My husband and I came to work for USX in Oct. After being a company driver, we decided that leasing a truck would be a better option for us. We loved US Xpress. When we first started it was a wonderful company.
We did great for a long time, then the company did some changes, we lost our dispatcher, they moved all their owner operator trucks over to Direct Express. Thats where everything went downhill. We ended up with a decent dispatcher, for about 3 weeks. Then we ended up with a guy who had ni idea what was going on and Adam was his supervisor and unfortunately our load planner.
They moved us to Direct Express about the same time our lease was up and we were offered to purchase it. We went ahead and started the purchase.
We werent getting enough miles. When I say not enough miles, I mean like 1500-2500 miles for a team per week. We talked to our dispatcher we talked to everyone we could. We talked to Stacey Powell, who btw is a freaking joke. We talked until we were blue in the face.
The problem is, Direct Express isnt set up for team drivers. They mostly work with solos. So we would get a 300 mile load, that would pick up on monday and couldnt be delivered until wednesday, then once delivered they wouldnt have us preplanned, we would end up with a load that picked up friday that was only 600 miles long.
Well, one day, Adam tried to force us to take a 250 mile trip that only paid 175.00 which wouldnt even cover fuel costs much less truck payments, insurance and everything else that goes along with. Our contract stated that we could turn down any load we chose to. If we turned down 2 loads, we would eat any deadhead miles on the 3rd load if we accepted it.
So we turned down the load. Adam replies saying that theres no other loads, within 300 miles of new jersey, where we had delivered. We called him on the phone, said look, we will take it if theres a preplan. He said theres just no freight. We asked, where do we have to deadhead ourselves to, to get a load over 500 miles. He said, "youll take this load or youll sit there til hell freezes over because I wont load you, period."
We got a msg on the satcom saying to call stacey powell. We call. Stacey is Adams boss. Stacey says "adam wont load you anymore, youll have to call Sally D and figure something out" I said wait a minute, youre the boss, but youre going to let him tell you what he will and wont do, whos the boss, you or him?
Leaving lots of tidbit crap out of this btw...
Anyway we end up being forced to move to Beech out of little rock ar. These people reeeeally have no idea what they are doing. Our first week there, we did pretty good, got 4,000 miles, and our first and only paycheck in 6 months up to that point. The second week we got 1800 miles. We accepted every load they offered us. We were polite as we are to everyone.
We kept telling our dispatcher, we need more miles, we cant cover the truck payments unless we can get about 4,000 miles a week we cant survive. She kept telling us she would see what she could do.
Well, 5 months go by, yes we were stupid for staying there that long. 5 months go by and we end up finally getting to talk to Harvey Beech himself. Harvey looks in the computer, and says, well I can see why youre not happy, youve only had 5,000 miles this month, 4300 that month, 5200 this month... Then he proceeded to tell us how he runs his trucks and to follow his rule of thumb.
We did, and still didnt get enough miles to cover the expenses. Mind you all this time we are literally living off of our weekly advances of 200.00 each. We didnt turn down any load, we took everything they gave us and never not one time did we ever get 4,000 miles. They got us close once, 3400 miles.
From jan to october we received 2 paychecks. One for 81 and some odd dollars. The other for 741 and some change.
We heard, after we signed the contract for purchase, that usx does this on a regular basis. After you get into the purchase part of your lease, they stop giving you enough miles to run your truck. Since leaving USX Ive met at least 2 dozen people who said USX did the same exact thing to them.
We were there a long time, we tried to stick it out to see if we could at least get the truck before we had to change companies. We had only a yr left on our purchase and it would have been ours. We just couldnt do it anymore. We almost lost our home, we lost our cars, our phone, our sense of well being.
Theres no communication within the company at all. No one knows what the person at the next desk is doing. Its ridiculous. We were trying to build a life, and USX was determined to destroy it.
Im asking for any other owner ops with usx now or in the past that this is happend to to please contact me. Im going to try to get a class action lawsuit started against USX. Im sure a couple of adds abotu it in a trucking paper will get tons of hits.
And to those who would still say USX is a great company? If they are so great, why do they have a turn over rate of around 150-200 drivers a week?
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