Cargo Theft & Fraud in Trucking: The Red Flags Every Carrier Should Know

Cargo theft doesn’t always look like a broken lock or a stolen trailer anymore. In this episode of Driven by Diesel, Stephanie and Tina are joined by Jonathan Stringer, Senior Cargo Claims Counsel with Great West, to discuss how fraud and cargo theft in the trucking industry have evolved—and what motor carriers can do to help protect themselves. From compromised email accounts and fake identities to load board scams and shipment redirection, today’s cargo theft schemes can be sophisticated, fast-moving, and difficult to detect.

Whether you’re an owner-operator, dispatcher, broker, or fleet owner, this episode offers practical insight that can help you stay informed, stay alert, and better protect your business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Driven by Diesel.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

What if your next load was picked up by someone who looked legitimate but wasn't? Welcome to Driven by Diesel, the podcast fueled by real conversations from the trucking industry. I'm Stephanie here with Tina, and we're with Joe Morton and Sun Insurance Agency. Today we're talking about fraud in trucking and how cargo theft may look very different than it did years ago. Because it's not always cut locks, stolen trailers, or someone sneaking into a yard. In many cases today, it can start with emails, fake identities, or loads being assigned to the wrong party. Hey Tina, how is everything going in Arizona?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

It's going pretty well, Stephanie. How are things in South Sioux? Is the weather getting warmer?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

It is. It is. We're getting up into the 80s now, so feeling more like early summer. Winter's in our rear view, which is nice. That is the best because who the heck likes winter? Not me. Me either. That's probably that's why you've stayed in Arizona, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

That's right. That's right. We're in the hundreds uh already, but that's okay. It's still o okay at night. Yes. You know, it's better than winter. Can't shovel sunshine, as they always say.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Oh, yeah, that is so true. I've never heard that one before. You know, you get to experience a lot of different weather environments. You're always traveling, visiting our insureds. Do you have any exciting places that you're going to coming up?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, actually. I'm really excited. I'll be heading up to Flagstaff. Um, I get to actually do a ride-along with state troopers. So I'll be sitting in the truck as the troopers pull over the people who don't stop at the port for road check. So we know road check is coming up, and um they're gonna be focusing on making sure ELDs are being used appropriately. And I know cargo securement is another area that they're gonna be looking at. So I get my safety vest and I get to actually go up to the truck and listen to how the officers conduct inspections and uh take part in um making sure our roads stay as safe as they can. I always learn really awesome stuff every time I get to do this. It's a real a privilege to work with these officers who really know their stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

That sounds like a great experience. I wonder if Joe Morton would fly me down to Arizona and I could ride along as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Well, they should.

unknown 2:39

They should.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Because you would really get a lot out of it. And what I'll do is make sure um maybe next podcast we can talk a little bit about um what I learned, what we saw um from you know these inspection, all of the different things that these uh folks who are blowing by the port are doing well. Um it makes no sense to blow by the port because there's probably 70 trucks at that rest area. And if you're one of those 70, um, you're probably gonna get inspected pretty quickly. But if you blow by the port, chances are you're gonna get looked at a little more um with a little more scrutiny. So just make sure you stop at the port of entry for road check. That's gonna be my little nugget uh to start our day today.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, that'll definitely give us some good information for future podcasts and also allow us to even tie it back to our first one where we talked about the seven basics, and then even a little bit about what we're going to talk about today, which is cargo theft and how that's changed. And today is kind of an exciting day on the podcast for us because we do have our first guest, Jonathan Stringer, who's a senior cargo claims counsel with Great West, an old republic company. Jonathan, can you explain for us a little bit about what you do with Great West?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Sure. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Uh I came to Great West in 2011. Before that, I was about 10 years in private practice uh in Chicago, and I was had the privilege of focusing in on cargo litigation, transportation litigation. And so uh I've been able to focus in on cargo claims here at Great West, and that includes uh coverage aspects. It also just includes the day-to-day mechanics of a cargo claim, investigation, disposition, etc. Um, so that's generally my uh my duties at Great West. I'd say 99% of it is is all cargo claims.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

