Malicious Intent

A broker accused a carrier of malicious intent because the carrier’s email got hacked and a load was stolen.

The next week, that same broker got hacked too.

https://youtu.be/vXtwcDlXSw4

Episode Highlights

Freight fraud isn’t what it used to be. It’s not just double brokering anymore. It’s email hijacking, identity theft, ghost fleets, and operations run by organized groups who are better at technology than most trucking companies will ever be.

In this episode of This Week in Trucking, we sit down with John Cantera, known in the industry as the Double Broker Bounty Hunter. John has spent 25 years in logistics and supply chain — starting as a logistics officer in the Air Force where he was a certified war planner, then working in retail logistics, manufacturing, distribution warehousing, port operations, and managing 60,000 container chassis across the Southeast before spending the last decade focused on trucking, dispatching, and fighting freight fraud.

Important note: This conversation was recorded before the Supreme Court’s Montgomery v. FCA ruling. The ruling has since come down, and John’s analysis of what was at stake is now playing out in real time. We’ve noted where the landscape has shifted below.

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How Freight Fraud Has Evolved Beyond Double Brokering

“It’s not simple double brokering anymore. Instead of skimming off the top, they’re stealing the entire freight bill.” — John Cantera

When John started fighting fraud, double brokers were skimming about 30% off the top of a freight bill. A bad actor would pose as a carrier, book a load, repost it on DAT or Truckstop, and pay a real carrier less while pocketing the difference.

That was 2020. Today it’s worse.

They’ve moved to impersonations, email hacking, and cargo theft. The fraud evolves faster than anyone can publish guides about it.

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Email Hacking: The Fraud Most Carriers Don’t See Coming

“They get into your inbox, find a load they like, download the email, delete it from your inbox. You never even know it came in.” — John Cantera

Here’s how it works now. Hackers, often organized groups, break into a carrier’s email. They sit there and wait. When a load comes in that interests them — usually high-value cargo — they download the email, delete it from the inbox, and respond as the carrier from the carrier’s own email address.

They accept the load. They send a different truck. They steal the freight.

The real carrier has no idea until a broker calls asking where their load is. And the broker often blames the carrier, because the communication came from the carrier’s email.

John has seen brokers accuse carriers of negligence for getting hacked. Meanwhile, those same brokers with 10-person IT departments have been hacked themselves.

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Ghost Fleets: Fake DOT Numbers at Industrial Scale

“Somebody will create a DOT number and make up a thousand signs for it and pass it out to all their friends who drive for different companies.” — John Cantera

Ghost fleets are one of the biggest scams running right now. Someone creates a dummy DOT number, prints signs, and distributes them to drivers working for other trucking companies. When those drivers get pulled over, the inspection goes against the fake company — not the real one.

The result: a two-truck carrier with 500 inspections in two months. The math doesn’t compute. But it’s happening everywhere.

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The One Free Tool Every Carrier Must Use: Multi-Factor Authentication

“Multi-factor authentication is free. If you don’t use that, you are susceptible.” — John Cantera

John’s number one piece of advice for every carrier, regardless of size: enable multi-factor authentication on your email. Right now.

Most owner-operators use free email accounts — Gmail, Yahoo. These are easy targets. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) dramatically limits the risk of being hacked by requiring a second verification step beyond just your password.

It costs nothing. It takes minutes to set up. And it’s the single most important thing you can do to protect your identity and your business.

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How to Spot a Scam Before You Book the Load

John lays out the red flags every carrier should watch for:

On load boards: if the comment section says “email only” and it’s a Gmail address — not the broker’s domain — it’s almost certainly a scam. Freight brokers have their own domains. If they want you to email a Gmail address, question everything.

Above-market rates: if the rate looks too good, it’s bait. Bad actors post high rates specifically to get carriers to call in without thinking.

Pressure tactics: if someone is pushing you to move fast, not giving you time to verify, and getting frustrated when you ask questions — you’re probably dealing with a bad actor. Fraud works by forcing you to dump logic and act on emotion.

After booking: call the brokerage’s main number (not the person you booked with) and verify the load using the load ID. If they can’t confirm it, you have a problem. If it’s a small brokerage, call the shipper to verify which freight broker is assigned — but never discuss money with the shipper.

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FreightGuard Reports Are Being Weaponized Against Carriers

“Everyone takes that FreightGuard report as gospel. It often is not. It’s often a huge exaggeration, if not a total fabrication.” — John Cantera

False or exaggerated FreightGuard reports, Highway reports, and MCP reports can destroy a small carrier’s ability to get loads. Freight brokers use these reports to vet carriers, and a bad report — even an unfair one — means you stop getting booked.

John helps carriers fight back. His process:

Get all documentation from both sides Evaluate what actually happened (the truth is always somewhere in the middle) Present documented evidence to the freight broker as an independent voice Negotiate removal or resolution

His success rate: about 70%. If negotiation fails, he refers carriers to an attorney and has served as an expert witness in court.

The critical catch: only the broker who filed the report can remove it. No court can force removal — it’s protected under the First Amendment and the Federal Communications Decency Act. That’s why negotiation is everything.

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The Montgomery Ruling: What It Means for Carriers and Brokers

“What the Supreme Court was asked to decide was whether or not freight brokers can be held liable in such accidents.” — John Cantera

Context: This episode was recorded before the Montgomery v. FCA Supreme Court ruling was decided. The ruling has since come down — and it removed the preemption that previously shielded freight brokers from liability in accident cases.

Here’s what John explained was at stake, and what is now reality:

Before Montgomery: Freight brokers could cite the federal preemption rule (originally from federal aviation regulations) to shield themselves from liability in accidents. The logic: brokers don’t drive the trucks, so how can they be responsible?

After Montgomery: The Supreme Court removed that preemption. Brokers can now be held liable for negligent hiring — meaning if a broker knew or should have known a carrier was unsafe and hired them anyway, they can be sued in state court.

There are now roughly 900 active cases nationwide where brokers are being named as defendants.

What this means for carriers:

• Expect brokers to require higher truck insurance minimums — potentially $2 million to $3 million in vehicle liability coverage, up from the current $750,000 federal requirement
• Expect stricter vetting processes from every brokerage you work with
• If you operate safely, are properly insured, and have documentation in order, this ruling protects you — it raises the bar against unsafe operators

What this means for brokers:

• Every brokerage needs a documented, defensible carrier vetting process — timestamped, annotated, followed religiously
• The $75,000 broker bond is widely seen as inadequate
• FMCSA is tightening bond replenishment rules: seven calendar days to fix a bond that falls below $75,000, or two calendar days if the surety reports payment issues
• Nuclear verdicts in these cases are running $30 to $50 million. Most small brokerages cannot absorb that.

Justice Kavanaugh’s key phrase: “reasonable care.” If your process is documented and followed, you’re defensible. If it’s not, you’re exposed.

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John’s Advice to Every Carrier: Slow Down, Breathe, Vet Everything

“Now is the time for carriers to identify who they want to work with. The rates are on the carrier side. Take advantage of that. Breathe. Evaluate the broker.” — John Cantera

John’s practical advice for every owner-operator and small carrier:

Enable multi-factor authentication. It’s free and it’s the single most important protection you have.

