Halloween Freight Broker Horror Stories | Episode 268

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back. It's a another episode of the Freight 360 podcast Happy Halloween. This will be dropping on November 1st, so Halloween will be just behind us, but we're going to talk about the what's the wording, ben, the spookiest things that happen in freight brokerage.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Spookiest stuff to happen in freight brokerage. We need some good intro music like Halloween or something, if we can plug that in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I should. I should have gotten it all queued up in the sound effects, but oh well. But hey, if you're brand new, this is a good, fun episode, a little lighthearted today. Make sure to check out all of our other content at Freight360.net there's a whole searchable library. So if you're helping train your team or if you're trying to self-train, go in there. You can search prospecting, sales, carrier stuff, claims. You'll find the relevant content for whatever you're looking for. And while you're there, check out the Freight Broker Basics course. That's our full-length educational option to help get you off the ground and start your brokerage. It's also been a really good tool for folks to help train their staff when they're growing out their their team within their brokerage company. Um, share this with your friends. Leave the reviews, the comments, the questions, all that good stuff. We answer as many as we can. Uh, on every tuesday's edition of the final mile. Uh, ben, it was good seeing you, man. We, we got to hang out this past weekend in uh, florida, down in epcot, nice.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Yeah, had some, had some margaritas in mexico made our way to germany, I believe, but uh yeah, I think I made it with all the way to germany with you guys, I think arthur and I we started at england, I think on the other side made it all the way to mexico, missed you and then came back and then went back to mexico and made it all.

Speaker 1: 2:03

I was exhausted by the end of the day to be honest yeah, we had, we had every country, except for we have a little bit of a hiccup in France. So if anybody's ever been to Epcot, there's like I think there's 11 countries and you can get like food or a drink in each country. We got to the point where, like I was splitting it with my wife, I couldn't like, couldn't drink the whole thing. I mean splitting it with my wife.

Speaker 1: 2:22

I couldn't like couldn't drink the whole thing. I mean it was, it was a matter of time and how much my stomach could hold and those drinks weren't all big, but yeah. But we ended up having an issue in France with, we'll say, there was an incident with a lady on a scooter, so we ended up leaving France and coming back that night. So, yeah, she didn't like the fact that there was my family and my brother's family with nine people and two strollers in her way and she had some, some words to say to us. So we're in a couple of instances, we moved on.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Yeah, it's all you can do in that scenario.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Yep, but it was good. It's always good to travel and get to hang out and have fun and get together with you Sports. So I was way wrong on the World Series. So I was like, yeah, it's going to be Yankees, they're going to probably win it, like four to one.

Speaker 1: 3:11

They lost it four to one. So Dodgers looked amazing. Freddie Freeman, first baseman, used to play for the Braves. I think he was labeled the MVP for the World Series, but he set a record for hitting a walk-off grand slam in Game 1, and it was insane. And then the Dodgers took Games 1 and 2. Yanks took, I think, game 1, 2, and 3, and then Yanks took 4, and then Wednesday night so it was last night this week the Dodgers squeaked out like five runs on a single inning after they were down for nothing and ended up taking the win. I think it was like six to five or something like that, but they won it in five games. So congratulations all the Dodgers fans, yankees fans Sorry, there's alwayses fans.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Sorry, there's always next year.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Yeah, sports Bills got to watch them from Florida. Had a nice game against Seattle Nice, you know. Dominant blowout win for the Bills. Again Did the Steelers play this week?

Speaker 2: 4:23

Yeah, Steelers played. Monday night we played for the bills. Again, who did the Steelers play this week? Yeah, Steelers played Monday night we played against the giants ended up. Oh, that's right One. I can't remember what the score was. Look pretty good. I missed the end of the game. I couldn't stay up that late but caught the recap. Russell Wilson looked a ton of yards, had a horrible time actually scoring. I mean like literally drove down the field like the first four possessions and just couldn't get a touchdown.

Speaker 1: 4:47

That's the game. That was like all field goals at first right. Wasn't it like 3-0, 3-3, 6-3, 6-6, 9-6.

Speaker 2: 4:54

And there were two touchdowns called back for penalties too, like Steelers had one called back and then they had a second. I don't know if it was the first or the second one that was called back. Pickens caught the ball, got blasted, but he never got his left foot down. In fact his right foot touched, guess election day is next week, tuesday, yes.

Speaker 1: 5:27

So get out there and vote, do your civic duty right. There's a ton. This is like the big one. You got the presidential, you got Congress, house and Senate. You've got a lot of local and state level. I think the. So it's funny.

