FFE

Discussion in 'Report A BAD Trucking Company Here' started by birddawg, Aug 19, 2007.

  1. birddawg

    birddawg Bobtail Member

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    Aug 19, 2007
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    Simple and not so watered-down report to follow. Basically their recruiting dept. managed to sweet talk me out of my intended truck driving school for their own and a nice one year obligation. Seems normal enough, right?

    I attended the FFE truck driving school (described as 1st rate, nationally recognized) in feb. this year. I get there to find a friggin' pasture and dirt track with some heavily beat down equipment. I knew I was screwed right then, because just going to the school meant a 4500 dollar obligation. I had intended to go to central tech here in my home state of oklahoma. The cost would have been a mere 1500 since I was an in state resident and a 6 week course was to follow. My recruiter, who was fired the week after I graduated, told me that their school was much better and only 2 weeks long. I should have known better.

    The place did have one instructor that made the difference, I mean he actually cared about his students where the others just cared about rubber stamping your ### through the program. If you were breathing and weren't high, and managed to complete the program without wrecking a truck, you got your cdl. Great.

    So after the bus ride back to the ffe terminal in lancaster, tx, my recruiter, who was supposed to pick me up and take me back to the lisa terminal, never showed up, and I had to take a 40 mile cab ride. Great.

    I should add that my girlfriend (experienced driver) and I decided to go with this company since we were assured that there was plenty of miles available for team drivers. I got to orientation after driving school and they promptly told me they were a solo only operation and team arent their focus. Great. After I am obligated for my cdl school, they disclose this. dumb me.

    I finish orientation and go into my otr training program. My trainer was a controlling, antagonistic #######, but I gutted it out to finish my program. Due to truck repairs and unexpected layovers, it became apparent that he would not have my mandantory miles completed and would not be home by easter. He became impossible to live with, and it boiled over one morning and I advised him to notify his fleet manager that I wanted a return load to ft. worth so I could get a new trainer. He told me to #### off and get off his truck because he said he would be ###### if he took me anywhere. He stranded me in birmingham, alabama.

    After catching a greyhound back to the terminal, I was assigned a new trainer and all was well. This new trainer was great and had me ready to road test in less than a week. I got back, road tested, and teamed up with my girlfriend to start driving.

    Miles were not bad at first, but for whatever reason, they started to drop off a lot over 4 months. We stayed out though, taking the ######## loads and getting the job done. Finally in july they had effectively starved us out and never got us home. No matter how we tried to work it to drop a load early and get another loadout early, we were forced to roll it at solo pace. We finally had enough and called it quits.

    So here I am last week at the orientation at a new company. Their tuition reimbursement program involved obtaining a copy of my contract from lisa/ffe and they would send them a check and deduct monthly payments from mine. Simple enough, right? I call lisa motor lines and they dummy up. I was bounced around everywhere from recruiting, training fleet managers, payroll, even the ceo of the company. No one could find anything on me, so they referred me to the human resources dept at ffe/conwell. No one there could find any record of me being a driver, nevermind a copy of my contract or obligation. I called their truck driving school to see if they had a copy of the contract, which they did, but they refused to release a copy of it without the authorization from lisa motor lines.

    So here I was back at square one. I called the director of recruiting and asked for him to send authorization to the truck driving school to release me a copy of my contract. He advised that he found a copy of it but wasn't authorized to release it either. Now it should be noted that upon signing it at the truck driver school, they refused to allow a copy of the signed document, only the blank one for "review" prior to signing it. I should have known better.

    The director of recruiting basically told me I should have got a copy of it when I attended the school and that I did have quite a problem. So at this time I put it into idiot's terms. I have the money i owe, I want to pay you. The reply I got was that the decision to take my payment would be up to their upper management and that wasn't a guarantee that they would release my contract making me available for rehire. It wasn't until I threatened litigation that he capitulated to faxing me a copy of it.

    long short, it turned out to be a non issue to my new hiring company. Basically, though, if you are wanting to go with lisa motor lines, even as an experienced driver, you can expect to get faulty, generally ###### equipment, low miles, per mile pet policy, mandantory daily per diem, poor fleet support management, and never to go home in a timely manner.

    If you are looking to lisa to obtain training, don't do it. They won't release you from your contract if you voluntarily quit and they don't want to let you pay them off like they say you can. you can do much better than this ###### company.
     
