Getting paid by brokers — and what to do when one doesn't pay

Getting paid by a broker is decided mostly before you pick up the load: check the broker's credit and how long its authority has been active, keep your carrier packet ready, and get every extra — detention, layover, TONU — written on the rate confirmation before you roll. If a broker still does not pay, work the ladder in order: a demand in writing, a claim against the broker's $75,000 surety bond, and, in some cases, a claim against the shipper. Paper wins at every step, so keep yours from day one.

Before the load: check whether this broker pays

• Credit checks. Load boards show broker credit scores and average days-to-pay, and factoring companies publish credit reports on brokers. Use them. A great rate from a broker who pays late — or never — is a bad load.
• The federal record. Look the broker up in the FMCSA licensing records: is its broker authority active, how long has it been active, and is its bond on file? A broker with no active authority is not a broker you haul for.
• Age cuts both ways. A broker whose authority is brand new deserves the same caution brokers give you. New authority plus a rate that sounds too good is a combination to walk away from.

The new-authority wall

New carriers hit a wall: many brokers will not work with an authority until it has been active for 90 days to 6 months. It is a published pattern across the industry, not a judgment on you — brokers were burned by identity theft and double brokering run through fresh authorities, and the age rule is their blunt defence.

Boards rarely label a broker's age requirement on the load itself, so expect to learn it on the call. Ask it early, before you spend twenty minutes selling yourself, and keep a list of the brokers who said yes — that list is gold in your first months.

The limbo brokers who will take a brand-new authority often offer $0.90–$1.25 a mile for it. Drivers climb out the same few ways: work the smaller brokers who judge you on the call instead of the calendar, go direct to the yards and companies that hand out work in person — showing up, in the truck, still opens doors an age rule closes — and run every load perfectly so the brokers who did say yes become regulars. The wall is timed. It falls on its own if you are still running when it does.

The carrier packet: what brokers ask for

Before your first load with any broker, you send a carrier packet. Keep it assembled, current, and ready to email — a driver who sends a clean packet in minutes looks like a driver who delivers.

• Your authority letter — the FMCSA grant page for your MC authority.
• Your insurance certificate, current, in the amounts the broker asks for.
• A signed W-9 for your business.
• The signed broker-carrier agreement — read it before you sign it, especially any clause about who you may ask for payment if the broker does not pay.
• Your banking details for payment, in the form the broker's setup asks for.
• If you factor, the notice of assignment from your factoring company, so the broker knows to pay the factor.

TONU and extras: agree them before you roll

TONU — truck ordered, not used — detention for waiting, and layover pay are fought over after the fact by drivers who never agreed them before it. The time to fight is before pickup, when you can still say no.

Get the detention rate and when it starts, the layover amount, and the TONU amount written on the rate confirmation for that load. A promise on the phone pays nothing. The same goes when the load changes — a new pickup time, an added stop: get a revised rate confirmation before you move, not a promise that it will be sorted out later.

Fees taken out of your pay

Some brokers charge a fee when they pay a lumper for you or send you an advance through a check-style payment service — the driver sees a hefty fee taken for money that passed through the broker's hands to a third party. That fee is not your cost by default. It is a cost of the load, and costs of the load belong in the rate. Ask about payment-method fees when you book, and negotiate them into the rate before you roll — after delivery, the same fee is simply gone from your money.

If a broker does not pay: the claim ladder

1. Demand payment in writing

Send a written demand — email counts — naming the load, the delivery date, the amount, and the paperwork: your invoice, the signed rate confirmation, and the signed delivery receipt. Set a clear deadline and keep copies of everything. Many unpaid loads are really lost paperwork, and a clean, complete demand fixes those.

2. Claim against the broker's bond

Brokers must carry a $75,000 surety bond — the bond filing shown on the broker's FMCSA record (the BMC-85 filing). If the broker will not pay, you can file a claim with the bond company named on that record. Send the same packet: rate confirmation, bill of lading, proof of delivery, your invoice, and your written demand. The bond company investigates and pays valid claims up to the bond amount. If many carriers claim against one failed broker, the money is shared — another reason to file promptly and completely, not last and angry.

3. The shipper question

Can you go after the shipper for freight charges if the broker went bankrupt or vanished? Sometimes — a carrier can have a claim against the shipper for the freight it actually hauled, in some circumstances. The honest version is that it is fact-specific: it can depend on what the paperwork says, what the broker-carrier agreement says, and what the shipper already paid. Document everything from the first load, and for real money take the packet to small claims court or a lawyer who handles freight claims rather than guessing. Do not let a load sit undocumented while you decide — the paper is what any route runs on.

Double brokering: what it is, and the tells

Double brokering is a load handed on without the real broker's agreement: someone takes a load as if they were the carrier or the broker, then re-sells it to you — pocketing the difference, and sometimes pocketing everything. The tells repeat:

• A “carrier” offering you a load that is not theirs to give, or a broker who cannot clearly say who they are.
• A rate confirmation that does not match what you were told — different company name, different rate, details that keep changing.
• Pickup details that shift, or instructions to check in at the shipper under a different company's name.
• The same load posted again on the board, at a different rate, under another name.
• A rate so far above the lane's normal that it stops making sense.

If you haul a double-brokered load without knowing, the real broker may never pay you — in the real broker's records, you were never its carrier. Protect yourself before pickup: read the name and MC number on the rate confirmation, match them against the broker's FMCSA record, and call the broker on the phone number in that federal record — not a number in an email — to confirm the load is yours. Two minutes of checking is cheaper than a load hauled for free.

When a platform or broker collapses

It happens: the Convoy shutdown left carriers who had hauled real loads chasing money from a company that no longer operated, and settlements dragged on for months. If a platform or broker you are hauling for collapses — including with your load in transit — your claim runs on your paper: the claim against the broker's bond, and the shipper paperwork for the load you actually moved.

So keep your own copies of everything, outside the platform: every rate confirmation, bill of lading, and signed delivery receipt, for every load, saved where a shutdown cannot take them. A driver whose copies live only inside a dead company's app has a story. A driver with the full packet has a claim.