Anyone go after surety bonds?

I’ve run a business for 20 years, but only a year into flatbed. With contracts that are signed and shown up to, but broker says “the shipper made other arrangements, sorry”, I would move on if it wasn’t a huge deal, but when it is, have any of you gone after their surety bond to enforce the contract?

 

Well, on a 21 day run, it happened twice. First time was a broker named Oasis. Screaming at me to make sure I was getting to Sacramento on time for pickup, which I did…and doors are locked at the facility. Broker texted and said “client just cancelled the job, not my fault”. So that put me on an 800 mile deadhead for the next contract. And the second to last contract, broker put in completely wrong dimenisons. Load ended up needing permits and a lowboy, he was off by 30,000lbs and 4 feet of height (would have put any flatbed over 15’ high). So then it was another 650 mile dead to the last contract that went fine and got me back home. That broker was Ship a Car Inc on that one (wanted a tank to be shipped, not a car. Anyway, I’m filing claims against their bonds and see if I have any luck.

 

Yes, signed rate cons. One of them, the broker “accidentally double booked” I found out from the shipper. The other was just a Royal screwup by the broker or was trying to get someone to load the super heavy unit and then it’s the carriers problem once it’s going. It was 21 days. All for one manufacturer with dead heads filled by brokers. 7 brokers went flawless and 2 were the ones above that just were the waste of a couple of days and thousand + $ of fuel.