No More detention Pay?

**romoore245** · 06-04-2006, 06:02 PM

I tried to del on Saturday, before the hoilday, to a closed location. Called dispatch and got the usual go away and try on your del time. I didn't, called several more times until someone that understood the concept of expedite frieght got on the phone. Dave a long time dispatcher with conway now. He put me on hold for a few minutes. When he returned it was bad news, I was instructed to hold the freight until Tuesday morning. For doing so I would get $210 I was laughing and asked why not detintion pay since it was a confirmed del. We don't pay detention pay, redeliver is all we pay.

I can't see how they can cut a contract item like this and not tell anyone?

I'm not the patient type when it comes to money agreed to. I asked for the load to be transfered, I had a preplan to get to. Dave said he would cover the preplan since I was under load. I offered to run the preplan and return the load to the shipper for free if it was left on my truck overnite. At this point after an hour of explaining contracts and pay items he understood I was not going to hold the freight so he found a transfer truck to give the load to.

Dave then told me every other truck he does this to just shuts up and sits on the freight, what were you going to do? He then asked my wife ten times what would you have done? I may not have handled it as well as I should have, but what would you do?

**LDB** · 06-04-2006, 06:02 PM

Any delivery outside 9-5 M-F should be considered very questionable, confirmed or not. Adding in a holiday weekend multiplies the shakiness. Detention and/or layover should be confirmed prior to acceptance just because Murphy can/will grab you. Our detention runs out after 9 hours and a layover night is $75 so sitting on something from Sat to Tue isn't fun. At least now you know what to expect from them for next time.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 4958, 5447
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
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**x06col** · 06-04-2006, 07:01 PM

Guess you better type the whole story. Was your delivery time Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday?? Didn't read how far you run the load? Didn't read read how much detention you figgured was due? Hard to say if you where outa line or, not with what I read. Sorry.

**RichM** · 06-04-2006, 07:29 PM

The way I understand it is that a customer can change the delivery time with no penalty up until the time you arrive at their dock. Question is who changed the delivery time? So if you were already confirmed for Saturday by calling ,you may have alerted them to this and then they changed it. Since Conway dispatch gave you a pre planned load they also asummed that the delivery would go as scheduled. In this case I would demand detention.

Here is a scenario that a fellow expediter told me about. If he has a confirmed delivery for say 2230 at night, when he arrives in the town he drives by and looks the place over. If it is a large place going full bore he pulls in and makes his drop. If it's a small place with only 1-2 cars in the lot he waits until the last minute to go in as sometimes the last one or two workers finish up and go home early.He said this way he gets detention and is paid to sleep all night.

**themagicoen** · 06-04-2006, 07:48 PM

On the remark of waiting till the last min to deliver and try to get detention - If you do that make sure you know how many trucks on the board that is covering that area, how many are coming and how many loads its doing. If I'm going to a low freight area, I'll get it there asap if there isnt any trucks there for I can be 1st out, if I called and seen there was 4 trucks on the way I wouldn't wait a heart beat to deliver - deliver and get 1st on the list. Back to the main topic - if I would taken that load I would made sure that I would of worked it out before acepting it. If it picked up say Thursday and was 1000 miles delivering Tuesday I would make sure to get layover pay. If your delivery was Sat and they weren't there well then its detention and if it states in your contract that you will be paid that - I'd call evreyone to get the answer you want. I've been tempted latly to call the CEO of P2 up personally to get a problem solved.

**romoore245** · 06-04-2006, 08:53 PM

We made it to the gate, before we knew they were closed. Usually we think to check weekend del, this was going to a big name companty so we didn't. Even if our detention time would only be for nine hours it would have been $450. What's worse a weekend hold fee is $300 so offering $210 was not acceptable. This was a stressful day and unload was the only answer. Dave had trouble understanding that the first hour. We tried taking it to a conway terminal, but they don't stay open on weekends in the south. The fact that Dave kept saying this happens all the time, and all we pay now is redeliver. I just kept demanding my detention pay or unload location. The result I had to drive to the nearest truck in route to the preplan and he cut 100 miles off the run even though I had made it to the location. The load was unloaded that was all that mattered.

Then my clutch went out five miles to the preplan pickup, live and learn.

**Broompilot** · 06-04-2006, 10:02 PM

When it rains it pours. I just had the most stressfull delivery ever. Convention Center, followed the instructions, get truck weighed before arriving. OK show up at Convention Hall I did on time acutally early, handed a piece of paper this is the largest tourist town outside of NY in the Country (Mickey), directions given to me were to go to Staging area (not explained in dispatch) Ok call dispatch for extra $ told mileage + expenses will be reimbursed, not happy with those #s, so start following directions that made no sense street did not exist at TURN LEFT, after 4 miles I figured it out THEY WERE BACKWARDS, now trying to do U-turns on divided highways, with a buch of Tourist, on a busy Saturday morning did not set well with my nerves.