Speaker 1: 5:45

My wife's cousin is running for district attorney. He's running for reelection. He's like the interim right now because his boss stepped down earlier this year. So he's running for DA. So if you're in Erie County, vote for Mike Cain. But it's because it's such a big ballot this year and a lot of times people just vote like party line and he's like I think like the 13th or 14th like thing person you have to vote for. So he had to like campaign. It's like extra hard. So people knew, like know who he is. Otherwise, a lot of times you're like, yeah, I don't know who this person is, it's just party line. But yeah, big election. So we'll see what it means for the freight industry. Probably not a whole lot. The economy doesn't necessarily align 100% with the freight market, as we've seen the last year or two. Freight market, as we've seen right, you know the last year or two. But you could see some regulatory shifts or policy moves that could impact our industry.

Speaker 2: 6:50

So there, was an interesting correlation between sports and the election. I had heard that I don't know how many elections, but it was significant. I don't remember the past 10 or 20 years, the last home game of what were the Washington Redskins, right Now the commanders. If they won the last home game before the election, the incumbent won. When they've lost the, the opponent won. So, and if you watch that game Sunday, literally they ended up winning the game in like the last handful of seconds with like a long bomb jump ball, and they were talking about it on.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Oh yeah, we didn't talk about the Hail Mary.

Speaker 2: 7:31

Yeah, yeah, hail Mary, they said, could have been the decider of the election, because that holds true.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 7:39

So that would, that would say the incumbent, which I guess it's not really incumbent, but it'd be the Democrat the incumbent, which I guess it's not really the incumbent, but it'd be the.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Democratic, the incumbent party, I guess, okay, incumbent party Got it. Well, we'll see. We'll see if that Hail Mary holds on or if not, but we shall see Any other news. I feel like I was on vacation for a week so I really unplugged. So, yes, I got nothing Cool. Well, we're going to talk about the spookiest things that can happen in freight brokerage. Just a nice little heart, let it hot heart, lighthearted, there we go, lighthearted discussion. We'll tell some horror stories, hopefully give you some practical tips to prevent them, so you can learn from our mistakes and not deal with it yourselves. So, yeah, I mean, let's get right into it. Ben, anything, what do you got?

Speaker 2: 8:30

So here's where I was thinking and where this came from. Right, and this was someone on a team that I, you know, work with the company and I'm tied into the emails and communications Right, and it was. It was somebody newer, Right. And why this kicked off is like there was like the customer emailed about something kind of trivial, like hey, can you make sure this gets done this way? I can't remember if it was like at a pickup appointment detail or if it was a detail related to something, but it was like very commonplace for someone that's been in the industry for a while. But you could tell by the way they were writing the emails. They were just freaking out like oh my gosh, we're going to lose this customer if we don't do this. You need, like I mean, this level of anxiety, right, and what really kind of hit me was.

Speaker 2: 9:15

I'm like I used to do that, Like in the first six months to a year where I was a broker, like I would get so worried anytime something happened that I thought I was going to lose a whole customer, a portion of my book of business. And it's like over time you get more used to it and you realize like this is just part of the industry, right, Like the thing that is absolutely the only thing predictable is the fact that things are going to go wrong, Maybe not every day, but maybe every week for sure, Sometimes multiple times a day. And, like, this is just the industry we're in, and I'm like this is a pretty good topic because there are lots of things that are inherently scary when you are starting in this industry and even when you've been in it a while, because you never really kind of know what's going to happen in some of these scenarios, no matter what you do.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Yeah, the I'm trying to think someone. Always they put it a certain way. To me it was like just plan, plan to be surprised, or something like that. And you make a good point. One of the one of the best traits you can have, or skill sets you can develop as a broker or just anyone working in brokerage, cause every whether it's accounting or operation sales, you're going to have some kind of hiccup that you didn't expect. But the skill set you can work on is just being very flexible, right, being able to overcome adversity and keep a level head when things go awry. Like if you guys follow our Q&A session that comes out on Tuesdays, one of our questions that we're going to answer this week or this coming Tuesday is on you know how to handle heated conversations on the phone with a carrier, but, yeah, keep yourself cool, calm, collect.