So you have probably seen a lot of cargo theft, especially in the recent years.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

We we really have, and and everyone's talking about this. Uh I like to think that we kind of seen it in its infancy, like like 15 years ago, but nothing like what we're seeing today in the sophistication.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Aaron Powell So let's start there. Why has this become such an important topic right now for trucking companies?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

I've been seeing, and and Jonathan, feel free to, you know, pop in here, but the first kind of uh cargo or theft I want to talk about is um how some of these bad actors are um using technology to uh come into this space and um look legitimate um and make it so that some of our uh our insureds, and I I know I've seen this firsthand with um one of our insureds uh in Colorado who he's a two-unit livestock hauler and went and looked at his MCS 150 for him one day, and now he's a 10-unit hazmat hauler and he lives in California and someone actually stole his identity as a carrier and was out there wreaking havoc on the roads saying that they were him. So we're seeing everything from that to standard cargo fraud, but also um people who are saying, you know, I I was I was supposed to go pick up this load, and I went and picked up the sload and I was supposed to deliver it, and when I delivered it, all of a sudden everything was gone. So what are you seeing, Jonathan, from that perspective, as far as from a technology standpoint, how it is impacting uh our motor carriers?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Well, I I agree with you and I echo everything that you've just said, has always been around, it's evolved, and and the way that I equate it is a laptop is essentially the new crowbar. Um and it can happen from anywhere. Um and I think what really got people's attention was um between 21 and 24, there was just this huge increase in cargo theft, um, and the strategic cargo theft, which I guess we can talk about a little bit later. Um but everything that you mentioned, Tina, we are seeing that. And um it a lot of times originates, in my experience, with the smaller carriers, is what we see, through a compromised uh email account. It's this backdoor to their uh to their digital world, if you will, and so many people are uh storing things that they probably shouldn't uh in their email. It's it's high value information. Um they may have it's really the keys to the company that could be in there, whether it be from FMCSA logins, um, to uh load information, contacts, um, certificates of insurance, they become you. And and that's what we continue to see with also some variations that I think probably will.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

I think it's important to point out that we've definitely seen with technological advances that even though it can help you run your business a little bit more efficiently and effectively, it's definitely impacting in ways that we see cargo theft. And it's not always just traditional theft of what you think of, but it's definitely more about how the tactics are changing.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Absolutely. And again, we deal with a lot of smaller family-owned companies who um maybe don't understand that communication that you used to use via email is opening you up to um opportunities for bad actors to kind of come in and steal who you are. What I find is a lot of our smaller carriers, and Jonathan, what's really awesome is the fact that those who are insured by Great West and have a Joe Martin policy are getting a little bit extra because we have Great West to help them when one of these uh terrible situations occurs. But it can be really difficult for a smaller carrier with not a ton of resources to get law enforcement engaged and the help they need to turn this back around. Um and I know we're gonna talk a little bit more uh later on about what you can do if that happens. But I just wanted to mention what's really great is because you have so much experience in these situations, um, we can provide guidance to our insureds if and when this happens.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, I I I think that's accurate. And and a couple of things about it. One, I think unfortunately, there's always going to be theft. Um as everything evolves, so do the criminals. And you have to admit they're very intelligent. Um, the things that they're doing now, um you know, they you you figure out one way, they they turn around and do something different. And for those smaller carriers, yeah, when they they're they're saying, I don't know how this happened, usually they start getting emails and phone calls from from folks, like you mentioned, the the gentleman who hauls cattle, and all of a sudden he's being uh told that he's a hazmat hauler. Uh that's unfortunate, and that's that's another way when they when they a lot of times when they go through the email or whether or not they're just taking them over through their uh MCS 150 filings with FMCSA. Hopefully, with with MODIS rolling out with FMCSA doing that, it'll be a better way for them to um verify uh who they are. I think the non-domicile uh uh uh drivers and and individuals have partly enabled that uh uh problem. But uh absolutely um when anyone that that we know becomes a victim of this, uh we generally at least provide them at a minimum an FMCSA website. And and if anyone's listening and and they think this might be occurring to them, if you just Google FMCSA and identity theft, um they actually have a decent website with a lot of resources that the carrier can go through and and you know who to contact, what to do. Um this is a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure because I can tell you firsthand when this happens to anyone, there's always the comment it took me, it took me weeks, it took me months to try to fix this. And and and so sometimes if you can just be a little bit proactive on the front end, um hopefully you can avoid these situations.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

