Insult on top of injury

If you want to get truckers really mad, you only need a few words to do it. One example: brokers.

Another one sure to get a rise is the word, “lumpers.”

A recent call we received here at OOIDA headquarters is a good example of why.

The trucker said he recently delivered to a loading dock in the St. Louis area. The lumper fee was a whopping $120 – a figure that I find astounding, but which – unfortunately – I acknowledge is more common in some places than I really want to think about.

When our friend the trucker tried to pay the lumper with a ComCheck, he was told doing that would cost him $3 extra.

So let me get this straight: Truckers don’t get the surcharge for real increases in fuel costs, but a lumper – someone who’s probably not even reporting the income, someone who may not even be in the country legally – gets to charge him an extra $3 just so they can cash the check he paid them?

It’s ridiculous that you have to pay for a lumper at all; it’s even more ridiculous that you have to pay $120 for the lumper’s so-called service.

To be handed a $3 charge just because of how you paid them – that’s insult on top of injury.