They must have.They trade loads all the time. My last company, Was a brokerage that had trucks just to cover the crap loads no one wanted.
There are a lot of trucking companies that also have their brokers license. It's a good way to get new contacts. I know one driver that has his own authority and hauls freight. He has a brokers license also and his wife handles that end at home. His credit rating is non existent on ITS so most truckers will not deal with him. After one year, if no complaints his rating goes to an "A". He can only broker out like one load every 2 weeks because he doesn't have the cash on hand to pay the driver within 30 days.
Brokers need to have a buttload of cash on hand to pay the drivers within 30 days. Some pay within 15 days or less. I know one broker that has a small dedicated staff to Steel Dynamics and moves 12 loads a day out of there 7 days a week. Just that contract alone requires them to have an enormous amount of cash on hand.
As an example: At 12 loads a day at lets say $1,500 each that's $126,000 a week and $3,780,000 a month!!!!! To be able to pay carriers in 15 days would require them to either have at least 1/2 that amount on hand in cash or a line of credit with a bank. At one point last year Landstar was doing so much freight they started to fall behind in paying carriers. Their credit rating fell to a "B".
Brokers do serve an important function. I for one understand it. Some are very good and do a volume business by only taking either a small percentage or just a fixed fee for each load. Truckers like myself look for loads from these brokers and eat them up. Those brokers make their money by shear volume instead of Total Quality Logistics who try to make a complete killing on every load.
The required amount for a broker bond just went up this month from $10,000 to $75,000. This was a major victory for us independent truckers. Many brokers will go out of business because of this. Banks will not take the risk anymore. Being a broker is the absolute best way to make a ton of money by booking a ton of loads at a bullshit rate then never pay the truckers and walk away with $100,000 in a blink of an eye.