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  3. Tip

    Tip Tipster

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    Mar 18, 2006
    ON STRIKE
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    "...recruiting dept. managed to sweet talk me out of my intended truck driving school for their own and a nice one year obligation..."

    That's where you made your mistake. I know I don't have to tell you this, right? NEVER go the indentured servitude route unless it's a deal like CFI is rumoured to have. Supposedly, one can train at CFI for free, which would be an unheard-of deal in the world of trucking. All you have to do is take one load for them. This is based on a post I've read at this site, understand. Check into CFI.

    Another mistake:
    "...No one there could find any record of me being a driver, nevermind a copy of my contract or obligation..."

    Where is your copy of the contract? Didn't you keep it? Always get copies of those and keep them in a safe place. If they didn't give you one, that can be considered your fault. Always ask for a copy of anything you sign.

    I bet those guys have a record of your driving for them, for sure. Check DAC.

    This is yet another form of dirty trickery some companies use to either force you to come crawling back or keep your paws off a competitor's steering wheel:
    "They won't release you from your contract if you voluntarily quit and they don't want to let you pay them off like they say you can."

    Good luck at your new outfit. Sounds like you've paid a premimum tuition bill in the form of mulla and headaches to the college of hard knocks. Welcome to the classroom. I'm your classmate. Pleased to meet you.
     
  4. bo_jangles

    bo_jangles Bobtail Member

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    Aug 14, 2007
    florence al
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    hope your next job is better i was thinkin about going there thanks for the info good luck to you and becarefull out there peace bo
     
  5. cruzer

    cruzer Bobtail Member

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    Mar 18, 2007
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    This is really bad im thinking about talking to my State Rep about .Frozen Food Express.

    This sounds like A' trucking Company wanting to make money
    off the students'. The Training Site Sounds Just Hu! What A' Joke!
    A dirt training pad now thats money well spent! Frozen Food Express.
    Needs to revise the training program! from ground up. and I' thought.
    This was at least a fair company to start with! Its my thought that
    Frozen Food Express Inc. CLEAN UP AND REVISE CAN THIS BE!
    JUST ONE MORE REALLY BAD TRUCKING COMPANY TO DRIVE FOR
    NOW ON THE BAD LIST!! DONT GO TO FFE INC TRUCKING SCHOOL!
    :biggrin_25513::biggrin_2551::biggrin_25512: JUST A MONEY MAKER CRUZER WO.....!
     
  6. BrokenWife

    BrokenWife Bobtail Member

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    Jul 20, 2008
    Sidney,Ohio
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    :disgust: My husband as I post this is sitting at Medway here in Ohio without a dime to his name nor any for the rest of the family due to was FFE Transport has stolen from us. Now he is not new to trucking, he is coming up on six years in the industry and understands how the game is played. He started his career out at USExpress and after 3 years jumped the fence to another company thinking the grass was greener. After almost losing everything to JB Hunt's lease purchase program he wandered around a little till FFE sold him a bill of goods that was a lie from word one. They offered a $5000 sign on bonus for every 8000 miles driven, I was very hesitant about that because as a nurse I know that those who offer sign ons are usually just desparate for employess, I don't care what industry you are in. They promised him at least 2700 mi/wk and a rate of .36 cpm and a truck with less than 300,000 mi on it.

    During his orientation in Dallas he was telling me about how they were rushing the guys through all the paperwork and that they weren't given any real time to read it (red flag!), NEVER sign anything you don't read completely! After completing his 3 days he was informed there were NO trucks but if he wanted to go to Chicago they would have a truck there. He got off the bus at around 9 pm and was given a comcheck for a taxi ride to the terminal, at 10 pm he gets there and is told that although they have a truck for him the person who was in the office to assign it was going home for the night and would issue it in the morning. She just didn't want to go down the steps to get the keys and was just going to leave him stranded in the office for the night with no place to go/sleep. He contacted someone else in the office who got mad at her and just went down and gave him the keys as the paperwork was already done on her desk, had him sign and off he went to the yard to find his truck. He was issued one that has obviously been a lease purchase due to the customization that had been done by the previous driver and you could also tell he took very good care of the equipment. My husband was quite pleased and ready to roll.

