This report is to serve as a warning to anyone considering lease or aquiring services from; Kingdom Carriers aka U.S. Backhaulers aka Patriot Carriers of Cape Girardeau Missouri owned and managed by a Mr. Chris Wallace. This was my experience while under lease, the rip-off is what they did when I left.
1) Their operation is basically forced dispatch, they do not offer you loads to choose from, they do not have their own trailers and have to mooch reefer units from companies that need a trailer moved so a driver has to take the loads that are offered because the trailer has to get to a certain point, they also do not have a clientel base that allows them to negotiate any freight, not that that matters as the owner operator only gets 0.92 per mile.
2) No fuel surcharge was ever paid to my truck, and in a phone conversation with the owner, he had stated and I quote "sometimes we get it (fuel surcharge) and sometimes we don't" so if they got it, they kept it.
3) there was no communication between anyone in the office I had loads that appointments were never made for and I wound up having to wait to get unloaded. Or no one would know what load I had or where I was going.incorrect info given on loads.
4) No detention for the time sitting
5) The settlements always took over 3 weeks to get and were 85% of the time incorrect.
6) The Comdata card would not work due to lack of funds sometimes over 2 times a week.
Now the good part. On September 12 I gave notice over the phone to the owner, Mr. Chris Wallace that I had intentions of terminating my lease, This conversation was taped, though it is hard to hear, my end of the conversation is clear. When I got home I wrote a letter on September 22 and enclosed it into an Express mail envelope that also contained the bills from the loads I had hauled. The witness to this is my fiance who saw the letter and watched me seal it into the envelopes with the load bills.
I have a copy of the letter and the costomer copy of the mailing invoice as well. They claim I never gave notice. They also claim that they did not get the plate and permits returned within 48 hours, well according to the termination notice, they got that stuff before that time and I have the Express mail costomer copy dated October 1st when those items were sent off and the termination notice was for October 4th so that puts me ahead of the game.
The fax I sent was edited, due to the fact that I was too upset and started to put some bad things in there, I was angry that it had already been over 3 weeks that I had not been paid and my termination date was nearing.
They charged me for "trip Pak" envelopes that I never received as they were left for me at the Rhodes Truck Plaza in Cape Girardeau Mo at the fuel desk, nice place to leave something that needs to get to a driver, very professional and business like... Not!
Never got em, have no need to keep something like that, Duh Huh!
They had me pick up a load in Georgia and drop it in Indianapolis for another driver, a load of chicken, the ignorant driver didn't pick the load up, I got a call from the broker and had to explain to them what had happened. Well apperently the unit ran out of fuel and the load went bad, THEY CHARGED ME WITH THE CLAIM When It was their driver Frank that had not picked up the load on time!
These same people had a driver pick up a load of Good Humor/Breyers Ice cream on a friday and drop it at the Rhodes truck stop for me to pick up on Sunday. They adamantly stated that someone would keep check on the fuel. Yeah Right!
I get there early Sunday morning the fuel tank is empty, the unit quit and the box temp was 50 degrees. Yes Breyers they did that to your load. Well, I plan to call Timberlake foods and talk to the guy I spoke with when they wanted to know where the load of chicken was and let them have the link to this web site to send to other brokers. I will also send links to as many people at Breyers as I can get e-mail addresses for.
My intention here, is if I deter 1 driver from making the same mistake, I break even, if I deter someone from giving them a load I make out like a bandit. Since there are no falsities here, I speak the truth, no fabrication.
Mr. Wallace, If your company is doing so poorly that you have to take from an owner operator, keep it. You need it worse than I do, but keep in mind, what goes around, always comes back around SIR!
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