Figure it out (how to get there) people were great to work with handling the convention other than the idiot who gave me the wrong directions. Oh she pulled the wrong one out of the pile I was told and get this NO ADDRESS TO WHERE I NEED TO GO IT IS PROVIDED. Gee just my luck. So get to the staging area, fill out paper work get my window sticker now go back and get unloaded, OK I figure they will sign for POD and I am out of there right, NOPE wrong.

Go get another Weigh, where? Thats my problem I am the professional driver. Whos gona pay for my mileage and scale tickets? Hmmm good question right? So get weighed, and now I go back to Staging area which is about 8 miles from Convention Center.

Wana talk stress, and by the way when you get stressed this is most likely gona be the time you have an accident so keep that in mind.

Talke about jumping through hoops just to get a POD, I have now done it and know what to expect next time, but boy wana talk about raising some blood pressure this delivery will do it....

Oh all this delivery took was about four hours.....

**x06col** · 06-05-2006, 04:35 PM

I still would like to read when the original delivery was scheduled for.

**bernieh48** · 06-06-2006, 02:12 PM

I believe you were right in what you did. We drive for Conway also and they do pay detention still. I don't know why Dave in dispatch would tell you that other than to get you to sit on the load for him. We sat on a load in NY for 9 hrs and got $100 for detention. Not sure if that is the norm but something is better than nothing. I also agree that what he offered of $250 was unacceptable. You were clearly right and he just had to live with it. My opinion though! I would have done the same thing!

**bernieh48** · 06-06-2006, 02:13 PM

Sorry I meant to say $100 an hr for d-time on that d/l in NY.Sorry for the error.

**romoore245** · 06-06-2006, 10:45 PM

Oh yea
The del was for 1700 on saturday We got to the del at 1200 on saturday. Thats when dispatch said go away and come back at 1700,we didn't, and after a few calls they found out the place was not reopening until tuesday. Another case of hurry up and wait.

**bludragon13** · 06-10-2006, 10:08 AM

Had a similar situation recently with conway, we picked up in Laredo at 1100 at 1200 notifyied we were not loaded ,called dispatch at 1400 said load held at border and we were on detention,got loaded at 1800 left for London,On. got there early(easter sun)waited until 0900 delevery time on monday turned out the con. was closed on mon after easter(that was the confirmed del date and time) no detention redeliver on tues. settlement paid 85 for det and 80 for redeliver.
I questioned this was told that shipper only paid this but dispatch said nothing when we were waiting that this shipper only paid set amount also that shipper does not pay border crossing.live and learn but how much questioning can you do? and it does feel like they were decietful.
we are new to this business and have been fairly treated so far made the money we expected(had one job that paid 399 for load and 855 for detention)but information is the key to sucess and am finding some owners have acess to info load boards via internet senior planners etc that new drivers can't get, still trying to it figure out. the difference appear to be about 40K income/year over new owners :-(

**Streakn1** · 06-10-2006, 07:13 PM

Glad this subject was brought up because we just had a situation regarding requesting detention pay.

We get a low paying load offer thats not confirmed. One minute after the offer is sent the dispatcher sends a message "delivery just confirmed for straight-thru delivery today". Since the pick up was at 15:30 hrs and was delivering 1.5 hrs drive away it was cnfirmed to deliver the same day. Based on that we accepted the load.

Arrived at shipper and sent arrival message to dispatch. Twelve minutes later dispatch sends message "customer changed delivery to 07:00". We could not pull off load since loading had already begun. Shipper takes 3 hrs to load us (5 pcs). Since customer is allowed up to 3 hrs from pick up eta, any delay time after that would be considered "Detention Time". At least thats how it has worked in the past. I would have thought we were justified detention pay from our original confirmed delivery time to the new delivery time.

We were once told by a dispatcher detention time is not charged from midnight to 08:00 hrs. I calculated that we would have arrived at the receiver at 20:00 hrs based on the time we left the shipper. Based on that we should have been entitled to 4 hrs minimum detention pay, shouldn't we? When I asked our company, I was told they do not charge this customer detention under any circumstances and they can change the delivery time if they choose.

I my mind this was a contract broken since we agreed to take the load based on a "confirmed" same day delivery. We would have never tied our truck up overnite on a less than $300 load. Lesson learned, confirmed means nothing. We will remember this customer in the future. Its the driver that ends up loosing!

**Jefferson3000** · 06-10-2006, 11:45 PM

Broompilot,

I am assuming you are referring to the Orange County Convention Center, specifically the new annex on the east side of International drive at Universal Drive. Correct?

Jeff

**jaminjim** · 06-11-2006, 07:23 AM

I think that what the carrier charges thier customer is in the contract that they have with thier customer, what I charge my customer (the carrier) is in my contract.