Imagine you’re a trucker, driving along the normal route listening to “On the road again” and headed to the same shipment location. When you arrive, your freight is gone. The shipper says that someone already signed off, loaded, and drove away with 400K worth of stuff.
The Shipper thought it was some new guy from your company.
Really? It happens. All you want to do is slap your shipper upside the head for being a dummy.
Sounds like a bad Nic Cage movie but it’s not. This form of thievery is on the rise in the real world.
According to the Freight Watch International annual Cargo Theft Assessment, there has been 61 cases of deceptive pick-up out of 943 cargo theft incidents in 2013. It may not sound like much but that’s about 24 million dollars stolen every year from these Trojan horse Trucks.
If you drive in California, be aware that the Golden State can be a bit shady, with 259 incidents. It more than doubles up the Lone Star state of Texas with 123 incidents and the Sunshine state of Florida with 113 incidents.
So if a shipper starts giving you the stink-eye, rest assured that it’s not your ugly mug that’s provoking him, he’s just doing his job right.
Is this a legitimate concern or an extra slab of paranoia to jitter up the shippers?