New research exposed details of the MC number trade, with carrier authorities selling for as much as $75,000 despite federal efforts to crack down on the problem.
Since 2024, Overdrive has reported on groups that cold-call owner-operators asking to buy their MC numbers for tens of thousands. The tactic can facilitate cargo theft and enforcement evasion, but before March of this year it wasn't even expressly forbidden.
[Related: How much is your MC worth? Maybe as much as $30,000]
"Upon discovery of attempts to sell, purchase, or lease a USDOT Number or Operating Authority outside of a legitimate corporate transaction, FMCSA will initiate proceedings to inactivate the USDOT Number and revoke all related registrations, including safety registration," the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wrote on March 19.
Yet MC numbers do still trade on a shady network of marketplaces, and new research from Alphaloops, a freight data firm, shows just how bad the problem has grown.
Alphaloops examined approximately 9,950 Facebook group posts, 79,600 Telegram messages, and Facebook Marketplace to come up with 3,774 MC number sale listings to analyze.
The results reveal a mission-driven, organized market actively looking to thwart federal, broker, and carrier vetting firm detection:
- Facebook sees routinely 100–200 for-sale posts a month, with another 40 or so monthly on Telegram.
- Median asking prices run from $11,500 on Marketplace to $14,000 on Telegram and $24,000 on Facebook.
- The biggest factor impacting price is if the carrier is set up with big brokers or carrier vetting platforms, which can boost prices more than 150%.
- Of 710 MC numbers marked sold, 84.8% never recorded a single change to ownership within FMCSA.
Study author Matt Fleming said he "actually had to build tooling and do some detective work" to surface all the marketplaces, through word of mouth and some online sleuthing.
He's also careful to say that whether or not these transactions are legal is "kind of up to the buyer."
If someone wants to buy an MC number as well as some other assets of a trucking company and then correctly register the transfer of ownership with FMCSA, that starts to become the "legitimate corporate transaction" the agency says can proceed.
But with 85% of these sales resulting in no change in recorded ownership, and 95% recording no change in the legal name of the business, these transactions don't look aboveboard.
Fleming admitted his data likely only got to about 70% of the market for MC numbers, and even that is a guess considering the scattered nature of these networks. Many occur on encrypted messaging apps, likewise in languages other than English.
"There are probably some existing FB groups and Telegram channels we haven’t discovered, but there's also cultural elements to it," he said. "I saw an authority for sale that wasn't in our data" that turned up on a Polish trucking website. "How many of those other kind of sites exist? My hunch is there are probably lots of pockets out there."
[Related: FMCSA guidance on buying and selling MC numbers]
Paying $24,000 -- in one case an MC number was listed at a whopping $75,000 -- for just a piece of paper saying you own it makes no sense at all. But if you can use the paper to gain access to valuable freight, maybe the number starts to pencil out.
Sellers advertise access to platforms like Amazon Relay, and transacting in ways that would evade detection on platforms like Highway. They typically ask more for older MC numbers, and there's serious consolidation of ownership.
On Telegram, for example, more than 99% of listings traced back to just four email addresses.
Fleming said the sellers usually take payment via Zelle, and suspected that if a carrier is willing to include personal information, like handing over the email address and phone number, that increases the price.
The very existence of an MC number trade serves as a black eye for the carrier vetting industry, and something without an easy solution.
"Everyone holds different pieces of information," said Fleming. "Obviously the government has a ton of data, telematics companies have some data, but actually being able to tie the data together across silos and wrap your head around it" presents another problem.
Even if someone could tie together details from shifting clandestine marketplaces with real-time telematics and FMCSA data, "do you actually have the resources" to go enforce the rules and shut the bad actors down? asked Fleming.
One hopeful note, perhaps, would be FMCSA's recent Motus modernization that requires photo ID uploads and some location verification.
[Related: FMCSA suspends USDOT deactivations as Motus issues mount for carriers]
Maybe that slows the fraudsters down.