But but absolutely and I think too, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Jonathan, but to point out as well that the FMCSA's website is dot gov and not dot com. I think some people get issues there as well. So to make sure that you're verifying the legitimately or the legitimacy of the website. Um, you know, we've kind of high-level gotten into the different types of theft. We talk about what theft has looked like in the past, and then also a little bit of strategic theft. So I think that if we get in and kind of explain to people a little bit more strategic versus straight theft. So when we think of cargo theft and traditionally what that's been, what does that still look like today?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Well, I can I can speak from my experience. You you you're absolutely right. And and just just to kind of make sure everyone's on the same page, right? The the straight theft is physically stealing the goods from unattended vehicles or facilities. The strategic theft, uh, we're talking about the bad guys, you know, posing as legitimate uh carriers or logistics companies to basically fool shippers into handing them over the cargo. Um the the the straight theft still happens, but what we're seeing um it's more on what we call pilferage. So though they're pilfering part of the load, they're not stealing all of it necessarily. Um and they're doing that through uh manipulating bills of lading, for example. But but though those are the main uh um categories of theft, if you will, between the the straight and the strategic. Um the way that I look at it is straight theft, think of your crowbar, strategic theft, think of a laptop computer. They're they're impersonating others.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Tina, from your end, on a risk management perspective, what are some of the best ways that our motor carriers can prevent straight theft or the traditional theft that most of us think of?