    The next morning he gets a stat QC message from the woman that left him the night before stranded furious that he was in the truck and he replied as to what happened with the other gentleman who issued him the keys. There begins the downfall......... My husband is a runner, run this man like a scalded dog and he LOVES IT! He told his dispacher he loved to run all 48 but especially west, well after sitting for about 12 hours he finally got a load going to Jersey and off he goes.

    Well here we are 6 wks later, done. He never went west of Dallas, in the last 4 weeks he has brought home one check for a little over $300 and the company confiscated his last 2 paychecks eventhough his contract states clearly they could only take his last check to cover the first $1000 that he got because he left before 6 months. I am well aware that most of this is his/our fault but this company is unbelievable. It got so bad in terms of his loads that he would literally sit for days at a time doing LTL (4-5 stops) and rail because weekend dispatch was a joke. They would just tell him over the QC to talk to daytime dispatch to get a load. He worked his way up the ladder starting with his recruiter who flatly told him she was being taped and not able to tell him anything without her getting in trouble. He talked to the VP of the company who obviously couldn't have cared less that he would only get 2 loads a weeks averaging about 1700 mi. Payroll told him that IF THEY SAW the paperwork scans by 5 pm Mon it might make it to that Friday's check, more often than not it didn't or they claimed not to have got it eventhough he had his confirmation number that he would give them!

    After much soul searching he has decided to return from whence he came, he knows the ins and outs of this company and know he can bring down well over $1000/wk. After 30 days he can get back his trainer codes and really turn our dire financial situation around. The reason it is so bad is because I am down with a knee injury (no income 6 mo.) and no income from him now for a month. We are literally hanging on by a thread and almost on the verge of filing for welfare because we have 5 children who need to eat.

    The best thing I can say about FFE is they are crooks of the first order and he is not the first nor will he be the last to be stolen from, lied to and cheated out of honestly earned money (little as it may be). Thanks for letting me vent and I hope that others will read this and run from them like a frog on a hot rock.

    BrokenWife
     
  7. MGASSEL

    MGASSEL Road Train Member

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    Mar 27, 2007
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    now if I read right and between the lines your hubby went to ffe to lease a truck am I right?

    It may not be any ones fault that your hubby did not have good paychecks.

    Why would anyone want to start a lease / purchase with the fuel prices the way that they are?

    Top it all off your hubby started off with no money so he had to take advances against his checks.

    He started in the hole and just kept digging himself deeper and deeper in debt which of course would mean little to no pay checks.

    In my oppinion he should of went to a trucking company to be a company driver.
    Of course he would make less yes but he would not have those fuel bills,fuel taxes, truck payment, insurance, etc hanging over his head.
     
    harleynite Thanks this.
  8. BrokenWife

    BrokenWife Bobtail Member

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    Jul 20, 2008
    Sidney,Ohio
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    He was not a lease driver with FFE he was company, he had learned his lesson about leasing with JB and vowed never to do it again. We did not start out in the hole but FFE made sure we are just about buried and growing weeds. Where did you get the idea that he was taking advances against his checks? I never stated that.
     
  9. MGASSEL

    MGASSEL Road Train Member

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    Mar 27, 2007
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    well if he went to the orentation broke once he got his rig he would of had to take advances to eat.
    what are the contracts that you speak of I did not have to sign contracts with anyone to be a company driver.
    I may have misread your first post
     
  10. BrokenWife

    BrokenWife Bobtail Member

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    Jul 20, 2008
    Sidney,Ohio
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    FFE was offering a sign on bonus where they were to be paid $5000 payable at $1000 for every 8000 mi driven. He didn't start out broke, but he IS starting broke at this new job due to FFE violating their own contract by keeping his last 2 paychecks and not just the last one as the contract states. He should have gotten one this week and his last one will be next week from FFE. He didn't have to sign a contract to work for them it was just a bonus they were offering to new hires.
     
  11. bigwillygbcs

    bigwillygbcs Light Load Member

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    Apr 16, 2008
    glen burnie,MD
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    I feel bad for you and your husband but if they took his last 2 checks with no fault of his, why dont you go see a lawyer, i mean hell there is a guy sueing a church for 50,000 becuase the church didnt catch him when the power of God went into his body, but if your husband did nothing wrong and they stole his money go see a lawyer
     
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