90 days?

You have to admit, 90 days is completely unacceptable, or at least should be, for every carrier out there. He wasn't asking you to pay in 10 days, he was stating that his invoice was at 90 days and he still hadn't received payment.

I had spoken to you about why we weren't working with you, you assured me we would be paid within 45 days if we worked with you again. I took you at your word and took another load from you.

Invoice date- 05/19/10
Payment date- 08/11/10

That is not anywhere near 45 days, even after I had your personal assurance.
 
There are alot of complaints about Starship, but I just want to voice that I have never had a problem myself either with payment or dealing with anyone at Starship. Our last payment was received at 60 days, but take off a few days for mailing at either end and you are at about 50.
Just my 2 cents...not trying to negate any other companies problems.
 
Please give me your trip number (I'd like to look this up). I want to find out how this fell through the cracks.

Of course we have suppliers who are paid at 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 (just like our customers pay us) but in this case I do remember discussing with you 45 days and need to find out what happened here.

Thx,
Mike
 
MyTrucksMyRates... I agree completely, thanks for piping in. You seem to be a reasonable person.

MikeJr... Come on Mike, you know exactly what you said and that was that the cheque was mailed on Friday. Why on earth would I care when it was signed? After your comments here I am expecting that the cheque was likely mailed after our conversation.

I thank you for your kind words about our service, but you making us wait 3 months before sending us payment is not appreciated.

As for payment terms, our invoice clearly states our terms at the bottom of the page, as do many other company's invoices.

90 days is a far cry from 10, the fact that you talk about wishing you could pay carriers in 10 days but actually taking more than 90 makes me think you really are dreaming.

I will repost to update when I receive the cheque.
 
Just my 2 cents here. If you don't have the cash flow to handle 90 day payment terms from clients and still pay within reasonable terms to your suppliers than you shouldn't take on those clients.
 
Payment terms

I believe that if a broker, or carrier who also brokers out freight enters into a contract of carriage with a carrier, knowing in advance that the carrier's payment terms are 30 days with a 2% per month interest charge on late payments, they are morally and ethically obliged to include that interest amount in their payment to the carrier, without being asked to. If a broker doesn't automatically do this, then there's a problem that no amount of money can fix - an ethical problem. That's the cost of accepting work from a customer that pays in longer terms than that you willingly and knowingly agreed to with the carrier. If this cuts too severely into the margins, then that is no different than a carrier factoring invoices. You should legitimately accept that you are going to earn less money than if you had sufficient capitol for the volume of freight that you take on. If you don't - then you should get a job.
 
Just my 2 cents here. If you don't have the cash flow to handle 90 day payment terms from clients and still pay within reasonable terms to your suppliers than you shouldn't take on those clients.

toss in mine too, you are bang on and I'm not tring to trash anyone but your terms agreed with your customers should have nothing to do with how you pay your carriers. It is a business decision eveyone has to make can we pay our carriers when we agree if we take on this customer. But if you tell your carriers up front before they take the load then so be it, and they have to live with it.
 
Good Morning All,

In reading over all of these posts - I agree totally with Michael K.

Why would you take a load or 2 from a company knowing they likely won't meet your payment terms? No matter who it is? If you took these loads knowing full well there was a high possibility of waiting on payment 30/60/90+ days OR the chance of not being paid at all - these loads were certainly NOT going to break your company in any event.

Having said that - there is no justification in a customer (new or old) using a carrier as their bank. With loads and freight (for half decent margins) being so scare nowadays - many of us are forced to wait longer for monies to come in. In the case of Starship...there have been negative posts in the past. But no where have I read that someone didn't get paid by them. And Chica123 felt the need to pipe in and express her dealings as positive.

MikeJr certainly doesn't own Starship - nor does he write the cheques. I find it offensive that Senior members are jumping all over him for payment delays out of his control. I am sure we all have benefited from MikeJr's postings and information he has contributed. There is no running away or unanswered posts on his part.

Are negative posts consisting of "he said...she said", payment delays and "cheque is in the mail" really where we want to go here with this thread? Everyone was paid here so lets move on to more beneficial and interesting discussions.

We all decide who we want to deal with in this business - choose wisely...with common sense and reason behind your choices...
 
Accountsreceivable@DRC....

Unless I am misreading the comments, I think Michael K is directing that point TO MikeJr. I believe he is saying that Starship does not have the cash flow to pay their suppliers in a timely manner. I also don't think that the comment about MikeJr not owning the company is a good excuse. He is a VP and if he gave his word something would be done that that should stand. My two cents.....
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you all for your comments today, as always I like to hear from our suppliers (good and bad). I follow up on everything brought to my attention as best as I can with the information provided me.

I'm always available (24 hours) on my direct line as is posted in my personal profile here and do try to attend to the 4-5 calls monthly I do get relating to payment.

The good news is that the remaining 500+ cheques that are cut and happily cashed every month by the large majority of our suppliers I never hear from...

Keep well,
Mike
 
Yes Packrat, that is what I was saying.Taking on clients that do not pay in a timely manner and than in turn not paying your suppliers in a timely manner is bad business.
It doesn't matter how many clients you have if you don't have the suppliers to back it up.
 
Michael K,

I did interpret your post the other way around....I see your original meaning now...

My reply still applies here...regardless if I am drawing or elaborating on your comment.

Being in credit - I tend to view points from a certain angle - need to adjust the "lense" sometimes....
 
I agree with Accountsreceivable@DRC, in that Mike Jr has relevant, informative and insightful posts here on our little forum. My post was in no way an attack on him as a person, only stating that Starship paid me in 90 days as opposed to the 45 days he had assured me.

By the way Mike, your trip number was 18942.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
By the way Mike, your trip number was 18942.

Thank you for this, I see that there is a note in your carrier profile that I inputted 05/10 indicating to pay in 40 days. I also see that this was not flagged at the time of booking (05/18/10 9:06AM) nor was this flagged at the time your revision was sent to you with release number (05/18/10 4:45PM). Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I hope I can prevent this from happening again. Of course the purpose of applying notes to a carrier profile is that they are attended to.

Keep well,
Mike
 
I guess I need to count myself extremely lucky...I'm always paid within 30 days...and in 8 years in business have only incurred 500 dollars in bad debts.. From what I've gleaned from this forum and elsewhere, late payments and nonpayments are a serious problem throughout this industry..and I thank my lucky stars it really hasn't touched me.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.