SPEAKER_01 13:29

So when we're talking about straight theft, of course we want to make sure where we're parking is well lit. We want to make sure that um we have our cargo that's in our uh container, whether it's a dry van, whether it's a reefer, whether it's a flatbed, a tank. I mean, hopefully we're not stealing, you know, fuel, but with the fuel prices way there right now. Who knows? Maybe we'll start seeing that too, right? Um, but I think just making sure being aware of your surroundings from that straight theft perspective, just like you normally would, is is very important. Um, we did a webcast a little while back, and I might be stealing some of my own um information on that. But things that I would suggest um document, document, document. Um, I think making sure um that there's two things I want to call out here. First, and Jonathan, feel free to jump in, but it is making sure that you have the proper information on the people that are responsible. So that your if so if something happens and your load gets stolen, keep track of your driver logs, your GPS data, any event recordings, your fuel receipts, your dispatch record, so you can prove, hey, we meant to do this in good faith as a protective measure. Um, other things I would like to make sure folks are doing. Um, when you are accepting a load, making sure that you're cross-referencing just even Safer, the FMCSA site to ensure that that is a legitimate person. Call the phone number that's listed as well. Make sure that you know who you're doing business with so you can use Safer to and the MCS 150 form to verify that information. Um, other things I would suggest. When we're talking about identity theft or fraud, we were mentioning the.gov website, right? But also at the FMCSA's website, and I hate to say that this has to be a thing, but they actually have information on the types of fraud they're seeing right now. So as a carrier, you can go to the FMCSA's website, the one Jonathan mentioned a little earlier, and you can see what they are combating right now. Uh, and unfortunately, it's a lot, but things I want you to keep uh an eye out for fraudulent emails with links. So when you are receiving an email, make sure that it's coming from somebody that you can verify. And so what we're seeing is they're spoofing the FMCSA's website. It's got the same light blue, it's got the yellow drop downs, and they're asking you to upload a driver's license. Well, the FMCSA is never going to ask for that. So just making sure that you're verifying where you're inputting information is legitimate and not inputting information that can cause someone to be able to steal your identity. Um, so that's some other things that I would like to mention. And then also your bill of lading. So you can actually use that bill of lading to reduce authority theft and cargo theft. Have a strict bill of lading pickup rule. At pickup, have your driver sign the bill of lading with their name, your company name as it appears on the truck, um, the MC number, making sure everything is properly documented. That will help you a prevent, like we were talking about earlier. Prevention is way easier than you know, reacting. Um, but also if there is a cargo claim, you have done all that you need to do to document that this was done in good faith. And when you make that claim, Jonathan and his team can see that you have documented everything you need. Can you elaborate on that for us a little, Jonathan, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Uh of course. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And um with regard to uh the straight theft, this is this is when they're stealing the loads. Something that that I think is kind of emerging called the uh the Trojan horse uh driver. Some of these thieves are so sophisticated that these are legitimate drivers that are being hired, um, and and they they they build up the credibility. And then um you have a loss that appears legitimate, right? Um there it's during a break period, they went inside to take a shower, the load's stolen. Um those are though, you know, so you're you kind of almost have this blending of of the the the straight theft and the strategic. Um and and like you said, you know, food shipments. Food is always stolen, uh the number one commodity. And you know, you can't you can't really trace an almond, right? These are these are items that that can be taken and and quickly um laundered, if you will, or sold. And so, like you mentioned about uh the physical security, you know, parking, using common sense. And then when you get to the the digital things that you mentioned and about looking at at uh fishing scams and the downloads, I agree with you 100%. Um there's there's the spoofing, um, I think, and experience my experience, usually the domain name, right? If it's Yahoo, if it's Google, um, you're not going to get an email from um uh fbitrucking at gmail.com, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Sean Duffy at Yahoo, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And and you know what? The other thing is a one and a and a lowercase l, they look a lot alike. And that's what these folks prey on. They they can they can scam you that way because I think sometimes we just look at a document, we see a B, and it's really a D, but you you swear it was a B because you've seen that word a million times, right? Um, so you do have to be vigilant because the bad guys can be right, or they they can get one out of a hundred and be successful. You have to be on guard and be a hundred out of a hundred. You have to pre-prevent it from happening. Um otherwise, otherwise it can uh it can cause wreak havoc. And like you also said, um, downloading documents, they'll put things in malicious links where it'll take you to another website, um, and then they're stealing your information. They're installing remote management software where they can basically remotely get into your system. Um we we heard of one where they got into the email, they set up um mailbox rules. What I mean by mailbox rules are uh forwarding email addresses um or auto-deletion or hidden folders. So they were doing the fraud in the middle of the night, and the the person had no idea because the emails were going in and coming out and and they were completely unaware of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Um goodness.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So it's it's just incredible. Um and that talks to this heightened level of where things are now compared to say 10, 15 years ago. Fifteen years ago, you could see on a rate con or whoever you were dealing with that the phone number was different and didn't match. A lot of times that was okay, I'm dealing with someone who's not legit. Now it looks very much uh legitimate, and it's and it's really you have to be vigilant, and and and part of that is and tell me if you disagree, Tina, but it has to be a culture. It can't just be one person at the company. You need to let make the driver aware of this, your dispatcher aware of it, everyone on your staff, because they might be the person that has that interaction. That might be the first line of defense.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I think that's great information, and I have to be honest, and I'll I'll just out myself. Um, so Great West um does a really great job of sending us fake phishing emails and I. I failed recently and got a little email saying, ooh, Tina, you failed. Yeah. I know. I know. And I should have known better. And I might be in risk management. So hey, anyway, there was a an attachment that was so just to preface this with the why behind what. So Stephanie, you can attest to the fact I'm on the road a bunch. So um almost every week I'm on a plane and then I'm driving all over the place and I'm meeting with people and I am, you know, just sometimes my mind maybe isn't as aware of things as it should be. So I got this email, and it was these, it was a word document that was attached to the email that were minutes from the meeting. And I was like, oh, I wonder which meeting. I clicked on it. And so then I got in trouble because and I should have, right? So my point in the story is just like Jonathan said, everybody in the org, and I usually catch those fishes. So anyway, just be aware from a company level, all folks within. I think um, Jonathan, you you mentioned the Trojan horse, and I just got an email from Wisconsin motor carriers. They have a super amazing um association, and they really are you know benefiting the folks that are, you know, Dom Seld in Wisconsin. And they sent out an email last week about these folks are now infiltrating these organizations, like you said, as drivers, as dispatchers, as um admin folk, whatever the case might be. So now they're putting themselves in this company, and then another guy is putting himself in this company, and they're building like a mafia network. So now this guy's gonna communicate to this guy that this load is getting, you know, dispatched, and here's where that driver is gonna be taking it. And, you know, I always say, let's use your mind for good, but just making sure everybody is aware of at a minimum the the technological stuff, the dot gov website. Um, you're they're not gonna ask you for these types of things. Do not click on any of the links in the email if it's not from a legitimate email. All of the things we've been talking about, just communicating that company wide, I think is gonna be really important.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, and I think Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