Speaker 1: 10:48

I'm going to start off with a story I might have told us a few years ago, but this one goes back like 10 years. I was working at a previous brokerage and this was this was somebody else whose story that I overheard and but, like everyone at the company, like went nuts. So basically the shipment was a like an excavator, but like a smaller one like you would, you would use, or someone would come to your house and maybe like dig out, like to do a patio or something like that, just kind of like move some dirt around, and the shipment never shows up where it's supposed to go and like days go by, they you know they can't get a hold of the carrier. It carries the answer on the phone. Finally, like a week later, the excavator gets delivered and it it was brand new when they picked it up and now it's been used, it's got like you know dirt on it and stuff like that. They come to find out the driver took it to his house and dug a hole in his backyard for a pool for like days on end and I don't remember exactly how they figured it all out, that that's what happened, whether he had admitted it or if there was like eyewitness accounts or whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:55

But literally the driver and this is before like all of the, all the tools we use now for like tracking and you know location identity, identity verification, all this stuff we use now for like uh, tracking and you know location identity verification, all the stuff we use now, right, the quick scopes and the trucker tools and the everything. Um, but yeah, just decided, yeah, I'm gonna go dig a dig a pool in my backyard while I have a chance to like that. You know we last week we talked about loadouts and how you can use a an empty trailer for a week or whatever, before you deliver it. That's not how it works with. Uh, you don't get about loadouts and how you can use an empty trailer for a week or whatever before you deliver it. That's not how it works. You don't get to load out and utilize an excavator when you're hauling it as a driver. So that was an interesting one. That had happened.

Speaker 1: 12:34

I don't know how it panned out or if there was a claim or like I don't know, but that was a wild one.

Speaker 2: 12:40

Yeah, I mean, and I can imagine everybody was freaking out and like, this is sometimes just stuff that happens.

Speaker 1: 12:49

yeah, like I mean I'll give you another one. This one's not as fun, but we're actually dealing with it right now and this is, um, this goes to like trying to figure out who's who's. That? Like, who's the blame, right? Like you know, like the old meme of spider-man is the spider-man? They're all like pointing at each other, right? Um, so we have, uh, one of our, one of our agents has a, um, an issue right now. It's the carrier is basically saying, like I need you to pay me for you know, x, x, y and Z, I think.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Basically the here's what happened. Customer is a middleman, so the customer is not the shipper or the receiver, right, they're the one just coordinating the shipment. There is, I believe, amazon Warehouse was involved and some other big company was involved, and either the shipper or the receiver, but driver gets to the shipper or the receiver, but driver gets to the delivery and basically gets rejected and like we don't know if the appointment time was set, if it was an error on the broker, an error on the carrier, an error, an error on the shipper, the receiver, the customer, no one knows who's at fault here. But now you've got a receiver or a driver who's like pissed off, wants money, like is going to refuse to deliver it. And we're trying to calm him down and say like, hey, until we get this figured out, can you just get it offloaded somewhere, like nearby, at a warehouse or something, and we'll get it squared away, we'll get you taken care of of.

Speaker 1: 14:26

But then you get in the situation where, like the driver kind of like walks that fine line of like hostage load, if you know, if they don't do anything. But then they're also worried like where's my money? And I feel like we answered a question, a similar question like this, from our Q&A session a few weeks back, but that's one that we're dealing with right now. And, believe it or not, like those situations happen like almost every week, where you've got, you know, miscommunication, somebody dropped the ball and no one wants to take the admission of like oh, that was on me, my bad, we'll get it rescheduled, we'll comp you for your time and the pay and all that stuff. But those are the things that if you don't do, like your double and triple check all the way down the line, all the way down the line and I'm talking appointment times and verifying points of contact and all of that good stuff it can get really messy really fast.

Speaker 2: 16:21

Yeah, it reminds me of it. I've told this story before and I'm going to try to remember as many of the details as I can, but this was a load and it was going over a holiday weekend. It was a three-day weekend, I remember in January, and this was a shipment. It was like a half a million dollar shipment, so for sure way more expensive. And this is also nine, 10 years ago, right. So a lot of money for a shipment and it was going to a really important customer. It was going to, I think it was the Canadian military or Canadian law force, and these were all Motorola communication devices. I don't know if they were walkie talkies, whatever they were, that's what it was. It was going there, but it was in the winter and it was going to the Island off of the East coast and I don't remember the name of that Prince.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Edward Island? Yeah, probably Prince Edward Island, right? So we booked this load on Friday. It like had to deliver, I think on the holiday, like on Monday, and the carriers are going up there. And once they got onto the Island they said, oh, there's too much snow, the road's blocked. We have to take this load back. And we're like, well, we can't, like it has to deliver, there's probably another road. We're trying to coordinate and giving them some options.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And then they basically said, no, we're taking this back to our yard. And we were like freaking out, I'm like I think I'm going to lose the customer. This thing has to deliver. They assured us it was fine. We were talking to like I don't know if it was like either we were looking up the weather or we were getting and reaching out to see if these roads were closed, like calling the department of transportation, like no, the roads are fine, drives are telling us they can't go, so they turn around.