Watch the paperwork. Font mismatches, blind BOL requests, and “do not speak to the shipper” instructions are all red flags.

Vet your brokers. Google the company, check the email domain, look for a real website. If the domain doesn’t match, walk away.

Use domestic dispatch. Foreign dispatch services often prioritize volume over quality and may not catch fraud red flags.

Build relationships now. Rates are strong. Use this time to develop broker relationships that will survive the next market swing — because that’s 12 to 18 months away.

Know your cost per mile. John asks carriers this question constantly. Almost none can answer it. If you don’t know your numbers, you can’t protect your margins.

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Cash Flow Is What Keeps Legitimate Carriers in the Fight

Fighting fraud, maintaining compliance, carrying proper insurance, upgrading security — it all costs time and money. And when freight brokers take 30 to 60 days to pay, cash flow gaps make everything harder.

That’s where Bobtail comes in. Same-day pay on loads you’ve already hauled. No hidden fees. Real customer support. So you can invest in protecting your business instead of floating expenses out of pocket.

Check out Bobtail’s financial tools for cash flow →

Talk to our team about your operation →

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FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions: Freight Fraud and Carrier Protection in 2026

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Full transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:04:05
Unknown
I even had one broker who sat there and accused a carrier of

00:00:04:05 – 00:00:08:09
Unknown
malicious intent, because they didn’t protect their system well enough

00:00:08:09 – 00:00:45:05
Unknown
to prevent the hack. And I’m just thinking to myself, are you stupid? Are you stupid?

00:00:45:07 – 00:00:51:13
Unknown
I.

00:00:51:15 – 00:01:00:06
Unknown
it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.

00:01:00:08 – 00:01:05:08
Unknown
I’ve been in logistics and supply chain for over 25 years now. I started off

00:01:05:08 – 00:01:15:21
Unknown
as a logistics officer in the Air Force. That that helped open a lot of doors for me, understanding transportation, supply chain,

00:01:15:23 – 00:01:24:16
Unknown
aviation, the whole nine yards. It opened up my mind to the point where I was actually a certified, what they call a certified war planner.

00:01:24:16 – 00:01:39:11
Unknown
I would sit down with the Intel guys when writing war plans, and I would develop the logistics support piece. So you have to understand all concepts of supply chain to pull that off. So when I got out of the Air Force in 2008,

00:01:39:11 – 00:01:46:05
Unknown
I have been in just about every facet of domestic logistics and supply chain that you could be in.

00:01:46:08 – 00:01:57:02
Unknown
I was in retail logistics. I was in manufacturing logistics, I was in distribution warehousing. I even ran a couple private port facilities in the Port of Savannah.

00:01:57:02 – 00:02:05:08
Unknown
I also ran the South Atlantic chassis pool, responsible for some 60,000 container chassis across the southeast. So

00:02:05:08 – 00:02:11:00
Unknown
if it had anything to do with logistics and supply chain, I’ve done it at one point or another in my 25 years.

00:02:11:00 – 00:02:16:01
Unknown
So the last ten years have been focused on the trucking side. I have my own trucking company

00:02:16:01 – 00:02:18:04
Unknown
and unfortunately Covid killed

00:02:18:06 – 00:02:22:07
Unknown
And I won’t go to deep into that one because that’s still painful.

00:02:22:07 – 00:02:38:18
Unknown
then I got into dispatching. I started to work for a dispatch service. There was the dispatcher who who dispatched my fleet. And then when she sold her company, I broke off and was doing stuff myself as Vigilant Transportation Services.

00:02:38:18 – 00:02:46:05
Unknown
And it was when I was dispatching that all the fraud really started to show

00:02:46:07 – 00:02:54:16
Unknown
I became far more aware of what was going on. I even started becoming aware of who was doing it because back in 2020, 2021,

00:02:54:17 – 00:03:06:04
Unknown
they were using real brokerages to double broker freight. So all you had to do is figure out who has the history of double brokering, and then you just don’t book loads with them.

00:03:06:04 – 00:03:06:16
Unknown
Well,

00:03:06:17 – 00:03:25:02
Unknown
from time to time as a dispatcher, you are limited to what’s available in your area. So, you know, you you sometimes see the bad guys out there with the loads. Jacksonville Freight Solutions, AGD logistics. There are a few others that I call, I don’t know how many dozens of times double brokering

00:03:25:07 – 00:03:28:00
Unknown
the six box trucks that I dispatched for.

00:03:28:00 – 00:03:35:11
Unknown
We all decided, hey, you know, we’re tired of these guys. The only way to to get rid of these guys, because the government sure as hell isn’t doing anything about

00:03:35:14 – 00:03:41:13
Unknown
The only way to get rid of these guys is to get into their wallets and stop them from from stealing from

00:03:41:19 – 00:03:43:11
Unknown
we would intentionally

00:03:43:11 – 00:03:44:13
Unknown
book their loads.

00:03:44:14 – 00:03:48:06
Unknown
I mean, because there are loads pay just as well as any any other broker that’s out there.

00:03:48:06 – 00:03:50:00
Unknown
So we would book their loads

00:03:50:00 – 00:03:50:17
Unknown
intentionally

00:03:50:17 – 00:03:52:23
Unknown
and once we had the load on the truck.

00:03:53:03 – 00:04:00:23
Unknown
could look at a Bol and determine who the freight broker was, like if the load number was on there, if it started with back then it was a four.

00:04:00:23 – 00:04:15:22
Unknown
Now it’s probably a 5 or 6. If it started with a four and was like 11 digit character, I knew, oh, that’s a C.H. Robinson load. I’m going to call my buddy at C.H. Robinson and say, hey dude, I got your load in the back of my truck. It’s been double brokered. I got it from this guy. Here’s the rate confirmation, etc..

00:04:15:23 – 00:04:19:23
Unknown
How much you guys really paying on this? And I would get paid

00:04:20:01 – 00:04:37:18
Unknown
what the broker was really paying back then these double brokers were skimming off the top. They were stealing like 30% of the freight bill. So they were getting paid more and they were paying the real carrier less, which is how they were making their

00:04:37:20 – 00:04:44:22
Unknown
So what we did was we would get in touch with a real broker, made sure that 30% came back to us.

00:04:44:22 – 00:05:03:03
Unknown
We cut the scammer out of the out of the mix and my drivers would make the extra money. They called the extra money the bounty as their dispatcher. I was the bounty hunter. Thus the double broker bounty hunter came to be, and I’ve been using that as my social media persona

00:05:03:03 – 00:05:04:00
Unknown
ever since.

00:05:04:00 – 00:05:07:20
Unknown
But it’s been it’s been very good to me, and that

00:05:07:21 – 00:05:10:05
Unknown
is only the start of my fraud journey.

00:05:10:05 – 00:05:42:11
Unknown
We have watched the fraud evolve and evolve and evolve. It’s not simple double brokering anymore. Instead of skimming off the top, they’re stealing the entire freight bill. And then they get into impersonations and cargo theft. And it’s just been evolving like crazy.

