After Overdrive reporting on a dispute between the National Owner Operators Association and an owner-op engaged with their leasing program (called NOOA Logix) earlier this year, more owner-operators have come forward with similar complaints. NOOA's Mike Boston, meanwhile, has acknowledged some "mistakes."
That earlier report detailed a conflict between Boston's NOOA Logix, and what NOOA representatives said was their first-ever leased owner, Russel Holland. Holland accused Boston of misrepresenting insurance costs, which came in significantly higher than the lease quoted, as well as using a newly reinstated MC number that many brokers denied and outsourcing dispatch duties to a Pakistani firm. Boston and NOOA quibbled with the insurance costs charge and leveled some counter-accusations at Holland, but did not deny using foreign dispatch or a newly reinstated MC number.
[Related: 'Fraud apocalypse': Brokers circling the wagons, cracking down on new carriers]
Since then, two additional owners shared stories that closely mirror Holland's. One also provided documentation showing that Holland wasn't the first leased owner to run under the authority of Boston's WM On Time Trucking small fleet.
Jan and Rob Baker leased on with Boston about a year before Holland, on January 9 in 2023. The lease agreement looked a lot like Russell Holland's. The Bakers' contract had them paying $2,000 into an escrow account and agreeing to pay Boston 20% of every load.
"We had messaged with [Boston] a lot in the year prior" to leasing on, said Jan Baker. "We really wanted to have dedicated runs so we knew where our driver was and our driver knew where he was."
Baker said Boston had promised exactly that -- likewise an inside track on helpful services like fuel cards and trailer rentals.