Speaker 2: 17:59

But then they held the load hostage and said, oh, cause, they knew it needed to deliver. So they wanted us to pay like another few thousand dollars to take it back to the yard. And I'm like I can't, like I'm going to lose a customer. I certainly can't pay an extra two, three thousand dollars to take this back to the yard. Right, and at the time I worked for a big brokerage and I remember I'm on with was like an ops team that you call and like certain scenarios that help walk you through how to handle these things that are outside of normal situations. Right, yeah, and I remember what they advised, that they said listen, like this is I don't know, it wasn't extortion that they use, but it was like under duress that they're forcing you to increase this rate con, not in good faith. And they were like I'll make sure everything is recorded. You're writing down what's happening as it's happening. The calls are recorded as well. And they said you know, extortion is a good word.

Speaker 2: 18:51

That's the word that we use, and they said you know what, just send the rate con at the end of the day, because we're going to fight this later. Give them what they need to protect the shipment. Okay, so I upped the rate con another three grand. They take it back to the yard. But then they said that they either couldn't get it to their yard or they needed to have it repowered to another carrier's yard because they couldn't get it to their yard for whatever reason. Or they said they didn't have a security and did it again An extra three, $4,000,. They wanted to take it to this other carrier's yard and we had no idea where this yard was, couldn't verify, didn't know if there was security. So same thing, pay it again, right. Until I remember, like this Raycon had to be like $12,000 for a lane. That should have been like I don't know four grand, right, and at the end of the day, like how it played out was, we didn't pay any of those overages. We ended up negotiating a rate in good faith for what was actually delivered.

Speaker 2: 19:44

But it was also another nightmare trying to get the trailer back out and get the product there the next week, and it reminded me of like a few things. One it scared the shit out of me because, like I wasn't in the office. So I'm doing this like while I was literally on my in the car, sometimes on my cell phone, trying to coordinate this. I'm terrified. I'm going to lose this huge customer of ours as well as maybe losing the cargo and having no idea what this is going to cause. And it was like the first probably seven months I was in the job is like one of my first large shipments for a very large customer that I worked for months to get and I'm like I'm basically playing chutes and ladders. Like this goes wrong, I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning and have nothing to work on and have to start fight, might lose my job. I'm losing this customer freaking out, panicked the whole weekend and like the takeaways at the end of the day were.

Speaker 2: 20:36

Everybody gets really upset when these things are happening the customer, right, the receiver, sometimes the receivers yelling at the customer who's calling you yelling at you, and then all of this boils over. Then you're frustrated. The driver in some cases is just trying to do their best job. In this case they weren't. They were trying to just get us for as much money as they could. But the biggest takeaway was, once all this played out, everything was just okay A day after it got delivered. Receiver didn't really care much that it was a few days late. The shipper didn't have any issue using us again because we communicated all of it as it was happening. And at the end of the day, all of this emotion and all this wasted energy and all this freaking out got me nowhere but making it harder for me to actually get the job done To your point, focusing on just working through it step by step and nothing bad really happened, like at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 21:27

And it's like I think a lot of people go through this. I for sure did a lot in the first year in business and it's like almost every one of those scenarios where I was terrified, thought I'd lose a customer, thought I was going to lose my job or I was going to have to go figure something else out, like I ended up getting more business on the other end, because when something gets really stressful and people are freaking out, the only thing they want is information. They know you can't control a lot of these scenarios. They know that there are things that happen Like they go through this too. But when they're getting yelled at, they're just yelling at you because that's the emotion they're getting from someone else and it just flows to you, then it flows to the driver, then it makes it all of it harder to work through in the first place and it's like the biggest lesson I learned through going through all of those is that most of them work out anyway.

Speaker 2: 22:17

As long as you communicate and you work through it step by step, trying to make the best decision you can, and they don't have to be right.