00:05:42:13 – 00:06:09:06
Unknown
Well, definition of double brokering is one carrier company tendering cargo to another carrier company. And in a double brokering situation, you usually have a bad actor posing as a carrier to the real broker to book the load. Then they use a broker authority to then repost it on dat truck, stop whatever, and convince somebody else to take it.

00:06:09:06 – 00:06:16:14
Unknown
What you’re seeing today, more often than not, is a rate that is above market rate.

00:06:16:15 – 00:06:20:09
Unknown
To entice a carrier to call in on that load.

00:06:20:09 – 00:06:33:01
Unknown
What I would watch for on the load boards, if you use load boards, please try to get away from load boards. Try to get your own customers if you can. But if you have to use the load boards, understand what constitutes a bad load.

00:06:33:01 – 00:06:42:18
Unknown
If you see in the comment section email only and it’s not the email domain for the broker, it’s guaranteed to be a

00:06:42:20 – 00:06:58:10
Unknown
Email only brokerage at gmail.com. Guys, brokerages have their own domains. Okay, I know most motor carriers are not going to spend the money on their own domains. You really need to to be professional. You need to.

00:06:58:11 – 00:07:11:00
Unknown
But I get it. But brokers absolutely do. So if they want you to email a gmail address. I would question the holy hell out of it because it’s guaranteed to be a scam.

00:07:11:06 – 00:07:26:01
Unknown
Most drivers who dispatch themselves or foreign dispatchers or whatnot, they’re chasing the dollar. They’re chasing the almighty dollar. It’s volume over quality. They just book what they can book and they keep on moving.

00:07:26:01 – 00:07:43:05
Unknown
And that’s not the way to do business. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing. And once you book the load, and this is the biggest piece of advice I can give anybody out there, once you book the load, you have that rate confirmation in your hand. Call the brokerage, validate it, particularly if it’s a medium sized or a large size brokerage.

00:07:43:05 – 00:07:58:06
Unknown
You can call the one 800 number for the brokerage or whatever the headquarters is for the brokerage, give them the load ID number and they should be able to tell you. Yes, you’re the carrier that’s on it, and this is the lane. And you can sit there and say, okay, thank you very much for verifying. Have a nice day.

00:07:58:08 – 00:08:02:22
Unknown
If you can’t do that with the freight broker, there’s a problem.

00:08:02:22 – 00:08:14:11
Unknown
You don’t want to call the same person you book the load with. Don’t do that. Of course they’re going to tell you the loads valid even if they’re a scammer. Okay, don’t do that. If you’re dealing with a small brokerage,

00:08:14:11 – 00:08:23:13
Unknown
fairly new, whatever, then call the shipper and ask the shipper what freight broker is responsible for this load.

00:08:23:15 – 00:08:41:11
Unknown
Be very careful here, okay? When you call a shipper and that word gets back to the freight broker, the freight broker may think you’re trying to steal their business and undercut them. Okay, that’s not what you’re doing. And you need to make this very clear. Do not talk about money to a shipper in any way, shape or form.

00:08:41:11 – 00:09:13:20
Unknown
All you want to do is verify who the freight broker is. You start talking about money. Now you’re getting into a situation of back solicitation and you can be facing freight guard. So be very careful about this, but you have to vet your loads. You have to make sure they’re legitimate. If you can’t verify that with a corporate office for the broker, then you need to verify that with the shipper.

00:09:13:22 – 00:09:24:09
Unknown
hijacking is a phenomenon that really started back in 2023 and with a data breach at D.O.T. or yet Department of Transportation.

00:09:24:11 – 00:09:37:13
Unknown
It’s kind of funny. They publicly wouldn’t acknowledge it until 2024, but I knew early on that dot numbers, dot pin numbers specifically were available on the dark web. And that’s how these guys were starting to get into impersonate you.

00:09:37:13 – 00:09:45:11
Unknown
And for carriers out there, if you’re if you think that your ID is being hijacked, the very first thing you need to do is change your dot pin

00:09:45:13 – 00:10:00:14
Unknown
But we don’t quite see that happening as much anymore. You know, in those circumstances, when they were hijacking your Dot, they would get into RMDs or my carrier portal and then change the contact information there also.

00:10:00:14 – 00:10:11:17
Unknown
Now, if you’ve used those systems a lot, you know that you get a contact change email if somebody is changing in contact. So that’s usually your first sign that you’ve got a problem.

00:10:11:18 – 00:10:22:10
Unknown
As we got to 2025, they’ve evolved to the point where, no, we’re not even bothering to hijack your dot anymore. That’s just too much trouble. It’s too much of a pain.

00:10:22:11 – 00:10:30:19
Unknown
We got to go through all the ID checks now, going to the federal government to get into safer and now into modus.

00:10:30:19 – 00:10:33:15
Unknown
So let’s find something new. I got

00:10:33:19 – 00:10:43:18
Unknown
it. You know, here we are. We’re eastern Europeans. We are expert hackers. We hack banks, we hack the government, we hack everyone. So this carrier here, he’s got a mail email address.

00:10:43:18 – 00:11:12:11
Unknown
Let’s see how easy it is to hack into that. Oh, yeah. Okay, the 10s no problem. I’m in and they sit in your inbox, and they just wait. What they’re waiting for is they’re waiting for a load that interests them. If it’s a certain lane or certain type of cargo or what have you. I mean, if you look at various cargo net and they show every month what the high theft cargoes are that that are going on, what types of cargoes they’re looking for, those kinds of cargoes.

00:11:12:11 – 00:11:15:02
Unknown
So you have to really be watching

00:11:15:02 – 00:11:34:19
Unknown
the kinds of cargoes that you’re hauling and if whether or not you’re getting the information, because what they tend to do, what they tend to do. And remember, fraud is an ever evolving thing. The old ways of committing fraud are still being done today, just nowhere near at the same scale, and they just keep evolving into new and newer things along the way.

00:11:34:21 – 00:11:50:20
Unknown
So what you’re typically going to see today is they get into your inbox, they’re going to look for emails that they like, and once they find the load that they like, they’re going to download the email and then delete it from your inbox. You never even know it came in.

00:11:50:20 – 00:11:56:18
Unknown
They will start responding as you from your email because they’re already hacked your email account, okay.

00:11:56:23 – 00:12:09:19
Unknown
They’re responding as you through your email and then they are deleting the send messages. So again, they leave no trace to the average individual that they’ve been in your email.

00:12:09:19 – 00:12:11:15
Unknown
Then they go and they steal the load.

00:12:11:15 – 00:12:18:16
Unknown
And until a broker calls a carrier and say, hey, what the hell man? My loads missing. And they’re like, what are you talking about?

00:12:18:17 – 00:12:39:18
Unknown
Well, you were like, dude, I, I, I’m not hauling for Armstrong today. I, I haven’t worked you guys in two weeks. I don’t know what’s talking about. Well, if it came from your email address, you must be you. You stole the cargo. Yeah. And it’s really hard sometimes to get through to some of these brokers there and say, guys, look, he was really impersonating.