I was just gonna say, I think it, you know, it's really important to point out, you know, that we're all human and a lot of these motor carriers, they might be the owner of their company, they might be doing some dispatch, they might be driving themselves. Everyone gets busy and it's easy to get caught up and maybe click on an email that might not be legitimate, or you walk away from your truck and your load to run into a truck stop quick to use the restroom, and maybe you didn't check out your surroundings. So just making sure that you're taking that extra time to, you know, make sure that you're in a secure parking, there's trailer security, and there's visibility, and then also verifying the legitimate of the sources of emails and requests that you're getting just to try to help protect your company and the loads that you're hauling.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Jonathan, can I ask you a quick question? Of course. So you mentioned food, like everybody loves to steal food, and this might be a little bit off our um topic a little bit, but what are the other categories that you see that folks like to steal?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Well, that's a great question. And and and and it's kind of a tiered question, I think. There's the food and beverage, there's the household items. I'm not talking about household goods, but I'm just talking about your general appliances, right? Um uh electronics, metals, metals were uh on the increase recently, uh a lot with copper, which you know the pricing had gone up just like anything else with inflation. Um, vehicles, many, many vehicles that we see. And I think some of it is you have um a lot of load, certain load boards that got infiltrated. And when they infiltrate a load board, now it's like going, you know, they have uh it's going to the candy store. Now if they can get in that load board, they have an access to all kinds of loads and carriers, uh, personal care and beauty. Um and concerning to uh to to me, what I've noticed is you always had your hot spots, your your Californians, your um Texas and and uh Illinois, Florida. And what we started to notice is that the thefts just started popping up kind of everywhere. And what I think that speaks to is again, this theft can be perpetrated from a laptop in Russia, and a load could be stolen from Arizona, from Iowa, from Indiana. Um, you saw increases in states that historically had the low cargo theft, it's happening everywhere, and that's because this is an information uh uh rich scheme, if you will. Um they're getting that information. And so those commodities are are are at are at a heightened uh uh risk of being stolen. But also, you know, we look at things like what days of the week are worse for these items and and what aren't. Um last year uh it was uh Fridays and Mondays. Um however when you looked at the other days of the week, they weren't very far off. And and that's kind of scary when you when you see the thefts essentially happening every day of the week.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Um yeah, every day and then every state.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yes, yes, and and you know, one of the things about um it it kind of goes along with what you were mentioning before in terms of the uh vigilance, if you will, in terms of your uh uh electronic world, your your data, your email. I I echo uh uh what you all were saying in terms of we're at a company. Some of our insureds and some carriers, they don't have the infrastructure, if you will. You know, it it's just two or three people. And and one of the things I think you have to be careful about is do you have saved logins? You know, can anyone access your your email and your systems? Um and so just just again, be vigilant, protect it like you would your bank account, protect it like you would your social security number, and know who you're doing business with. Um we've unfortunately have seen situations where the bad guys um build up trust, they build up a relationship, they do three or four loads, and then they strike. Um so I just it it it's crazy. It's it's it's everywhere, right? And um you know, one of the other things I I I would say is blind shipments. Um and and I don't mean I don't mean to uh to to to go into another area, but if but if you're a carrier and you're being told this is a blind shipment, you need to be on guard. Um and and I can I can we can talk more about blind shipments later, but that's another trend that we're seeing that I wanted to mention is these misdirections. The they they they have you go pick up a load, you pick it up, and instead of delivering it to the destination on the bill of lading, they say, no, no, no, no, you need to take it to this spot instead, and they'll they'll get you to believe that by saying this is a blind shipment, meaning the shipper and the and the uh constini receiver don't know who each other are, and and therefore um you can deliver it here. Many carriers fall for that, and uh unfortunately it's happening more and more. It just emphasizes you have to be vigilant the entire transportation, not just at the outset, but anytime you're receiving uh information to change the direction of the load, a new contact, for example, you know, you were you were dealing with Jim on dispatch and now all of a sudden you're dealing with uh Vlad, be attentive. Question.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Yeah, I think that definitely brings up, you know, good thing about red flags to watch for. So kind of to sum up what you had said, Jonathan, you know, if maybe there's an urgency with we need to get this load picked up, we need to get it delivered, if their information isn't matching up, if you see that there are last minute changes that you weren't anticipating, can we kind it up by or sum it up by saying if something feels rushed or details don't line up, then that may be worth a second look.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Absolutely. And Tina, I don't know if you've seen this, but we we we had an insured call in uh a couple weeks ago. And just like you said, um, he had a bad feeling. He said, hey, they're telling me to take this somewhere else. Thankfully, we were able to get a hold of legitimate parties and prevent a theft. Um, and that's that's because they were being vigilant. And and and um it it's it's critical to just not take their word for it. Be aware if it's too good to be true. Uh I'm gonna pay you $5,000 to haul this 50 miles. Um we see a lot of times they want to pay in Zell or um or other alternative sort of uh uh monetary rate, uh, PayPal, Bitcoin. That that's often a red flag in these situations.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