Speaker 2: 22:22

Sometimes you'll make a decision that you could have done differently the next time. That would have worked out better. But if you are just constantly communicating with what is happening, they almost always work out and you almost always end up with a better relationship. Because now the customer is, you've proven to them, you showed them, that their biggest fear and their biggest fear is almost always the same thing Something's going to go wrong and you're not going to tell them. That's what they're scared about. And when they go through a stressful situation and they know that you do everything and that you can and you communicate it as it's happening, they tend to trust you far more, with more of their business later, because it's not that they're expecting you to do it perfectly, they're just expecting you to communicate what's happening as it's happening. They're not looking for perfection. Yeah, they get frustrated when things don't go right, but at the end of the day, that's not the thing that usually matters Perfection.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Yeah, I think it's. You know, like you said, when kind of when you're, when your backs up against the wall and things are going wrong. That's when, like your, your true colors will show whether, whether you're calm and you're going to give excuse me you're going to give all the relevant information to your customer, or if you're going to be that guy or girl that just kind of avoids, avoids picking up the phone, doesn't want to give true updates. Um, I always say it's it's best to just get that, you know, address the elephant in the room and give the bad news. Like we've said it before, like bad news gets worse with time. So, like, get the bad news out there right away, and at least now we know what we're working with. Cause you might have this great idea like, oh, I'm just going to wait until I get a good update and then I'll go back to my customer and let them know that. But if you give them the bad news, they might have a solution for you that you otherwise would never know about.

Speaker 2: 25:24

So yeah, and I mean this stuff happens. I mean it still happens. It happened last week to me. I had a bunch of loads that missed pickup appointments, missed deliveries. The customer was upset. But the one thing I do now that's very different is like as soon as I get that information, I pick up the phone and have that conversation. Because I've noticed that, like, if you do it over the phone one, it's usually received differently. Two, it's like I don't know if something bad happens and someone sends me a text message instead of calling me, and they always usually call me.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Now I kind of feel like they're hiding behind it as opposed to standing up and just owning up to it and letting me know what's happening, and that drives me nuts. Like it drives me nuts too. Like, if I've been working with a carrier for a long time, like I'll have this conversation often, especially if I'm using a carrier a lot and I'm trying to get them more business. Like I had to do this with a new dispatcher with one of my carriers, I had this conversation. I'm like listen, I don't care what happens.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Like things are going to go wrong. I know they're going to go wrong, but I need you not to be scared to tell me what's happening. If you can't reach a driver, if they are broken down, like the sooner you tell me, the sooner I can go and work to fix this with you. But if you wait and just ignore my email and then just respond to me three hours later like I have no clue what's going on, and then the customer gets more upset, at least if the information is passing Right, Whatever it is and I think a lot of times carriers are also scared to tell you oh, I'm still stuck at my receiver and I know I'm supposed to be at that appointment in an hour and they just don't tell you and arrive two hours later and then hope it's okay. Well, if you told me, I can probably call them and maybe work in another appointment and make your life easier. So you don't got to wait to be a work-in for six hours.

Speaker 1: 27:05

That's a great point because oftentimes and it's not that it's more so this way or another way, but a lot of times you'll have you can't get information from the carrier to give to your customer. And I know I've told this story before, but we had one a couple maybe, like three years ago Driver would not answer their phone. Dispatchers like oh yeah, he's, he's parked at whatever trucks or highway rest area on I-90. And I'm like, oh, that's like 40 minutes from my house. So like the morning goes by and we still can't get a hold of this driver. But the dispatcher like insist, oh yeah, they're at this place, they're broken down waiting on maintenance, whatever. And in my head I'm like, OK, that's either true or they're nowhere near there and they're using that as an excuse to stall and buy time because maybe they threw another partial on this truck or maybe something else happened, Right? So finally, like the customers, like we have a meeting with the board in like two hours and we need to get an update and we can't verify, like we need, we need to know something.

Speaker 1: 28:17

So I drive out to the truck stop and I went on both sides, like the eastbound and the westbound. I checked every single truck, every single MC number and not there. So like we ended up like calling out the carrier on it, being like the dispatcher like hey, we send someone to that location, the truck's not there. And they finally were like, OK, well, here's what's you know, here's what's really going on. But that stuff is it's. It's wild because as it starts to progress like normally, like you hear, like yeah, I can't get a hold of the driver, it's like, yeah, this happens all the time. And then you're like, OK, still can't get a hold of the driver. And then it's like, all right, now the customer is like getting antsy with me. All right, Now the dispatcher is giving me a run around. Ok, now the customer is freaking out and the next thing, you know it snowballs and everyone starts going nuts.

Speaker 1: 29:01

But the main thing is like we did nothing wrong. Right, we did our as much due diligence as possible to give that customer as accurate and timely information as possible, and that's the best we can do. And ultimately the truck got there. They were there late, for whatever reason they were, I forget what it was but the customer gives you a lot of respect for going above and beyond. Like who else is going to send somebody in there, you know, hopping a car driving on the road and go to this truck stop, Right, Not very common. So yeah, you'll get some points in with you know, with customers that way. Another one, and I think I've I've probably highlighted this in other scenarios before, but using the wrong equipment type and trying to take shortcuts. So the propane tank story, do you remember this one?

