Due to the ongoing and prolonged freight market recession, brokers are able to be more selective. There are many reasons a broker might reject offering you as the driver a load. It is a complex issue that often isn’t as black-and-white as they make it seem. Sometimes the booking rep you encounter is mistaken and operating under incorrect information, and sometimes the booking rep has “gone rogue” and has made a personal decision to reject certain drivers, while stating that it is a company policy. Sometimes a brokerage will have different offices around the country that have different policies.
Whatever the case may be, when a broker’s booking representative rejects you as a driver stating it is because of an issue with your carrier, there is still an opportunity to change their mind, even if they make it seem like a final decision.
As a driver, one action you can take is to vet a broker before you reach out, to feel more confident on that broker's current status with us.
If you want to avoid broker rejections altogether when possible, be sure you are clear on the 4 standard types of load booking at CT. Look for instant booking and in-app auto-bid loads, along with any of our exclusive contracted shipper freight and CloudTrucks Exchange freight. These types of loads will allow you to bypass encountering broker rejections all together.
If you have already vetted the brokerage as being active in our system but encounter a rejection, feel confident in explaining that you are an owner-operated who is independently contracted with CloudTrucks. You are able to provide your own individual safety and performance data as a screenshot from the app. Review how to access this here: individual safety scorecard.
If the broker insists that the rejection is definitive and based on specific issues with CloudTrucks, here are common rejection issues and how to address them.
General Safety Score Issues
If needed, you can also offer to share a letter from our director of safety that explains our current status, actions and improvements regarding safety and compliance. Reach out to the safety team directly or to your business consultant on the customer success team if you would like access to the most recent document. Go here for our department contact list.
You should also provide your own individual safety and performance data as a screenshot from the app. Review how to access this here: individual safety scorecard.
Drug and Alcohol Violations
Offer to immediately email the rep this letter from our director of safety, that explains the specific situations and results of D&A violations that occurred in the last 2 years. Reach out to the safety team directly or to your business consultant on the customer success team if you would like access to the most recent document. Go here for our department contact list.
You should also highlight your own personal lack of drug and alcohol violations.
Freight Guards
A Freight Guard Report is a risk management tool on the Carrier411 platform that helps protect freight brokers and shippers from potential losses associated with working with unreliable or fraudulent motor carriers in the trucking industry.
Most likely, our team is already aware and working on resolving a Freight Guard if there is one listed. But just in case we aren’t aware of a new one, please send an email to rates@cloudtrucks.com to report the potential FreightGuard to our team. Include the brokerage and any other pertinent information. Sometimes the broker who said there was a FreightGuard doesn’t realize that the FreightGuard was already removed. If it hasn’t already been removed, we have had a nearly 100% success rate at getting them removed when we are able to discuss the issue with the broker.
The biggest reason we get Freight Guard Reports is when a driver cancels a load at the last minute. From the broker’s perspective, when a load gets late-canceled, it’s a challenge for the broker to find another truck that can pick up and deliver on time, and typically the broker will have to pay the recovering carrier more because of it being last minute. With that added stress, they vent their frustrations on the carrier via a Freight Guard.
Suggested FreightGuards Response:
“Every team in the CloudTrucks network is independent, and we all have our own safety records to back our service; I'm happy to share ours with you. That being said, CloudTrucks takes reports like these seriously and work to resolve the issue to everyone's satisfaction, every time.”
"Double Brokering" or "Falsifying Loads"
In a legitimate shipper-broker agreement, the broker assigns loads to carriers, and those carriers pick up and deliver the loads according to the terms of a broker-carrier agreement. Double brokering is the illegal act of a broker or carrier transferring a load to another trucking company without notifying the shipper.
CloudTrucks has not ever and will not ever double-broker a load. We are proud of all of the independent teams within our virtual carrier network, and our approach is to provide to the work to those very teams.
In the rare circumstances we cannot assign a second team for recovery due to breakdown or other issues, we alert the original broker to allow them to lead the recovery per their process.
Are brokers frustrated by breakdowns? Of course. Do some brokers not understand our virtual carrier structure and assume two different teams equates to double-brokering? Sure! These tend to be easy issues for CloudTrucks to resolve with brokers, and we work to quickly communicate all needed information to clear up reports of this nature.
"Identity Theft"
Just as many individuals have been hurt by consumer identity fraud crime on a personal level, many freight carriers including CloudTrucks are a target and victim of the rampant identity theft plaguing the industry.
This often takes the form of email spoofing. For example, fraudsters will post loads with slightly incorrect email addresses that look valid, like rates@cloud-trucks.com, rates@cloudfrucks.com, or ratescloudtrucks@gmail.com.
We are grateful to the online carrier identity verification sites like Highway.com of reporting and warning brokers of this serious risk. Sometimes, we've encountered brokers who are confused and misconstrue reports of identity theft like this as coming from CloudTrucks.
As an owner-operator, if you encounter a broker who is confused on this issue, explain the situation. All they need to do to keep themselves safe from identity theft is to always check that the email they are communicating with is the correct one: rates@cloudtrucks.com
How to Report a Broker to Us
If you feel that this broker should work with CloudTrucks if only someone with the proper authority within CloudTrucks reaches out and discusses with them, we are happy to do so to address their concerns, clear up any misunderstandings, and find resolution.
Please forward the broker’s email conversation (or start a new email) to rates@cloudtrucks.com and ask for support. Include details of the load and context of the situation. These can be time-consuming conversations to have so please be patient, but feel free to follow up on the status as well.
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