The Freight Doctor

One good question I like to give people to ask about with whom they should choose as a their freightbroker or 3pl company is, “Do you use major freight carriers?” If the company you are working with uses major trucking lines, such as Yellow, Saia, Con-Way, Estes, ABF to name but a few, then you should be comfortable working with the freight broker or 3pl. This is because these trucking companies are huge operations with great tracking systems of your freight when in transit and chances are, even in this down economy, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Also, if the logistics company has accounts with these trucking companies or similar sized trucking outfits, they probably move a lot of freight with them. How does this help you? Well, if they move a lot of freight, then they’ve probably been able to negotiate and justify to these large trucking companies for amazingly cheap shipping rates. They’ve probably also negotiated having an FAK which means better rates for you. You, as Joe Customer, will not be able to come in off the street and demand the best rates with little to no volume and no track record. If the freight broker or 3pl has been around for awhile they’ve done all the hard work in getting freight rates down so all you have to do is swoop in and take advantage of their great rates. It’s just up to you to shop around and find the best freight quote!

When you receive your shipment and you discover concealed damage, meaning damage that isn’t clearly visible until you unbox or unpack your shipment, time is of the essence to file your damage claim to the trucking company. This is why I always stress to people that whomever is taking receipt of the shipment must be thorough with inspecting the delivery from the truck driver. They may catch damage while the truck driver is still there and note it on the delivery receipt or they can outright refuse delivery if it arrives in unacceptable condition. Basically, don’t let someone that doesn’t care or who’s in a rush take receipt of your shipment this responsibility. However, there will be times that your shipment looks to be in pristine condition from the outside, but upon unpacking the item, you discover that the item is not in the same condition as when it was initially shipped out to you. Somehwhere along the way, your shipment was battered, bent, dropped, shattered and broken.

Hopefully, as I stated before, you had someone thorough take receipt of the shipment because inspection does not end there. I highly stress that the preson that took receipt of the shipment immidiately unpacks the item and doesn’t just leave it in the corner for someone else to take care of at a later date. If concealed damage is discovered after the driver has left and the unit has already been signed for without listing visible damage on the delivery receipt, you have 14 days to file your claim. But here is the important part:

DON’T WAIT 14 DAYS TO FILE YOUR CLAIM. DON’T EVEN WAIT 2 OR 3 DAYS! FILE YOUR CLAIM IMMEDIATELY!

You should find out the phone number of the terminal that dispatched the truck driver that delivered the shipment to you. Speak with the terminal manager there and be clear that you are officially requesting for a freight insection because of concealed damage to your shipment. Certainly, you can call the freight broker or sales agent that helped you with your order initially. Personally, I like to take matters into my own hands and call directly because I know that it’s one less person to pass the information along to and I know it got done. Get all the information from the person you speak with, phone numbers, e-mails and their name. Follow up with an e-mail and phone call to whomever you were told to contact Copy the email to anyone else involved. Make sure to find out when they will send an inspector out to assess the freight damage or when you will be contacted to set up the inspection.

Here’s the good part, the inspector is a third party contractor so they should give an unbiased assessment of the freight damage. And it’s of no cost to you.

If you don’t follow setting up the appointment of having the inspector out to view the damage to your product and it doesn’t happen, you might as well just hand over all your money to the trucking company. They follow strict procedures and are will throw out your claim if you didn’t follow their procedure. They don’t have time to hear your sob story if you didn’t dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

To their defense, the trucking companies aren’t necessarrily trying to screw you over, they have set up these procedures to protect themselves from fraudulent freight claims that happen all the time. So be smart, protect yourself and take charge of the situation from day one! If you don’t, don’t tell me I didn’t tell you so.

So now you have a little insight as to what you need to do in a worst case scenario situation in order to protect yourself. Again, begin the claim process ASAP!

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From the shipper’s perspective, are freight agents something you should be concerned with or worried about? The answer is no.

The Freight Industry has many different jobs within in it and common practice is for a freight agent to sign on in an independent contractor or employee capacity with a freight broker. The freight agents and the jobs they do are vital to the industry. The freight agent is not usually an employee, but uses a freight company that the agent can get a competitive rate to move shipments for their book of clients in order to pass along better pricing to their customers. Indeed, freight agents are definitely wanted.

As long as the freight company is using top line carriers then there shouldn’t be any any problems out of the ordinary.

In the freight industry, business is done like this all day long.

Why would it be done like this? Let’s give you the basic run down. An agent may have years of familiarity with a specific company. The freight agent has great expertise in handling that particular shippers freight and so the shipper is comfortable letting the freight agent handle the freight. The freight agent doesn’t have any of his/her own rates in place with any major carriers. That said, the agent will look for a reliable broker that has freight rates already negotiated down and in place with major freight carriers. This is very common within the freight industry.

Remember, what should be most important to you is that good top line freight carriers are used. This is one of the ways you, the shipper, can protect yourself.

As a continuing part on my series explaining accessorial charges, today I’ll go into Residential Pickup and Delivery Charges.

The reason for Residential Delivery and / or Pickup Charges for non commercial locations is due to the fact that there are a number of factors that impede a prompt delivery or pickup to the location. The reasons can vary from there being no loading docks or forklifts, the streets may be narrower and harder to negotiate in and out of for the truck driver and as general rule of thumb it’s simply just more difficult to pick up and drop off shipments in non commercial environments. Typically you can also expect a liftgate charge attached because there isn’t a loading dock for the driver to back into as discussed in my previous post.

You can expect fees for residential charges to range anywhere from about $50-$100 tacked onto your total freight quote or bill.

I’ve had a number of readers bring up instances where a freight company revises their bill after they’ve agreed to the freight quote. I’ll address several situations that seem to be the most common in terms of revising or adding to the initial freight quote.

When is it fair for a Freight Company to charge you AFTER the Freight Quote has been agreed upon?
When you have given them inaccurate or “ball park” information with regards to the weight and dimensions of your load or incorrect information about the type of delivery or pick up location is. Guessing at the shipping dimensions is a gamble. On the one hand, if it appears close enough, then it may go through without a hitch, however, if it’s obviously not what you told the broker and the freight carrier gets suspicious, it will call for a re-weigh (I’ll talk about re-weigh issues in another post) and if it proves to be different than what you told the broker, than the difference will be charged to you and rightfully so. This brings up the question how much more will I be charged?
Here’s just one example: If you guessed that the item was 500 lbs and it is reweighed at 600 lbs., expect roughly to be charged an additional $50 - $100. Again this is just one example, and the type of commodity the item is will play a factor as well.

When is it NOT appropriate to be charged AFTER the Freight Quote has been agreed upon?
It is NOT appropriate for a Freight Company to charge you for an Interline or Agent Transfer (when there is a hand off to another freight carrier that finishes the last leg of the delivery.) How it gets there is something that should have been worked out before the freight company ever issued you a quote. The freight company already has their lanes figured out and should an Interline or Agent Transfer occur, you should never be involved in this detail. It’s not your problem as a customer. You are paying the Logistics Company to take care of the logistical issues.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Freight Quote advertisements on Google lately for 95%  Discount on your freight quote.  I’ve never seen a discount this high before for a freight quote. 95% Freight Rate Discount aside, I’m going to have to find out what the bottom line freight quote numbers from these freight brokers and 3PLs actually are. Stay tuned…