This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Domestic Supply Chain Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How to keep up with changing fraud tactics
DETAILS: Cassandra Gaines, CEO of Carrier Assure Inc., discussed fraud as a major problem in the industry and what carriers can do to combat it. One new scam she talked about involves fraudsters altering the bill of lading or proof of delivery to barely change the amount of a product being transported while stealing the rest. These individuals take advantage of the companies buying the product taking a long time to do inventory reconciliation.
KEY QUOTES FROM GAINES:
“We partner with [onboarding applications] and integrate with them so that the combination is helping avoid the theft and problems. … I want Carrier Assure to be the industry standard like a credit score, but also for brokers. We just released a broker score as well because carriers are telling us over and over again that there are great brokers out there, but there are so many brokers that are not doing the right thing. I just had a broker last week that refused to pay a carrier because they weren’t tracking their shipment, and the carrier produced evidence of tracking, clear-cut evidence. The broker refused to pay.”
“We need more transparency of who we’re working with [to] illuminate the top players – the ones who are doing great things – and then get rid of the people who just aren’t doing good things.”
“[FreightWaves] did an article on this … . It was about fraud that happened over July Fourth. All these carriers were involved in it, and it was bad. Brokers got taken for lots of money. It was because fraudsters knew that on Friday – before the weekend started for the holiday – that brokers would lower their standards and shippers too, because they were trying to move those loads. [Fraudsters] were trying to take advantage of them. … I think that everybody has to remember and hold to their standards when they can, especially when we get around the holidays.”
“Over the past four years, lots of companies have [hired workforce offshore]. There are some amazing companies, including Lean [Lean Solutions Group], that do an amazing job with offshoring. Then there’s other companies. What happens though, is we’ve educated those outside our industry on our weaknesses. So a lot of the fraud and the theft that’s going on is being done by folks outside our country. They know where our weaknesses are, like the bill of ladings and the PODs being altered, they know and they’re playing on that … . It’s happening from people overseas, or they disappear in the U.S. and go back overseas. Law enforcement can’t do anything, and that becomes so difficult for them and then also for our community as well.”
“Over the past few years, everybody’s been so focused on fraud and theft that safety has been kind of set aside by government and all of us. As the carriers get more power and the rates go up, they also need to continue to be focused on the safety because plaintiff attorneys haven’t gone away. And we’ve seen some crazy big verdicts.”
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