Speaker 2: 29:55

I love this one, so this is um, I think this was like.

Speaker 1: 29:59

this was onions and it was, uh, in the colder months of the year and I think the I think the onions were coming out of um, somewhere like in the Northwest Right. So we're supposed to have a reefer setting to be, you know, the heat on to keep it above freezing, right, because we don't want the product to freeze and then be damaged and have a claim. So what do they do as a workaround? They don't have a reefer. Oh, just get one of those portable propane tanks and throw it in the back of your vented van and, you know, keep it above freezing. What could go wrong here? And we come to find out this was going on for a while and you know you don't get caught until something goes wrong, right, yep, but those, those portable propane tanks, and have they have like a safety on them where, if they tip over, it has an auto shut off, right. And you know, picture, like you've probably seen all kinds of them where they're like a propane tank, either like the long tube that shoots out like the heat, or it's like a radiant thing with a blower on it. Um, they can heat up like a garage or anything like. Really good, um, but yeah, like you gotta think semi-truck, like it's not the smoothest ride all the time it's bouncing back and forth. You hit a bump, you know you turn the wrong way and the thing tips over. Next thing, you know, um, the product shows up, frozen naturally and um, yeah, big claim and uh, insurance is not going to cover that one. So I think there was like two of them that we dealt with and it ended up the total claim value was like 160 000 across all the product. Yeah, so, yeah, no good, it was probably more than two, it was probably like four or five, I don't remember exactly, but yeah, it was uh, because you don't have you know the entire product wasn't damaged, but we found this was going on for like a very long time and all you know these things keep you know you get damaged product, frozen product showing up and then you find out like, yeah, these were vented vans, not, you know, reefer units, reefer units. So, yeah, don't do that Right.

Speaker 1: 32:00

I've also seen the you know wrong equipment type where they're like, yeah, it's got to go on a specific open deck type and then broker asks all right, well, what's the dimensions? Or the ship, or the carriers Like, oh, what are the dimensions? Oh, yeah, that'll fit on mine. And then you come to find out, like it wasn't about the dimensions, it was about you know, x, y and z at loading or unloading, based on that equipment type and the crane needed and whatever. Uh, conestoga is a great example. Like, yeah, it's got to be a conestoga because it has to be able to be, have the, the skirts open on the side inside a little, with a forklift right, um, so yeah, there's, uh, there's been too many, too many of those where they try to take a shortcut and use their own equipment type. Sometimes they get away with it, but you know, oftentimes they don't. So those are not fun.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah, and when you get caught for doing something like that, it's really hard to walk back any rationale because you're clearly doing whatever you want to in these scenarios.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Well, I'll give you one. That's on the customer. I've used this story in the TIA class many times about legal and ethics and things like that. We had a shipment I believe it was flowers, it was something agricultural and it was going into California and the customer knew that there was a certain certification that they needed to have for the product, that if they hit an inspection point in California they didn't have it and it would have, it would have, they would have gotten a fine for it. So what do they do? They tell our broker hey, send the driver in this alternative route, they're gonna skip the inspection point. So it's kind of like telling a driver like hey, you know, hop on an exit or exit whatever, you'll skip the the way station, like I've dealt with that all the time and and on the trucking side and it's, it's the wrong way to do business.

Speaker 1: 33:57

But drivers like tell each other that like, oh, yeah if you're overweight, don't worry, like you can go around here. So they're trying to like the customer, cause you got to think they're the shipper and their receiver is their customer and they want to get their pod delivered on time with no fines, et cetera. So they're like yeah, just go in this way. You know, mr Broker. Like tell your driver to go in here.

Speaker 1: 34:18

And eventually we're like they brought it out to us and they're like are we allowed to do this? We're like no, like, not only is that unethical, like you're knowingly like abiding and breaking a law. Like, as silly as some of the rules in California might be to some folks, you have to follow them if you're going to do business there. It's just, it's just the way that things work. Um, so we ended up saying like nope, turn around, send the driver back to the shipper. They've got to get their paperwork in place. It'd be like, I mean, if you take that on a more broad scale, that'd be like not having your customs paperwork and trying to smuggle the freight from mexico into the us like fast and furious style.

Speaker 2: 34:56

Um, no, you know what that reminded me of. It reminded me of I was. I didn't end up moving this shipment, but I still remember the pictures of it to this day. It was a. It was a rocket engine that was going from an air force base in utah I don't remember which air force base is up there, but it was going from there and it was going to cape canaveral, um, for a launch right. And I remember because, like you bid on lots of these when you're doing work with the military, you get bids all the time. But I remember this one because, like it was so heavy when I like this was again when I worked at a big company, so I was like asking other people, I'm like you know, at this weight, I don't know what trailer you can put this on, because it was this heavy, right, I think. And I remembered that like I had to work to quote a 13 axle trailer which I found out like there were only like dozens of them available in the country and, like you schedule them ahead of time, they're not like somebody you can call and just get this trailer available Right, cause they're huge. They mostly use them for, like these, windmills and things.