00:12:39:18 – 00:12:44:07
Unknown
He didn’t steal your load. Somebody else did, okay? But they hacked their account.

00:12:44:07 – 00:12:48:12
Unknown
I even had one broker who sat there and accused a carrier of

00:12:48:12 – 00:12:52:16
Unknown
malicious intent, because they didn’t protect their system well enough

00:12:52:16 – 00:12:58:16
Unknown
to prevent the hack. And I’m just thinking to myself, are you stupid? Are you stupid?

00:12:58:16 – 00:13:06:12
Unknown
What I loved about that particular case is that particular broker that made that accusation, because they’ve got ten people in their IT department.

00:13:06:12 – 00:13:22:11
Unknown
They’ve got a very sophisticated IT security system. The next week they got hacked. The hackers got into one of their emails, who then went in and got into their TMS system and started posting loads.

00:13:22:11 – 00:13:30:21
Unknown
I mean, and I turned around and said, see, it happened to you. How could it not have happened to this guy? How is this guy responsible for not protecting you?

00:13:30:21 – 00:13:32:04
Unknown
That’s impossible. That’s

00:13:32:06 – 00:13:39:04
Unknown
However, there is something that carriers can do. It’s called multi-factor authentication, and I understand

00:13:39:09 – 00:13:44:16
Unknown
Margins until six months ago were razor thin. If you were even making a profit.

00:13:44:16 – 00:13:58:03
Unknown
So you don’t have money to spend on tech tools. And when I get it. Okay, but multi-factor authentication, if you’re if you’re forced to use Gmail or Yahoo because they’re free accounts, multi-factor authentication is the key.

00:13:58:03 – 00:14:00:16
Unknown
And you can go to my YouTube,

00:14:00:16 – 00:14:45:06
Unknown
which is at Double Broker Bounty Hunter. And I do have a video on there on how to set up multi-factor authentication for Gmail. You have to use that. If you don’t use that, you are susceptible. I mean, you’re susceptible anyway. But using multi-factor authentication really and dramatically limits the amount of liability you’ll have in having yourself hacked.

00:14:45:08 – 00:14:46:22
Unknown
It was originally built

00:14:46:22 – 00:14:47:16
Unknown
to

00:14:47:22 – 00:15:02:05
Unknown
produce all, all manner of materials to try to help anyone in the industry, not just carriers, but brokers, factoring companies, attorneys, insurance companies, etc. come together and build best practices

00:15:02:05 – 00:15:04:06
Unknown
for the industry as a whole.

00:15:04:06 – 00:15:21:06
Unknown
We are still doing a lot of that, but we’re doing it at a smaller scale. NMF to has launched their Freight fraud hub before we really got our stuff off the ground, and they’ve been able to offer things a more cheaply than we have because they’ve got a ton of sponsors.

00:15:21:06 – 00:15:21:21
Unknown
We don’t

00:15:21:21 – 00:15:22:09
Unknown
slow.

00:15:22:12 – 00:15:30:19
Unknown
We let them handle a lot of this stuff. However, what we do still do is we are still going to be doing webinars on a regular basis.

00:15:30:19 – 00:15:32:01
Unknown
These webinars are going

00:15:32:03 – 00:15:39:21
Unknown
span all different areas across the industry, and it’s all geared towards how do you deal with the threats of the day?

00:15:39:21 – 00:15:54:13
Unknown
We are working on trying to build a message board right now, so that way people can just go in through our website and send us messages, say, hey, I’m dealing with a situation, can you please reach out to me so we can try to resolve this?

00:15:54:16 – 00:16:18:05
Unknown
We will investigate issues for people. We will connect carriers to good resources to deal with things. You know, if you’ve got a compliance problem, I’ve got a Rolodex of like 200 great compliance people that I can put you in touch with. You need an attorney. I’ve got a list of attorneys by state that that you that I can get you in touch with.

00:16:18:08 – 00:16:31:19
Unknown
Yeah. If you need some deeper help. Like, if you’re a broker and you want to have your vetting process evaluated, especially again, post Montgomery, all the brokers are out there looking at

00:16:31:23 – 00:16:39:23
Unknown
Then you can reach out to us and we will come out. We will do an audit on your process, see where the gaps are and help you fill those gaps.

00:16:39:23 – 00:16:43:19
Unknown
there’s a lot of things that we do mostly on a consulting basis,

00:16:43:19 – 00:16:46:09
Unknown
but there are lots of resources that

00:16:46:11 – 00:17:07:23
Unknown
pushing out, white papers, etc. that can help people in trying to manage this stuff. Again, it is an ever changing landscape. So sometimes I used to publish every three months a double brokering guide on my own website, and I had to stop because it evolves faster than I get these updates out.

00:17:07:23 – 00:17:37:13
Unknown
And keeping up with it is it’s a full time job and of itself. Oh, and by the way, we don’t get paid. This is an all volunteer effort. So it’s it’s a challenge.

00:17:37:15 – 00:17:48:10
Unknown
You definitely want to fight back whenever you can if you have justification. I when I first started doing this about three years ago, the reputation management piece,

00:17:48:10 – 00:18:02:04
Unknown
I have to evaluate the carrier first. So I need to look at the report. I ask them to send me the freight card. If they if they can’t find it or whatever, they just been told by a broker you have a freight card, so we can’t use

00:18:02:09 – 00:18:10:00
Unknown
then I have a few proxies. Darren Brewer I know. Say what you want.

00:18:10:02 – 00:18:17:19
Unknown
He’s the owner carrier for one one. He hates that I do this. By the way, there are proxies who will send me a copy of the freight

00:18:17:21 – 00:18:21:05
Unknown
once I get a copy of that, then I can take you to face value. The

00:18:21:05 – 00:18:32:05
Unknown
only problem is, is that the information that’s on a freight guard report shows specific accusation categories, and there are currently 12 of them that are being used.

00:18:32:05 – 00:18:41:19
Unknown
And then a 500 character description of what happened. And everyone is supposed to take that description

00:18:41:19 – 00:18:57:10
Unknown
and evaluate it themselves. But that’s not what happens in this industry. What happens is everyone, all the brokers out there, take that as gospel, say that that is the actual truth, and it often is not. It’s often a huge exaggeration, if not a total fabrication.

00:18:57:10 – 00:19:17:09
Unknown
So that’s when carriers are finally are getting fed up saying, hey, I can’t work because somebody put this report on me and I don’t know how the hell to deal with it. And today, it’s not just freight cards. It also includes the highway reports, mis notations, MCP reports. There are reports everywhere.

00:19:17:11 – 00:19:24:00
Unknown
Okay. And and this reputation management is critical, especially for the one truck carriers.

00:19:24:00 – 00:19:33:14
Unknown
Its end, especially if you’re doing good. I tell my clients when they reach out to me, and I actually I have somebody who tried reaching out to me last night. I’m talking to them after we get done recording

00:19:33:17 – 00:19:46:04
Unknown
What I always tell them is, if you are guilty, I can help negotiate a settlement. If you are not guilty, I’ll work to try to get a completely resolved and.