What are some internal controls and some verif verification steps that our motor carriers can put in place just to help them prevent some of these losses?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Well, it it goes back to what Tina was saying, I think, um, and what we talked about. It's a layered approach. You have to have training, you have to have the physical security, right? The the the bolt seals and and and and locks and things of that nature. You know, when you when you park, park as close to a wall as you can in a well-lit area, um, but also the technology. Um, there are resources out there. Um, I I would say uh NMFTA um uh TAPA T A P A. Um, they have resources out there that that are available that carriers can look to in terms of uh how do I make my digital identity or my digital world more secure? Multifactor authentication, right? Two-factor authentication. Um is your password password one, two, three, four? Right? Um, is it just six digits long? Um are you disclosing information to incoming callers that you shouldn't be? Voice over IP is huge. It looks like your customer's calling. The the phone will say American Express, um, but it's voice over IP, and that's the spoofing that Tina mentioned earlier. Um clicking on the unsolicited links or invitations, and never, never share username and password or your multi-factor authentications with anyone. Um it's a recipe for disaster. Um I would say avoid blind shipments, um, scrutinize the contact information uh uh that you get. Uh as Tina was mentioning, you can hover over a link that comes into you on an email. And when you hover over it, you know, the link may say fucking uh one two three.com, but when you put your link over that, it may take you to a website in Ethiopia. Um so those are the types of things that that that I see. Uh Tina, I don't know if you have uh additional items.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Well, I think you covered some really great things. Again, making sure that you're hovering over those links is going to be huge, um, and that you recognize where that's coming from. Um I think again, we talked about the spoofing of the FMCSA portal. The the the bad guys are are very good at making something look either urgent or that it's coming from the FMCSA, and you better do this right now. If you don't, then something bad will happen. That you need to you need to take a step back before you know risking your business on it looks legitimate. They're using some um uh logos, they're they're using the page that looks like it's legitimate, but it's really not. And the FMCSA um generally is gonna give you if they are sending you a letter, they're gonna call you and let you know it's coming. Um, if that doesn't happen, you will know if that is legitimate. And if you're confused and you are a Joe Morton cherd, give me and shoot me an email or give me a call and we'll look at it together before you do anything with it. I am here to help to try to you know protect you. Um the other thing that I just want to mention is that the compliance notices, these bogus compliance notices, I kind of just mentioned them, but I want you to know they're putting the FMCSA logo at the bottom and it will say failure to provide these documents by the deadline will result in serious compliance violations, which may include, etc. That is not legitimate, but it looks legitimate. So again, if you have questions or you don't know what to do, you know, reach out and I will be happy to help uh any way that I can.

