Beware of Auto Trans Group. They will Rob you of your money

I work for Auto Trans Group out of Elk Grove Village,Il . It's a carhauler business. My job is to drive one of them 18 wheelers you see carrying 9 cars on the interstate. About two months ago Auto Trans Group leased both me and the truck to Precision Motor Transport Group. A bigger company out of Michigan state. Now I'm an employee at both ATG and PMTG. I pick up the cars at two STATE OWNED(i.e. ports, factories, etc)locations in Maryland and Indiana states. I report for duty to Lafayette, IN. Once a week I drop off the paperwork I'm required to keep as a CDL driver at the Lafayette location.

On Nov 9 Monday night I slipped the folder containing the required paperwork under the Special Operations Manager(The guy that I'm supposed to tell what time I'm coming so he can prepare me a load. He is also the guy that collects all of the paperwork) office door.

Two days later(Wed the 11th), after I delivered the cars I went to Baltimore location. Over there I was told by the two safety employees that they don't have a load for me because I didn't turn in my papers on Monday night, which I did, so I told them the same thing. Things got hairy from here on. They were trying to intimidate me via verbal abuse in order to make me give up and leave without a load, that way they have something to show in terms of caught safety infractions.

I hopped back in the truck and called my ATG boss and explained him the situation. He said not to worry, it will be taken care of. I texted Special Ops Manager and explained him the situation too, he told me he got everything needed from me. About 10 minutes later the third employee(young guy) showed up and said that he just talked with Special Operations Manager, which advised him that i did not turn in the required paperwork and that i was to leave. I told him to stop intimidating me and that I would complain. At this point I texted both my ATG boss and Head of Safety at PMTG and complained about being abused.

Then I hopped out the truck and started preparing the trailer for cars. About 10-15 min later the young guy sneaked up on me from behind as I was working and gave me the permission to load while also threatening me with repercussions.

I loaded two or three cars by the time PMTG Head of Safety called me. I had a jolly conversation with this nice old gentleman, he assured me that as the safety boss he guarantees me that I'm not going to be taken advantage of and that there's going to be a review of this issue.

30 minutes later the Special ops manager texted me that my complaints reached Safety Department, that there's going to be a review of this situation and also added that if ,I had anymore issues pertaining to this situation, I was to contact him(him, not the safety dept).

Next day(Thursday the 12 ) I texted Special Ops Manager and asked him what is the number that I need to write on the current Bill Of Lading. (It's a number I have to write on every BOL. BOLs consist of four carbon copies. The number is always different and has to be on all four copies, including the one I leave at the dealership together with the cars.)

I also inquired again about how this number is obtained.

I did so, not out of pure curiosity, but because so far SpecOpsMan would text me the numbers a few days after the cars were dropped. That means the dealer copy of BOL ended up every time unnumbered, which in turn means that it's harder to locate in the system, therefore the payments due for each BOL are delayed.

It took the whole day of texts(very entertaining to see him try and wiggle his way out) before the SpecOpsMan admitted that: yes, the number is indeed readily available as I'm loading the cars but he chose to give them to me days later for every load. That's besides other artificial confusion planted by him.

I complained about this situation via texts to: my ATG boss, PMTG Head of Safety and also the C.O.O of PMTG.

Right away my ATG boss started pressuring me via texts to stop complaining.

Later that night I received notice from PMTG that every driver was to hand over their logbooks(logbooks are official documents, the only ones that write on them are drivers and mechanics ) so the safety people can mark them before you get a load .

Basically, PMTG is trying to make it look like the 3 Safety people were not being abusive-they were actually trying to enforce the logbook rule. In their version I was the one abusive for refusing to comply to new rules.

But I have to bring to your attention that the rule was only "invented" the next day after the incident. Also all them Wednesday texts between me and PMTG show clearly what the conflict was about in Baltimore .

This would be a wonderful chance for the safety people to get punitive with me. When I turn in the logbooks at the end of the week, who stops these guys to claim that is not their mark and fire me for logbook falsification. That's definitely not a road I want to take so I texted these concerns to my ATG boss, to SpecOM and PMTG Head of Safety.

The next day(Friday Nov 13) I also told them that I need some time off to see a lawyer before I do anymore loads.

Not even 30 min later my ATG boss threatened through one of ATG accountants to not pay me my money and still hasn't paid me a dime. They owe me just over ten thousand dollars.

Monday the 16th I went to the closest Employment Lawyer to my house in Madison. Monday the 23rd I received a letter from them stating they can't pursue this matter because neither ATG nor PMTG have enough affiliations in the state of Wisconsin while also advising me to act legally as soon as possible because there's a time limit

 

You would think that since all of this is going on in TWIC card(government) locations, there shouldn't be any kind of this abuse, sabotage or confusion. But I stand corrected

 

Yep, Mad City. It's only 2 hours from Chicago. But it's way cheaper and you can get to anything in town in less that 15 min even in rush hour

 

Wisconsin is a good place to be

 

My ATG boss has been feeding me lies for the past two months that his bills are high and companies that owe him money aren't paying him. I was paid twice about one thousand dollars each time in course of two months. Also he's telling me that PMTG is only paying him once in 3 weeks(they have to wait 3 weeks for first week check and so on). I already told all of them that I'm not doing anymore loads until we settle, will see how that works out. I made a promise to myself I'm not going to be this understanding of my bosses financial hardship anymore, it's like bending over and spreading your butt so they can give it to you real good