Carrier411's recent changes to its infamous FreightGuard reports sparked something of a debate about who deserves the blame in cases of double brokering. The discussion broke out in the "Impact of False Online Reviews In Trucking" session hosted by attorney Dan Artaev and Carrier Defender cofounder Sean Mathews at the Broker-Carrier Summit in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday, October 24, after the pair laid out a series of defensive moves for carriers in response to false FreightGuards and other reviews.
In any given situation where an extra carrier and broker entity both insert themselves into the middle of a freight transaction, legitimate brokers and carriers on either end of the transaction may well disagree on who deserves the blame. Yet the session made clear that all too often, legitimate carriers take the blame for double brokered loads in the form of a broker's FreightGuard report about the carrier or other review. It can cost a carrier 30% or more of available spot market business in some cases.
When double brokering follows from a broker's lack of due diligence, of course, there's just not an equivalent red letter a carrier can assign them.
A lively debate erupted in the Q&A after Mathews and Artaev's presentation.
Today's spot market: "legalized gambling" for new carriers. "You don’t know if you’re going to run into somebody bad who is going to shut you down, and that’s not a healthy environment for anybody."
--Carrier Defender's Sean Mathews
One broker questioned the idea of an innocent carrier in a double brokering situation. Mathews and Artaev had discussed instances where carriers fooled by sophisticated identity theft ended up bearing the brunt of bad reviews, and this broker wanted to know exactly why they should be let off the hook.