Speaker 2: 35:57

And this quote for this engine. It was over $100,000. It was like $115,000 or $120,000 to move this engine and I think it had to go to Cali first. I think it had to go to California and then to Florida for some reason to get checked at this Air Force base and then over here. So super long run, crazy expensive trailer, a lot of scheduling. You needed all these routings like done to make sure where it could drive, what roads it could take and everything. And I remember talking to the guy at the, the TO at the base and I went you know like this is roughly where this has fallen and I'm like I had like little margin in it because it was like such a large bill, like you can't, you can't put 15% on $115,000. I mean, I guess you could, but I've seen it happen before.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Not on 115 K but I've seen it on like 60 K but it was huge and like the punchline of the story that reminded me of the heater was. They sent me a picture and they went, oh, the other quote we got for like 35 grand. And I'm like, how did you get a quote for 30? I'm like I can't get a trailer for less than like it was like 95 grand and with the pilot, cars and everything else it ended up being at whatever. I'm like how in the world are you getting quotes this low? And he's like, oh, I'll send you pictures of how they moved it last time they're going to do it the same way. And what they did was they basically welded pins and other things to a chassis for a drayage load right, and they put this on a chassis and then chained it to this thing.

Speaker 2: 37:27

Oh my gosh. And I was like I remember asking, like I was like, yeah, but like this weighs so much, how in the world are you going to transport this much weight on this small of a trailer? And they basically just said, well, this is how I did it last time and they want us to go with the cheapest quote and that's how we're going to move it. And like in the back of my head I'm just thinking like this is like in violation of every regulation to move this for weight, let alone the safety.

Speaker 2: 37:52

And the kicker was like it was super expensive, like it was for sure and like the tens of millions of dollars or more yeah, if not hundreds of millions like it was so expensive. And they basically said, oh well, we're gonna self-insure it. And I'm thinking like, who's insuring this thing? It's basically chained to the back of a trailer that looks like a landscaping trailer, like you'd see somebody put a refrigerator on the back of, and like, just chain it to it. I'm like, and you're gonna insure this like hundreds of millions of dollar, engine to this thing, this way to save forty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1: 38:23

I think a hundred million dollars might be a stretch, but anyway, whatever it was it was some ridiculous number on what it was.

Speaker 1: 38:29

I remember we had stuff happens a couple years ago, and this was another broker which, because of their mistakes, allowed us to get more business, but, and luckily, nothing went wrong. But their shortcuts were, um, basically brought to light. So we had like 20 some million dollar valued equipment and it's in the energy sector, and um, like we're, you know, we quote, we quote, we quote. And then we're like man, why is our pricing so high? We're like come to find out I think it was TQL, it was who was actually winning these bids. They weren't insuring the equipment and these were like oversized heavy haul and I think the one was worth like $23 million. And they're just like, yeah, we, yeah, we're, you know, just hope nothing goes wrong here. And nothing did. But when they found, when they're asking us, like where's your pricing coming from? And we're adding in like, yeah, this is like the insurance alone on this costs x amount. And, like carriers, it's really hard for us to ask them to go get this quoted. So we, we buy it ourselves to a third party just for this shipment. And you know, you are the the insured party on it. And then they they're like hmm, I wonder if these other guys are doing that and they go and ask them. They're like they end up finding out like they weren't adding insurance to any of these loads. Luckily nothing went wrong, um, but yeah, that's, uh, that's a huge disaster waiting to happen.

Speaker 1: 39:56

Imagine a, a total wreck of, like you know, 20 some million dollars, I remember, and this is like, not within insurance, but like total losses on freight. We had a customer, dave, I think we I don't know why, I remember this vividly, but like October 1st was the day that we started moving freight with them and it was October 4th. It was like the fourth day we had a total loss like burn, like it lit on fire and like burn, the whole trailer burned, all the the freight. Luckily it was insured and handled and all that. But it was just like what are the odds that, like day four, that the truck just blows up, basically, and you have a total loss? But those are the headaches and again, the way that you respond to those adverse situations goes to show what kind of work you're going to do for your customer, what kind of headaches you can handle for them. So they're not dealing with them, um, you know, by themselves.

