Every industry has its rotten apples — scammers and fraudsters who bend the rules or outright lie and cheat customers. Freight is no exception, and shippers who don’t have experience can easily be caught up in schemes that leave them high and dry.
Fortunately, when you work with an experienced freight broker like Shaker Logistics, you’re partnering with a team that’s trained to detect fraud. Our rigorous internal processes ensure that we’re checking and double-checking critical information about shipments, carriers, locations, and billing details. We’re familiar with the most common scams and our trained team, including multiple Certified Transportation Brokers, is aware of how to spot sketchy situations that just don’t add up.
Our customers rarely have to worry about freight fraud when they work with us, because we know how to avoid it upfront. Watch the video above to learn more about our process!
At Shaker Logistics, some of our key strategies for mitigating the risk of freight fraud include:
- Our carrier vetting process includes stringent guidelines for the carriers we contract with. This helps us avoid putting freight on trucks that don’t have the right insurance or safety and maintenance records.
- We avoid double-brokering scams by ensuring that the carrier we’ve contracted to move your freight is, in fact, the truck that’s hauling it! We ensure the bill of lading matches the motor carrier number on the side of the vehicle when your freight is picked up.
- We’re trained to recognize red flags that could indicate payment scams, like fake requests to pay for phantom repairs, false inspections, or other claims.
- Choosing secure routings that decrease risk of theft. We aim to schedule trucks to minimize freight sitting unattended at pickup or delivery, and avoid routes through certain shipping hub cities or areas known to attract freight thieves. Tracking technology ensures we know where freight is.
We love working with our customers and educating them on how to protect against freight fraud — but we also just take care of checking and double-checking information as part of our regular processes, so our shippers don’t even need to worry about it.
If you’ve been hooked by a freight scam in the past, or you’re just looking for tips and guidance of how to avoid it in the future, get in touch with our team to discuss more tips for making sure your freight arrives safely to its destination.