At the heart of America’s industrious side lies freight. Literally everything that is manufactured, traded, sold, or imported has or will at some point move on a truck. The world of logistics will never suffer a shortage in workload - yet recently it certainly feels like it has. Markets by nature flip periodically, favoring one side over another, but recent trends have shipping rates staying relatively stagnant, while showing a decrease in truck rates. This disturbance in an already volatile relationship can cause turmoil on all fronts. As the mediators between the customer and carrier, it is important to take note of the resulting swarm of double brokerage activity and scams, as well as how to keep a sharp eye out for it.

Double brokering schemes are nothing new, but the time is now to learn to navigate around them in this already chaotic industry.

There are a few key red flags and procedures that should be on the mind of every carrier. Irregularities in an email address and abnormal rates or information should be cause to be wary. Carefully reviewing the rate confirmation, looking up the company to confirm its details match those given in an email or call, and building relationships with trustworthy brokers are some of the ways to avoid double brokering scams.

Besides practicing constant vigilance and developing reliable business relationships, carriers can make use of outside resources and organizations to help them avoid double brokering attempts. TIA and OOIDA are both organizations that verify reputable businesses. Using sites like Carrier411 or the free FMCSA SAFER system to run a search on a company are also good options.

For brokers, there are similar red flags to pay attention to. These include opting out of providing driver info in favor of later, calling from a number seemingly with no ties to the company, and of course the holy grail of evidence indicating double brokering - freight guard reports on Carrier411. Aside from empirical evidence, I have found that gut feelings are nothing to ever shy away from - listen to them.

At the end of the day, doing your due diligence will prove enough to ward off most potentially malicious entities. However, as humans we can make mistakes and even the most thorough of evaluations will sometimes end up with a rate confirmation in the hands of the wrong people. Together through cautious and deliberate work, we must mitigate as much as possible the effects of these familiar yet aggressively growing threats.