00:19:46:04 – 00:20:08:21
Unknown
And help the broker to see the error of their ways. If you are a scammer trying to clear your record so you can continue to commit fraud, not only will I not help you, I will report you myself to agents at CSA and Department of Justice and all that to get you shut down. So you have to pay attention.

00:20:08:21 – 00:20:14:13
Unknown
If you’re coming to me looking for help, you better be clean. If you’re not, I’m not going to help

00:20:14:16 – 00:20:31:21
Unknown
So again, but the process you asked about the process is one of negotiation. You need to get all the documentation. Once you have all the documentation in, I can evaluate. Okay, how exactly did all this happen? Because you have the carriers word and then you have the brokers word.

00:20:31:22 – 00:20:33:21
Unknown
The truth is always somewhere in the middle.

00:20:33:21 – 00:20:55:09
Unknown
So we try to figure out what the truth is. And then we will represent the carrier to negotiate with a freight broker as to what the next steps are. Sometimes getting rid of a freight guard is a matter of providing documented evidence. Maybe I need your elders for that day to prove you were nowhere near that location that wasn’t

00:20:55:13 – 00:21:12:16
Unknown
Or I will need documentation that you may have. Maybe a check in slip from the security gate. Yes, he was there. He was there on time. What are you saying? That that he was late for pickup or he was a no show? Yes, he was there. So, I mean, I put all this stuff together, and

00:21:12:18 – 00:21:15:19
Unknown
once I have it all together, then I reach out to the freight broker.

00:21:15:19 – 00:21:27:17
Unknown
And as an independent voice one, they’ll answer the phone the first time. Yay! But I only get one shot because depending on how pissed off this broker was when he wrote,

00:21:27:21 – 00:21:40:17
Unknown
will determine whether or not he blocks my number moving forward. So I only get one shot to talk to the guy. And so I have to approach it with all the information available, and I have to approach it with, hey, you’ve got a problem, I’ve got a solution.

00:21:40:17 – 00:21:41:12
Unknown
Let’s talk.

00:21:41:14 – 00:22:02:18
Unknown
you have to be careful not to raise your voice. The biggest mistake that carriers make when they get a free card or a report against them is they get angry. They start yelling at them. They start cussing. The professionalism goes way out the window. Okay. And both sides get very unprofessional, very quick. The only problem is the brokers still carry all the power.

00:22:02:18 – 00:22:34:16
Unknown
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good our argument is, the freight broker still has to be the one that removes the report. End of story. No one else can remove it. Oh, by the way, no court can force them to remove it. It’s a First Amendment thing okay. And oh, by the way, the platforms that are posting it like carrier for one one MCP highway, they are protected under the Federal Communications Decency Act that they are not responsible as long as they are

00:22:34:18 – 00:22:36:20
Unknown
not influencing the content.

00:22:36:23 – 00:22:39:07
Unknown
Okay. It’s the same rule that protects social media.

00:22:39:07 – 00:22:49:12
Unknown
as long as that exists, there’s no one to really step up and advocate for a carrier. When something happens, you have to convince the broker to pull it down himself.

00:22:49:13 – 00:22:59:04
Unknown
My success rate on that somewhere around 70%, mark. And if I fail, then I usually refer somebody to an attorney.

00:22:59:04 – 00:23:02:21
Unknown
And I’ve I’ve worked as an expert witness on multiple cases,

00:23:02:22 – 00:23:06:11
Unknown
trying to help carriers who ended up having to go to court to deal with

00:23:06:11 – 00:23:35:04
Unknown
So it it’s it’s a process.

00:23:35:06 – 00:23:45:07
Unknown
So we’re talking about Supreme Court case, which is Montgomery the caribou transport two.

00:23:45:12 – 00:23:59:00
Unknown
The issue here is not trying to decide who is responsible or who is negligent in the matter. What the Supreme Court was asked to decide was whether or not freight brokers

00:23:59:00 – 00:24:01:00
Unknown
can be held liable

00:24:01:00 – 00:24:07:18
Unknown
in such accidents. In that particular case, it was a fatal accident.

00:24:07:19 – 00:24:31:01
Unknown
want to say Robinson was the broker of record for that load, and the plaintiff’s attorneys wanted to sue C.H. Robinson. C.H. Robinson was claiming what’s known as the preemption rule, and that is part of the F for a that’s a federal aviation regulation. So it’s an airplane regulation

00:24:31:03 – 00:24:40:21
Unknown
that that gets cited all the time. That gives brokers a shield against liability because, you know, they’re not responsible for for driving the trucks.

00:24:40:21 – 00:25:02:12
Unknown
So how can they be responsible for the accident? Well, what Scotus decision ended up doing is they removed that preemption, and that opens the door for freight brokers to now be held liable for negligent hiring. So if there’s an indication in a freight broker’s records that a carrier

00:25:02:12 – 00:25:13:14
Unknown
is unsafe or has done bad things in the past, and the broker knew it and hired them anyway, now they can be drug in the court

00:25:13:14 – 00:25:14:23
Unknown
to answer for

00:25:15:01 – 00:25:24:15
Unknown
It also puts the onus of answering in a state court instead of a federal. So

00:25:24:17 – 00:25:32:06
Unknown
what we are waiting for now across the industry is we’re waiting for some, what, 900 cases right now

00:25:32:06 – 00:25:47:16
Unknown
where brokers are being drug in as defendants and a bunch of these negligent hiring cases, they’re being brought in as defendants all across the country, and every single state is going to set their own precedent as to how it’s going to be dealt with.

00:25:47:17 – 00:26:17:17
Unknown
So we’re going to be feeling the repercussions of that decision for probably the next 12 to 18 months before anyone has a solid handle on what the new concept of brokerage is going to look like. So what is happening now at every brokerage across the country is everyone’s asking themselves, are we defensible? And by defensible, you have to have a documented vetting process.

00:26:17:17 – 00:26:36:11
Unknown
You have to follow that process to the letter every single time, to the point where every emails timestamped, every every vetting tool that you use, whatever result from that is timestamped, annotated. Whole nine yards to validate whether or not someone can use them.

00:26:36:14 – 00:26:43:18
Unknown
And when I was dispatching a couple of years ago, I used to brag about how fast I can get through a setup.

00:26:43:19 – 00:26:50:04
Unknown
Okay, my carrier portal, my God, my best time in my carrier portal. To go from

00:26:50:08 – 00:27:09:17
Unknown
starting the setup process to finishing the setup process was 32 seconds. Okay. And it was. It was so bad. Two years ago at Matt’s, we I had five dispatchers there at the at the mic booth and we raced each other. So I mean, it was so easy.

00:27:09:18 – 00:27:19:10
Unknown
It was so fast and information was readily available by MCP standards or RMI standards or highway standards as to whether or not somebody was good.

00:27:19:10 – 00:27:25:04
Unknown
And most brokers would take whatever that system says as gospel.

00:27:25:05 – 00:27:35:18
Unknown
You can’t do that anymore because all they are is they provide data. They are not supposed to make the decision for you. So if you’re allowing these systems to make a decision for you.