Speaker 2: 40:48

So I had that same thing happen to me. Um, I, I think I've told this story, but I had. We had a shipment, um, um, it was a very long time ago, but I was moving. It was a insulated steel coil on a flatbed and we couldn't get a hold of the driver. Like it was like friday or saturday, so like all weekend. We were calling the dispatcher and the dispatcher couldn't get a hold of the driver. And the driver was an older gentleman, I remember, because he was in his mid-70s. And I remember talking to the dispatcher and I could tell she was like, absolutely concerned, right, like this was not a situation where it seemed like from the tone of her voice that she was, you know, just telling me what we needed to hear.

Speaker 2: 41:32

And it got to the point on Sunday where, like, we both reached out to like the state police, based on where we thought he was, to try to locate him because they were concerned, his family hadn't heard from him, we couldn't get a hold of him, nothing, right. And that's exactly what happened. Like, oh, it still makes the arm, my hair on my arm stand up, like it still gives me chills. What happened was the guy had a heart attack, um, and it was somewhere around alabama. But thankfully the guy had enough at least this was what the report said and the police told us that like he had enough, I guess awareness of the fact that he was having a heart attack and he was going towards a rest area, and rather than take the truck into the rest area, he steered it into a tree, at which point in time it exploded, burned to the ground right like oh my god of fatality, like it was by far like the worst scenario I like I've ever.

Speaker 2: 42:25

Like. Oh, it's like still, like it still makes me super upset, but it's like like this stuff like happens, like it's crazy and I mean like this is the the dangers of like being on the road in some of these things and like still to like this day like that one sticks with me the most because it's just like a horrible thing that like you would never want to see happen, but like it does.

Speaker 1: 42:46

Yeah yeah, the. We had a. We had a fatality involved, load um, I don't remember it was. It was in the last couple of years, but it was. It was was the. It was not the driver, it was another vehicle involved. I don't remember who was at fault for it, but it was. Yeah, dude, you know, even if, even if you did nothing that had anything to do with it, like it, just there's still film.

Speaker 2: 43:13

Yeah, it's an awful tragedy.

Speaker 1: 43:16

So well, those are some good stories, some good. Some are some good stories Um, some good, some not so good. Um, but hopefully everyone has a good Halloween. Um, the Steelers do have, unless you got any more stories, man, I kind of wanted to wrap this one up on a uh fun note here, with a little prediction, a little transition to the positive.

Speaker 2: 43:36

Now Steelers have a bye week, bye week.

Speaker 1: 43:38

Transition into the positive. Now stewart's, have a bye week, bye week. There you go. Um, bills, have the miami dolphins coming to town? Uh, two was back in and uh, I actually I didn't see how their game ended up last week. I think they lost. Yeah, they lost. They did too 28, 27 to the cardinals. Um, but yeah, the bills are hosting miami.

Speaker 1: 43:58

Um, we're having like record warm weather in Buffalo for this Halloween. So, like today, the highest 75. It's insane. It's never been 75 on Halloween in Buffalo. I think 73 is the previous record, and we are it's morning time and so it's 70 degrees already.

Speaker 1: 44:13

So, looking forward to it, looking forward to a good Bills game. I'll be at drill for the Army so I won't be able to go to the game, but I'll be tuning in mobily. Let's see. Stevens Bengals are hosting the Raiders. So, our producer, you know the Bengals who always heat up in the second half of the season. And we're midway through, we're week nine, I think now, or eight, week nine, yeah, midway point. So, um, but yeah, good stuff. We'll see how the uh NFL week pans out here. And, um, what do we got? We got some good stuff coming up. I know we're we got some. We got some good episodes that we're going to be doing here. We're going to be doing here. Let's see Next week. We have, actually we're going to probably be moving that one, that's the gen logs that one's going to be awesome.

Speaker 2: 45:01

I'm super excited to do that one. I was talking with them actually yesterday, but like there's going to be some really good announcements on there, some really cool stuff that they're going to be announcing on our show as well, as I know that they're going to be doing, I think, an announcement with Craig Fuller at Freightwaves as well, so some really cool stuff.

Speaker 1: 45:18

Yeah, so stay tuned for that later in November. Then in two weeks we're going to have Matt Perkins. He's been on before. He's going to come on and talk some of the agent risks and things to look out for If you're considering bringing agents on him. And I can chop that up Ben's been in the shoes of being an agent as well as having agents underneath him, so we'll have a good roundtable discussion there. But yeah, good conversation, good horror stories, happy Halloween everybody, welcome to November and any final thoughts, ben.

Speaker 2: 45:51

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1: 45:55

And until next time go Bills.