Prime Incorporated

[Reviewer]

Prime Incorporated (Prime Inc.) offers driving careers in both van and flatbed for company drivers, lease purchase, and owner operators. Prime Inc. offers an in-house truck driving school that allows you to obtain a CDL license and begin your truck driving career.

Driver Qualifications:
A valid driver's license and be at least 21 years old.
No careless or reckless convictions in the last 3 years.
No DWI's or any alcohol convictions in the last 5 years.
No more than 4 moving violations in the last 3 years.

For more information about Prime Inc. visit their website: Prime Inc. Home Page (truck driving school - truck driving job - truck driver jobs)

Do you work for Prime Inc., or have you worked for them in the past? Give a review here. If you have questions, post them here as well for drivers who are familiar with the company to answer if possible.

 

[HeyMan]

Anyone reading this must read my other post on Prime. They appear to be a type of pyramid scam.

• Vindictive recruiters.

• The so called CDL training program is suppose to be around 2 wks. but once you get out, you are a cheap team driver, hostage to the road. You will stay out until they can get you back for the test. All the time your kicking and screaming to get back so you can test; they really don't care, they have to move their freight. You get back when they can get you back. All they have to say is your not ready yet and they keep you out longer.

• The next phase is called trainee, it is nothing more than a way to get cheap team drivers, again. You could be out 8 wks but possibly more like 3 mos.

They say they have the best training. No they don't. Good training is when you are trained and out of there as soon as possible and trained well. As for there training is not really training if your on the road as long as they keep you out there you should know quite a bit. Length of time does not make a good training program.

• $850.00 a week for a lease. Twice the cost to buy your own truck. Another example if you are in FL, a bad place to drive, they will give their company guys the good paying loads and you have to take the crappying loads to get out of there.

:thud:

 

[J.R.]

PRIME:well let see where do i start. DO THEY TRET YOU WELL?o yes they treat you great no better, but there is a cost to the madnes. DO THEY GIVE YOU A NICE TRUCK? now as a matter of fact they do i recieved a new fld 120 freightliner condo not a bad truck. DO THEY GIVE YOU THE EQUIPMENT YOU NEED FOR FLAT BED ? PRIME DOES NOT GIVE YOU ANYTHING. what they do is give you a open charge account and let you buy anything you want or need it is charged to your truck IT IS NOT FREE. but like i said it is an open charge you can charge all you want ,BUT you pay dearly for all you purchase, it automaticly comes out of your setelment each week.
TRUCK PAYMENT: o yes you got them 800.00 or better per week.
DO YOU OWN THE TRUCK? A RESOUNDING NO YOU DO NOT. it is what they call a lease purchase, you pick it out at prime but the truck is leased from succes leasing who prime owns, as far as ownership no but there is in fACT very few restrictions on the truck you keep it , you run it , you take it home or whatever the only thing you have to do is leave it leased to prime , cant lease it anywhere else just prime.
CAN YOU MAKE MONEY WITH PRIME? that is debatelbul , some say the make a lot of money, some say they dont . as for my personal expeirence i did not make a dime with them and i gave there truck back and went home , i dont work for free.
but i will give them this , if you decide to go with prime they treat you good i mean they roll out the red carpet you want for nothing and there trucks are top shelf and they all run they dont have a slow truck in the fleet there all good trucks and they have there own shop and those guys in the shop are top shelf if it needs to be fixed they can do it and do it right .
now at the time i went to prime there dispatch really sucked , they wanted you to take short runs thats where the problem lies or did .
now its been quite awhile sinch i have been ther and i understand things have changed so if your thinking about it ask a lot of questions .
there are some that make it with prime most dont i didnt because i wouldnt truck there way thats just not the way i truck but like i said some make it and those that are with them ride in style and they do treat ou great.
good luck if thats where your going .---------------j.r horton

 

[Mike]

And, from my personal experience with them, they will flat out lie to you in regards to freight. Since it is considered your truck, and a non-forced dispatch, their way around this is to simply lie to you and tell you the load they offer is the only one there.

Case in point:
I was in Laredo, TX. A place where I always dreaded ending up with PRIME, because I knew that it meant I was likely grabbing a produce load out of Mexico, heading to the Northeast, knowning that once unloaded, the trailer would be absolutely filthy, not to mention, I likely have to go into the nearest truckstop and buy a few light for the trailer than had been stolen from it while in Mexico (or stolen by other drivers once the trailer got back into the States)

On this particular weekend, I am down there on a Friday afternoon, and get my load information. It is a 7 stop load of Broccoli in the Bronx. The freight rate is absolutely horrid, but I am told that all the extra stop pay makes up for it. I respond that the "stop pay" has nothing to do with the mileage rate, they are two separate things, and there is no way in hell I am hauling this load. The response back to me was I would have to sit there til Monday because there was nothing else available "anywhere".

I reply back that I am not sitting there, as I am less than 450 miles from home and that I will simply deadhead there, sit for the weekend, and on Monday I will be calling up to headquarters and climbing the latter of management until I get my point across.

Less than an hour later (while I am rolling toward home), qualcomm beeps again. I have a load to pick up in Austin, than delivers in New Jersey (medical supplies) on Monday morning. This load, even with the deadhead to Austin, averaged out to paying more than .50/mile better, it was already preloaded (and had been for over 24 hours), weighed less than half of what the Produce load weighed (less fuel to burn), and it meant that I didn't have to pay those insane fees to cross those pathetic bridges into New York City.

Not to mention, I was unloaded Monday morning, before my first stop in the Bronx would have been done.

 

[HeyMan]

As for flat out lying how about this one. Two weeks ago I was talking to a Prime L/O. I asked him about Florida. He said if you go to Florida it will be hard to get out without taking cheap freight. He said that the lie about having good paying freight and they give the good paying stuff to the company guys so the company can make the money. If they do you like this in one place who knows what they are doing all the other times.

I'm telling ya, this is some BS.