00:27:35:19 – 00:28:00:01
Unknown
You’re one you’re not defensible. Two you have no documentation to show what you pull, how you pulled it, what what you derive from it. You just trusted somebody else’s decision. Okay. So it that becomes a legal concept called detrimental reliance, which now makes me wonder. And I’m guys, I’m not an attorney. And whatever you do, never take legal advice off of a podcast.

00:28:00:01 – 00:28:03:03
Unknown
Hire an attorney to get legal advice. Okay. But

00:28:03:03 – 00:28:14:02
Unknown
what I anticipate seeing is I anticipate that some of these cases that are out there for negligent hiring, MCP, highway, etc., they’re all going to get pulled into these cases too.

00:28:14:03 – 00:28:23:13
Unknown
They’re all coming in. They’re all going to be listed as defendants. You know, they may be able to get back out of it real fast, but there are at least going to show up in court and spend money on trying to defend themselves.

00:28:23:13 – 00:28:25:12
Unknown
It’s going to happen. So

00:28:25:15 – 00:28:47:10
Unknown
what what we’re seeing across the brokerage side right now is everyone taking stock of what their current process is, making sure everything is documented, making sure they’ve got a good tech stack, not just one component, but multiple components of items that they look at, how they interpret it. If possible, you need to document your decision matrix.

00:28:47:10 – 00:29:01:16
Unknown
And that’s really difficult, you know, because I might sit there and I might look at a carrier and let’s say I’m focused on their safety. I’ll go into SMBs, which which is the safer safety management

00:29:01:18 – 00:29:10:17
Unknown
So I’ll go into there and I’ll look at all the inspections against that carrier. And I can see they had ten inspections, two truck carriers.

00:29:10:19 – 00:29:35:15
Unknown
They had ten inspections so far this year. And it’s June still. That’s a lot of inspections for for a two truck carrier. Okay. So how often were they what Vin numbers were on there was what were the violations. Most importantly, are any of the violations repeat violations. So there’s a lot of different things that I’m clocking in my mind when I’m reviewing that debt.

00:29:35:15 – 00:30:01:12
Unknown
And, you know, I’m an expert at doing this and a lot of compliance. People are former brokers who think they know. Well, this is what I think is right. The problem is the federal government has not set a standard as what what is a safe carrier? The only thing they have are the safety ratings. And you’ve probably seen this before and you have satisfactory, conditional and unsatisfactory.

00:30:01:16 – 00:30:25:09
Unknown
Now, by the way, only 6% of the motor carriers that are out there actually have a safety rating. I sat down with a good friend of mine, and we tried to calculate just how long it would take with its current manpower to get a safety rating for every single carrier that’s out there. 52 years, 52 years. Okay. It’s not possible.

00:30:25:09 – 00:30:53:21
Unknown
So there is no federal definition of a safe carrier. And you see, a lot of these different groups are now trying to go back to Fmcsa and sue FMC to define that. Guys, it’s not going to happen. So you have to use your best judgment. Now, what really helps in in that case at the level, was that Justice Kavanaugh, in his addendum, had mentioned that it’s all about reasonable care.

00:30:53:22 – 00:31:30:14
Unknown
And those are the key words, reasonable care. If you have a process, it’s documented and it is followed religiously, then more than likely you will successfully defend yourself in court. Unfortunately, every broker now needs to understand they’re going to court. It’s going to happen. It’s not. If it is when you are going to get sued. So if you don’t have an attorney on staff, get one or at least retain one because it’s going to happen at some point, as long as you are defensible, you’re going to be in, you’re going to be out and it’s going to be over for you.

00:31:30:14 – 00:31:55:11
Unknown
If you’re not defensible, you can find yourself on the receiving end of a nuclear verdict. And most brokers cannot handle a $3,050 million judgment against them for negligent hiring. They just can’t. Okay. And now you have C.H. Robinson. Now is fighting this case in state court, and you better believe they’re looking at a $50 million judgment when this all comes out.

00:31:55:11 – 00:32:00:06
Unknown
So what brokers are also having to do is they’re having to reevaluate their insurance requirements.

00:32:00:09 – 00:32:13:00
Unknown
You know, motor carriers are required $750,000 of vehicle liability. Right. That’s that’s a federal requirement. And as an industry most brokers require a million.

00:32:13:02 – 00:32:24:03
Unknown
I see that going up. I see that going up dramatically because those levels were set back in 1980. So when you factor in

00:32:24:04 – 00:32:45:21
Unknown
$1,980 to that, you’re looking at $3.2 million in liability coverage. So I would expect most brokers are going to increase their requirements to 2 million, $3 million in vehicle liability for carriers, okay, which is going to increase a carrier’s rate, almost double throwing that out there, guys.

00:32:45:22 – 00:32:47:09
Unknown
Be ready for it because it’s coming.

00:32:47:09 – 00:33:11:18
Unknown
But brokers to brokers are only required to carry that $75,000 bond to get their authority right. Well, that that bond doesn’t pay anything towards a verdict against them. It only pays for a load that they didn’t pay out that they should have. So now you’re going to see a lot of brokerages start going into the market looking for liability coverage.

00:33:11:20 – 00:33:33:17
Unknown
Once they go out in the market for liability coverage, what level are they going to get? You know, most of them are getting contingent cargo coverage for when cargoes get stolen. But now they’re looking at the liability side. And what do they need to have? We history has shown us that these court cases are have judgments of 3050 plus million dollars.

00:33:33:19 – 00:33:46:11
Unknown
So now do brokers have to carry liability to the to the tune of 50 million to protect themselves? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The brokerage I work for,

00:33:46:11 – 00:33:48:21
Unknown
they’re getting five. They have a $5 million policy.

00:33:48:21 – 00:33:58:02
Unknown
And I’ve pointed out to them I was like, look, this is the trend, this is the history. And I and I got with our company attorney and validated this.

00:33:58:03 – 00:34:14:00
Unknown
I was like, this is a trend. This is this is what we can expect if we’re going to get hit. It’s not going to be 5 million guys. It’s going to be well, well north of that, be ready. So you know, they’re discussions being held at every single brokerage about this. I have no idea how new brokerages are handling this.

00:34:14:00 – 00:34:14:17
Unknown
I’ve

00:34:14:19 – 00:34:38:17
Unknown
I still do consulting on the side. And I’ve got a couple of brokers, brand new brokerages who have come to me to help them build their their carrier vetting process, especially in the wake of Scotus. And I’m like, I hope you’ve got a lot of capital. I hope you got a lot of money in the background, because there’s a lot you need to do to be defensible in court.

00:34:38:18 – 00:35:10:16
Unknown
It’s going to be crazy. But on the carrier side, I think you’re going to see carriers being required to have much higher vehicle liability coverage than they currently have it. I think it’s inevitable at this point. I think insurance overall is a huge issue. And brokers said before they have their $75,000 bond. Right. What brokerage do you know of has $75,000 of outstanding receivables at any given time, or outstanding payables at any given time?

00:35:10:16 – 00:35:13:13
Unknown
It’s much higher than that. Okay.

