Truck broke down

B

bigt

Active Member
Sep 3, 2010
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Hello,
I need help with, our truck broke down on the way to New Jersey from BC. on friday and when we found out that shop is not able to detect what is wrong, we end up sending second truck from Delta,BC to Missoula,MT with team and load was late 36 hours(Tomatoes). Then receiver refused to take load and said we missed second appointment.Load brokerand shipper was aware of the situation all the time. product was packed and labeled with this store's own brand or logo. shipper try to put claim and insurance company denied the claim saying that there is no such fine line in the (any) insurance that covers it. That broker owes us over 50k. and might play the game to deduct the money for the claim .Does any body have any suggestion how to handle it? Claim is about 15k.
 
Bigt,

This sounds like a series of unfortunate events.
Did you contact everyone (customer, consignee) as soon as possible after the truck broke down?
Did this broker ever tell you before you picked up (in writing) that if you missed this delivery you would have to cough up $15000?
Was this a refrigerated load?
Remind the broker that it is illegal to hold payment for a pending claim.

My questions seem one sided if favour of you on purpose. I can not come up with clean language to describe my thoughts on people who 'impose' large and sometimes seemingly random numbers (dollar amounts) that you are accountable for without ever knowing or agreeing to...

Keep well,
Mike
 
Mike,
it was load of tomatoes, yes reefer load. we were not allowed to call receiver (Meijer). Shipper and freight broker were notified right way. broker even call the shop couple of times to find out what is going on.It was weekend and the problem was, shop could not find any thing(mechanically) on the truck till Monday. But, we end up sending second truck bob tailing and broker, i believe changed the appointment to next day. but even sending second truck, we did not had enough time to deliver on second appointment. So load got refused and shipper told us to deliver to their ware house in Delaware. which we did and then they said they can't sell it to some one else since boxes have Meijer's labels on them and then they try to put the claim on it.
 
bigt said:
Mike,
it was load of tomatoes, yes reefer load. we were not allowed to call receiver (Meijer). Shipper and freight broker were notified right way. broker even call the shop couple of times to find out what is going on.It was weekend and the problem was, shop could not find any thing(mechanically) on the truck till Monday. But, we end up sending second truck bob tailing and broker, i believe changed the appointment to next day. but even sending second truck, we did not had enough time to deliver on second appointment. So load got refused and shipper told us to deliver to their ware house in Delaware. which we did and then they said they can't sell it to some one else since boxes have Meijer's labels on them and then they try to put the claim on it.
Click to expand...

The broker screwed up by booking the delivery for the next day. If he had called the shop and knew the truck wasn't being fixed he shouldn't have booked an appointment. As long as you told him you were bobtailing a truck to rescue the load then he should have taken information from you as to when the load could be at the receiver and book it according to your information.

Undoubtedly they signed the bills "Subject to Claim" so you will have that issue to deal with. They can take a percentage off considering that they will experience a loss when they sell the product at a discounted rate. If they want to claim a total loss, the freight belongs to the trucking company and they can sell it to someone else to recoup some of the loss. If they kept the freight, they probably are going to sell it for whatever they can get.

Ask for the inspection report before you agree to any claim. Thirty six hours late does not create a total loss, not even with tomatoes.
 
Lowmiler,
Bill of lading is signed with no notes on it. This is shipper's own cross dock or warehouse in Delaware, where we wer delivering half load and end up delivering full load.
But the other half which we suppose to deliver in Tipp city, at Meijer is one with issue here. Their delivery had their labels on the boxes and may be on packaging as well. i do belive they have sold the product to some one else. because when half load got refused in Tipp city, and they told us to take every thing to Delawre, we ask broker many many times what' is the situation with it, They kept saying, just deliver to Delawre and we will deal with that later. Our bills are clean. This broker is one of our good customer for years and pays good and with in terms.30 days which is not normal for lots of brokers or customers, i guess.
I think broker is stuck in the middle and does not want to argue with his customer even though they know all the facts here.
 
RK I agree with most of your statement except the part where the load is the carriers if it is a complete right off, when it has a specific company name on it you cannot re-sell to just anyone and with food they are responsible for tracking it to it's end destination which in this case would be destruction. They would need a destruction certificate which you can ask for and it would be specific for the product. We sell and ship numerous Private Label goods with expiry date and lot numbers and all product is destroyed if damaged/frozen/past expiry date etc. We report to Health Canada and go through a review every 3 years which rivals an MTO audit.
bigt since you have a clear BOL you probably are ok but if you want to keep the customer you will need to come to some understanding, I really don't think you should be held accountable at all but depending on the conversation you will need to assess yourself.
 
lowmiler88 said:
RK I agree with most of your statement except the part where the load is the carriers if it is a complete right off, when it has a specific company name on it you cannot re-sell to just anyone and with food they are responsible for tracking it to it's end destination which in this case would be destruction. They would need a destruction certificate which you can ask for and it would be specific for the product. We sell and ship numerous Private Label goods with expiry date and lot numbers and all product is destroyed if damaged/frozen/past expiry date etc. We report to Health Canada and go through a review every 3 years which rivals an MTO audit.
bigt since you have a clear BOL you probably are ok but if you want to keep the customer you will need to come to some understanding, I really don't think you should be held accountable at all but depending on the conversation you will need to assess yourself.
Click to expand...

It has been a while since I was involved with reefer freight and food product claims. I never had a problem with private label goods but I have had issues with "a load of lettuce" going to a major chain and when they refused the entire load, we sold it to another company to mitigate our losses. In the case of bigt, I still think there should only be a deduction, not a complete write off. I cannot believe that the product went from sellable to unsellable in 36 hours unless the reefer was off and it was in the middle of the desert! Kept at the right temperature, the tomatoes would only deteriorate at a normal rate. Tomatoes sit in the warehouse for a week or more at times.
 
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