Finally Dit It!
 

My husband finally took the plunge and is running his first load under his own authority today.

A little background:
Married with 3 kids - the oldest a trucker himself, 2 in college.
Experienced in sales and business management. Big box stores and poor management twice put his former employers out of business. Said the heck with it - bought a truck and decided to work for himself.

O/O leased for several years. Almost made it till truck was paid for. Couldn't take the illegal, dangerous, no forced dispatch (hah) a day longer.
Clean driving record.
Take pride in on time deliveries.
2001 Freightliner Century - 53' Dry Van / almost paid for.
No restrictions but would love to stay reasonably close to home. (Gotta play a round of golf every once in a while.)
Several local contacts with decent freight.
Hooked up with a couple of brokers. (Trusting other truckers on this one.)

We have been reading the CAD message boards for some time now and have learned many things that have helped us get to this point. I anticipate that we will need your collective years of knowlege more than a few times in the coming months. Thanks in advance!

Good for you, and wish you both success! Keep us posted how the first few months go.

Good for you. Congratulations. It sounds like you are on the right track. We will be interested in hearing how you are progressing.

Best of luck to ya, let us know how the dry van goes, it'll be interesting to follow your progress.

1st problem so fast
 

OK - Need your help already. 2nd haul - sent to wrong adress. BOL had the address of the owner of the business it was to be delivered to instead of the actual delivery address. Needless to say DH was not happy as his truck was rolling through a residential neighborhood - truck scraping tree limbs, etc.
Called dispatcher and they gave him the correct address. Made out like it was no big deal.
Dh asked about compensation for time and miles and was told they would ask management about it.

Do you ask for a number to call and verify address before you pull the load? Any other tips for handling this type of problem?

finally made it to the correct delivery site. Now the receiver has unloaded half of load and refusing to take the rest! Says it's a bunch of junk. This is not turning out so well.

After receiving the rate confirmation sheet, I always get the phone # of the shipper and consignee and call them to verify pickup and delivery information. If the information is different than what's on the rate confirmation, I get it cleared up before I move. I also rerun the miles from point-to-point if there are any differences so if there are any discrepancies, they are worked out immediately.

Contact the Broker or Shipper and tell them the Consignee has refused the load and ask them what do they want you to do with it. There might be a claim filed against you. Was anything damaged? Were the items loaded not the correct items to be delivered?

It is a good policy to call the shipper and receiver to confirm address and delivery information. If it doesn't match the rate confirmation, then the matter should be addressed at that time. When you deliver and a receiver refuses part of all of the shipment, then the first thing to do is call the shipper or broker who gave you the load. If there is a possibility of a damage claim, then you should be prepared to take plenty of pictures to document the claim. If the receiver or shipper caused the damage, then that should be noted on the bills at the time it occurred.

could we get a update?

DH called the shipper and explained that the receiver was refusing part of the load. Took about 3 hours to resolve - so he was paid some detention time and they finally took the rest of the load. The delivery was some sort of plastic containers and the receiver said they were dented, etc. A dock worker told DH that the guy who refused the load was just hard to please and that he often has issues. (not exactly his words but don't want to get kicked off this forum.)

We will call to confirm delivery address in the future. Thanks for your help.