00:35:13:17 – 00:35:34:06
Unknown
Why is their bond set at 75 at 750,000 or 75,000? Why is this that they’re it really needs to be at least whatever revenue they generate in course of a month, 11 million, 20 million, whatever. That’s what the bond should be. You know, I look at Lansdowne Lancers bonds at 7 million okay.

00:35:34:07 – 00:35:49:20
Unknown
So I mean they get it. Okay. Wells is advertised as 750,000. TCL is one of the biggest guys out there. Same thing with C.H. Robinson. Of course they’re all self-insured. They they don’t have a surety bond, but they use as they

00:35:49:22 – 00:35:52:19
Unknown
a.

00:35:52:21 – 00:35:54:18
Unknown
One of my trust fund.

00:35:54:22 – 00:36:00:12
Unknown
They use a trust fund. Okay. And as long as that trust fund stays above the 75,000 mark there.

00:36:00:14 – 00:36:16:05
Unknown
Thankfully Fmcsa is starting to make changes in the in how bonds are done too, which should help a lot of carriers. If a broker’s bond value falls below the $75,000 mark, they have seven calendar days to fix it.

00:36:16:07 – 00:36:21:20
Unknown
And if they don’t replenish that bond within seven days, there are already done.

00:36:21:22 – 00:36:38:14
Unknown
If a bond holder. You know, I said before, one’s a trust fund and one’s a surety bond. If the surety identifies to the federal government that this particular broker is having a very difficult time paying their bills, we’re getting a lot of claims on their bond.

00:36:38:19 – 00:37:01:04
Unknown
They are required by law. They have a duty to report that to the federal government. And once that is reported, the freight broker has two calendar days to replenish their bond or they’re done. So we’re hoping that we don’t see issues like what happened with some of the epic brokerage failures that we’ve seen over the course of the last year,

00:37:01:04 – 00:37:10:01
Unknown
where carriers have $60 million of outstanding receivables from a single brokerage that they’re never going to see again.

00:37:10:02 – 00:37:18:19
Unknown
You know, we’re trying to prevent that kind of thing from happening. So I think the fed is is doing some good things. I definitely want to see them go further, though,

00:37:18:19 – 00:37:40:17
Unknown
in terms of trying to protect carriers. I know I kind of got a little off topic. Forgive

00:37:40:19 – 00:37:58:09
Unknown
You said it yourself. What we think guys, you have to understand there are laws covering this stuff. You may think as a driver you’re entitled to X, Y and Z because that’s the right and professional thing to do. Okay,

00:37:58:10 – 00:38:08:05
Unknown
let me throw in detention here real quick. Okay. Detention. Huge problem for a lot of carriers out there. You know, sometimes the brokers pay attention, sometimes they don’t care.

00:38:08:06 – 00:38:17:21
Unknown
Is it really pissed off I mode three hours detention? Why the hell aren’t they pay me? Can you do something about it? No, I can’t, because the law only speaks to

00:38:17:23 – 00:38:33:10
Unknown
line haul charges, not the detention or other and ciliary charges. So if you have an accessory charge that’s out there, you don’t have a lot of defense on the law side, even though it’s right and proper and should be done.

00:38:33:11 – 00:38:47:17
Unknown
And yeah, your your freight brokers contract sits there and tells you they paid attention after two hours, you know, with no conditions listed there. They say they pay it and then oh well, you know, our customer didn’t pay us so we can’t pay you.

00:38:47:19 – 00:38:49:13
Unknown
Okay, I know it’s

00:38:49:15 – 00:38:51:04
Unknown
Everyone else knows it’s

00:38:51:06 – 00:39:00:02
Unknown
But what carrier is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hire an attorney to make that point in court to force the issue?

00:39:00:02 – 00:39:09:10
Unknown
No one is because that detention number is only, what, 500, 600 bucks? So no one is going to spend 10,000 to collect 600.

00:39:09:11 – 00:39:23:05
Unknown
And brokers count on that. By the way, bad brokers count on

00:39:23:07 – 00:39:24:16
Unknown
It really depends.

00:39:24:21 – 00:39:41:20
Unknown
Yeah, I remember in the first week after the decision, everyone’s saying, oh, small, small carriers and small brokers losing this decision hands down. And I would I would not say that. What I would say is if you operate correctly properly, you have a safety program,

00:39:41:20 – 00:39:46:22
Unknown
everything’s documented, etc., I think you’re okay. I think you’re in a good place.

00:39:46:22 – 00:39:53:05
Unknown
What I think the decision is doing is it’s making for a safer industry overall.

00:39:53:05 – 00:39:54:09
Unknown
But what it

00:39:54:11 – 00:40:10:15
Unknown
does, it help the small carriers only if they’re playing right, if they’re playing by the right rules, if they are trying to skirt things like they have, let’s say they have a five truck fleet, but they only pay insurance on one truck.

00:40:10:16 – 00:40:45:15
Unknown
Okay. You’re trying to skirt rules like that. You will get burned at some point. I get it in is expensive. You want to be able to keep your authority active. And everyone’s trying to find ways to cut corners. Insurance is not the place to do it, folks. You can’t do it that way. The best way to do it is have a strong safety program, have a strong driver training program, you know, help your drivers identify their roots, help them to control their timings on when they drive, where they drive, etc. sitting in traffic, all you’re doing is burning your clock and burning fuel.

00:40:45:16 – 00:41:06:16
Unknown
Okay, so do you really want to run during rush hour? Hell no. When I have my own trucking company, I told my drivers, you know, for the hours between 4 and 6, take that as a as an extended break. You got a 14 hour duty day. You’re supposed to be driving for 11 hours. Okay. If you’ve you want to stop that drive clock any way you can.

00:41:06:16 – 00:41:25:14
Unknown
So between 4 and 6, just shut down. Get yourself a nice dinner. Sit down. Relax. Decompress at six. Get back on the road because traffic’s finally easing up, and you can sit there and cruise for the rest of your time. It makes the most of your time. It allows you to maximize your mileage. It allows you to maximize the utilization of your clock.

00:41:25:16 – 00:41:50:17
Unknown
There’s a lot of things that carriers can do to make things better for themselves, but it requires somebody to sit down, analyze their operation, and help give them recommendations on how to fix things. Most motor carriers, especially the ones who truck motor carriers that are out there, they are too busy driving and doing the actual job to stop and run a business.

00:41:50:18 – 00:42:08:02
Unknown
And that’s what a lot of these guys don’t realize. This is a business, and if you’re not, if you don’t have somebody looking at it from a business lens, then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table in a lot of different areas, or you’re spending way too much money and you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing.

00:42:08:03 – 00:42:34:10
Unknown
You know how many motor carriers? I sit there and talk to them when I ask them, what’s your average cost per mile for this week? Do you know how many of them can actually give me an answer? Goose egg. Very few will actually be able to tell me. Oh well, it costs me $2.25 to operate on average. Very few can actually sit there and say that, you know, most of them will sit there and site.

