I get a discount with my NASTC membership. I really don't know what "retail" would be. I'm also not sure if Ansonia wants the discount price freely bandied about online by non NASTC members, so I'll not divulge my pricing to be on the safe side. My guess is that it would be in the neighborhood of $10 a pop, perhaps substantially less if you want to contribute in their data collection program (simply reporting the amount owed and days-to-pay of each of your clients).

I only say it is pricy because it’s not an unlimited use, flat rate per month deal like on some of the load boards. You wouldn’t want to kill a few free minutes looking companies up for fun with Ansonia. I do think that it is worth knowing who I am working with, especially in our cut-throat industry. We may haul one reefer load from CA to MA that pays $8k. All you have to do is consider what it would mean to not have just one of those loads pay and the fee Ansonia charges quickly becomes worth every penny they charge and more.

 

A dispatch service will work with an owner operator or carrier to find loads. They will negotiate rates and handle all the paperwork. They will basically coordinate things between the broker and owner operator or carrier. The dispatch service may or may not have their own contacts, although it would be most beneficial for him to have at least some of his own contacts, especially for the times when the truck gets into difficult to find freight areas. He should be working with the owner to get the better rates. A dispatcher usually works on a flat rate or percentage basis and the owner knows exactly what the load pays and how much the dispatcher will make. It is the dispatcher's job to make sure the truck stays loaded. It is his job to find freight for the truck. No special training or licensing is required to become a dispatcher (yet).

A broker should have his own accounts. Although most paperwork states that the broker is working in behalf of the driver, that is not necessarily true. It often seems to me that the broker works either on behalf of the shipper or himself. A broker must post a surety or performance bond and have authority to legally act as a freight broker. The owner operator may never know what the broker makes off of a load. A broker may try to find a load for a truck, but for the most part the broker already has his own freight and he will try to book that freight on a truck rather than find freight for a specific truck.

 

Music,

Thanks for the information. I agree it's a bit pricy, but for the bigger loads, I would say it's well worth it, do you find the credit services on getloaded or ITS to be accurate? Maybe not on the scale of Ansonia, but accurate nonetheless?

 

Gman,

It seems like I am regressing with this question lol, but as far as having their own contacts for a dispatcher, and having their own contacts for a broker, what is the line you can't cross as a dispatcher, meaning, what makes the broker need the MC# and the bond, and the dispatcher does not? It seems like it's a real fine line if I sit and think about it.

Thanks,
Sam

 

So dispatch services sound better than to me than brokers. If we're talking about 10% for finding a load, in addition to saving the driver the time spent finding it, that seems fair to me. Are dispatch services companies you need to lease your truck to? How do you find one?

 

No leasing involved, you use your own authority etc,

As far as finding one, you can run a google search, I found around 10 while doing some research, one charges a percentage while the rest charge a flat rate it looks like, it varies, some have different packages that they charge different prices for etc,

 

Okay, after talking with my account rep with Ansonia, she said they have no problem disseminating any information I can about them, their pricing, services, etc…. She said I’m free to email actual reports to anybody who is interested… Sooooooo, here goes.

Non NASTC member pricing is no monthly fee… pay-per-use only… $5 per report if you are a data contributor and $8 per report if you choose not to contribute data. The monthly alert service will, for something like $23 a month, alert you if any negative action (complaints being filed) occurs on any company you’ve run a report on in the previous sixty days. Also, alert members can file complaints on-line, while non-subscribers have to actually pick up the phone and make a call.

Ansonia offers a 2 week free trial that DOES NOT automatically renew. During your two week trial, you have full unlimited access to everything. Pull as many credit reports as you wish, save them to your hard drive as a pdf file for future reference. You really can’t beat the deal. And since the trial does not automatically renew (they won’t even ask you for your billing information), you have absolutely nothing to lose.

I have to say that using Ansonia has really opened my eyes to what is going on behind the scenes. You can just take a quick look at Ansonia’s credit worthiness estimate of a broker or shipper or carrier, or you can in one click take a look at the actual account aging reported by every single account. They even break down the reporters into categories such a 3pl, Carriers, Factors, Fuel, Leasing, etc., so you see a clear picture of how a company operates. I’ve seen a trend where many brokers who are running tight on cash will pay the factors in 31 days or so but make the carriers wait as much as 61 – 90 days to get paid. When I see that, I tell myself that if I ever run a load for that broker, I better intend on factoring (which I don’t do) the load. I think their thinking is that a factoring company is more likely to not only know how to report to companies like Ansonia, but to actually do it. How many of the one or two truck companies out there know how and to whom to report bad credit info to? Probably not many, but I think the more who start reporting both the good and bad debtors, the more informed and better off we will all be.

If you’re interested in the 2 week free trial, PM me and I will send you my account rep’s contact info. Or you can just go to the Ansonia site and fill out their form. I know I sound like an advertiser for this company, but after having my own trial… I’m hooked like it’s heroin. I won’t use a new broker or shipper anymore without first pulling their credit. Spending $5 to maybe save thousands is a no-brainer for me.

In fact I think the service might have just paid for itself today. I had my truck posted for next Monday availability and a broker called me up sounding, quite frankly, like an idiot. He wants my truck today which is an impossibility. We finally got it all straightened out, but I told him I’d call him right back with a decision on the load in five minutes. I hung up, logged onto Ansonia with my Android phone, looked up his company and to my surprise, they had one of the best credit profiles I’ve seen. I mean those people pay their carriers like their life and not just their reputation depend on it. Being reassured, I called the guy back and took the load (at a juicy price, I might add). Without knowing who these guys were, I’d never had accepted the load and might have ended up with a more undesirable load.

 

Very nice,

When I am closer to being ready, I will definitely get the information from you.

Thanks,

Sam

 

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