00:42:34:11 – 00:43:09:01
Unknown
What 80 has said is, is the cost per mile. But that’s a national average. Guys. It’s not you. You know, I sit there and I look at some of the scam scammers that are out there. One of the biggest scams that are going on right now is operating ghost fleets. So you have you have somebody usually and this primarily among the Eastern Europeans, somebody will create a dot number and then we’ll make up a thousand signs for that dot number and pass it out to all their friends who drive for all different companies.

00:43:09:01 – 00:43:32:12
Unknown
And they all put that sign on their truck. Okay. So if they get pulled over and get an inspection, that inspection report goes against this dummy company that one guy created. And so you have a two truck, 1 or 2 truck carrier in this for this dummy company that racks up 500 inspections in two months. I mean, I’m sorry, the math does not compute.

00:43:32:12 – 00:43:34:00
Unknown
How the hell does that happen?

00:43:34:02 – 00:43:55:22
Unknown
We see this more and more often. So the question then becomes is are are brokerages protected by insurance from this carrier? Are they showing up at the right signage at the pickup location? I mean, there’s so many different things that are going through a lot of people’s heads as we try to figure out what direction is the stuff going

00:43:56:03 – 00:44:00:13
Unknown
as we try to parse through some of the different frauds that are out there.

00:44:00:15 – 00:44:19:16
Unknown
How does the real carrier who operates properly, who is properly insured, properly documented, properly maintenance, and how are they able to survive in this environment? Because these people are cutting corners left and right, and that’s what keeps driving the rates down. That’s really what’s killing

00:44:19:18 – 00:44:28:01
Unknown
But they’re doing the right things. They’re managing their money. They’re managing their spend, their managing their business properly.

00:44:28:03 – 00:45:01:19
Unknown
I think they can survive this, this whole Skoda thing.

00:45:01:21 – 00:45:13:16
Unknown
I laugh when you mention fuel because every week one of the things I post every week is the updated Department of Energy numbers for fuel prices. For diesel prices I posted on LinkedIn every week. Every Tuesday.

00:45:13:20 – 00:45:22:15
Unknown
Yeah, I’m glad to see prices are finally going down. The national average just went below $5 a mile. So very happy to see that.

00:45:22:17 – 00:46:27:23
Unknown
But since they’re still shooting at each other over between us and Iran, I don’t understand how the prices are this low. And, John, you’re insane. These prices are sky high. Yes, they are, but they should be much higher. I’m just saying it makes no economic sense. And I have an economics degree, so this it just boggles my mind how things like price points are being set because it doesn’t doesn’t follow traditional economic models,

00:46:28:01 – 00:46:30:22
Unknown
Two things that I would focus on if I were a motor carrier

00:46:30:22 – 00:46:50:03
Unknown
multifactor authentication. I’ve already talked about that, but it is critically important that you protect yourself in any way you can and cannot afford to have their own IT department, especially if there are one truck guy. This is a free way to protect yourself and dramatically improve your security level and make yourself more defensible.

00:46:50:04 – 00:46:53:02
Unknown
The other thing that I would look at,

00:46:53:02 – 00:46:54:04
Unknown
Pay attention all the

00:46:54:06 – 00:46:56:18
Unknown
Watch the paperwork very closely.

00:46:56:18 – 00:47:03:01
Unknown
There are tells within a bad actors paperwork when something is not right.

00:47:03:05 – 00:47:08:20
Unknown
Mismatches in font. It’s usually an indicator.

00:47:08:20 – 00:47:15:22
Unknown
If you’re being asked to deal with a blind Bol type situation, that’s something I would deeply investigate.

00:47:15:22 – 00:47:17:20
Unknown
If you are

00:47:17:20 – 00:47:24:11
Unknown
being asked something crazy, like whatever you do, do not speak to the shipper.

00:47:24:13 – 00:47:45:13
Unknown
Huge. No, no to me. You need to be able to vet a broker as much as a broker goes to vet a carrier, you need to be looking at any public information that’s available about a broker. Are they real? What kind of work do they do? What kind of cargo do they focus on? Most brokers actually have websites.

00:47:45:13 – 00:47:50:04
Unknown
Unlike carriers, they’ll have their own website. They’ll talk about the kind of work they do.

00:47:50:08 – 00:48:08:09
Unknown
Is there a valid website? Take a look at the email address that you’re getting from the carrier sales guy that that’s sending you the paperwork? It does domain that’s listed there, does it turn up a real website? You know, examine I mean, just just Google the company.

00:48:08:10 – 00:48:11:02
Unknown
What domain pops up when you Google the company?

00:48:11:04 – 00:48:41:10
Unknown
You’ll catch a lot of bad actors because they use fake domains when they go to send emails to make them look legitimate. And they’re very good at doing this. They’re very good at tricking people. And what they try to do is they try to put pressure on a carrier. A bad actor is successful because they are going to force you to dump logic and focus on emotion.

00:48:41:10 – 00:49:00:22
Unknown
So they’re going to frustrate you. They’re going to push you and say, hey, look, this has to move now. I need an answer now. I need you to do this now, not give you time to think. You have to stop, breathe, focus on your process. Are they operating outside of your process? Then you’re probably dealing with a bad guy.

00:49:00:23 – 00:49:25:19
Unknown
You’re certainly dealing with somebody you don’t want to do business with. Okay, now is the time for carriers to identify who they want to work with. The rates are on the carrier side. We have record rates. These rates are above Covid level okay. So I mean and by the way they’re not going down anytime, anytime soon. So take advantage of that.

00:49:25:20 – 00:49:51:05
Unknown
Breathe. Look at the options. Evaluate the broker. Make sure you’re actually dealing with who they say you’re dealing with. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat there. I’ve gotten a rate confirmation. Oh, and if you’re using a dispatcher, if you use a dispatch service, use a domestic dispatch service. Do not use a foreign one because the foreign guys are not giving you the full picture.

00:49:51:10 – 00:50:04:09
Unknown
You want to have a domestic dispatcher who understands the industry, who understands geography, who knows what’s possible and what’s not, you know?

00:50:04:10 – 00:50:23:10
Unknown
I sit there and I look at the documentation and I get carriers come to me all the time saying, hey, I got a freight guard for this, that and the other. I was late and I was like, but I ran out of clock and they don’t believe me. Look at the rate confirmation. And they’re expected in 15 hours to cover a thousand miles with no team.

00:50:23:10 – 00:50:53:06
Unknown
And I’m like, okay, wait a minute here. The average motor carrier. And for every broker and carrier that’s out there, the average motor carrier in an 11 hour driving day is only going to cover 500 to 600 miles max legally. That is it. Okay. Oh, and by the way, law enforcement knows when you’re tampering with your eld. They know they detect that you will get shut down if they detect you doing

00:50:53:08 – 00:51:52:01
Unknown
do it right. Pay attention. Breathe. Do not rush a load. Evaluate the broker you’re working with. And now that we have the power as carriers, we have the we have the the strength right now within the market to manage rates. Take your time. Select the brokers you want to work with, develop relationships. Because when the market swings back, which is probably about a year and a half, two years from now when the market swings back, those are the guys who are still going to come and talk to you.