unknown 36:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

And just to piggyback on that, yeah, um, you can independently verify shipment requests and pickups as well, if uh uh oftentimes, right? If if there's a new contact information, um I can't tell you how many times, unfortunately, folks learn about the fraud because they simply went onto the actual carrier's or broker's website and they had a completely different phone number, uh a completely different domain name, and then it real they realized it. Um so you you can do some uh cross-verification, if you will, um, and and uh that can go a long way in in in saving you. Um and and then just a couple of uh more emerging trends that we're seeing are just fictitious shipments in general. Um these primarily are for insurance who are brokers. Um and we've had unfortunately had a few of these where someone comes to them with a bunch of shipments and they negotiate long payment terms, you know, maybe 30 days or 45 days. These thieves are so uh uh sophisticated that not only are they impersonating brokers and carriers, now they're impersonating the shippers. And they tie themselves in with the carrier that the broker hires, and we're talking large losses, we're talking um freight payments that that get up towards a million dollars or uh or or more. And by the time they realize that the shipments weren't real, they've paid out that money. And they're doing things. They're they're giving them bills of lading, rate cons, photographs. They're even going to the trouble of saying, I've had a breakdown, and then they they stage it and say, Oh, I got it delivered, uh, and they'll give them shop receipts. It all looks so legitimate. So it's another emerging uh trend that we're seeing. So I just wanted to mention that.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Jonathan, I think it's great that we've been able to have you on for this podcast, especially this topic, just to be able to get that insight from someone who is dealing with these issues on a daily basis and what the insurance company is seeing. So I definitely want to thank you for being able to join us today. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share before your segment of the podcast ends?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

I would just like to uh thank you for letting me be here. And um, please stay vigilant um with your digital information um and and please be vigilant throughout the load process. And if you think that something off is happening in a load, like you mentioned before, please don't hesitate to call it in and we try to help the best that we can. Otherwise, I greatly appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Thank you so much, John. Thanks so much, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Tina, for someone listening to the podcast today, if they're thinking this hasn't happened to me, this isn't going to happen to me, why should they still care?

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Well, that would be a silly way to think. Because let's just be honest, these these guys, I mean, what he just talked about, this the last little bit about these, I mean, it's just so wrong on so many levels where you're you're taking the time to build the trust and then you're setting everything up to look legitimate. We have to protect our industry and you have to protect your business and taking some steps before that it's you know, we haven't had to always do in our in our business. But when you have someone who's coming to you and saying, you know, I'm a broker and I want you to take this, and you have never worked with them before, call them back up, reverse, cross-reference, make sure they're legitimate, protect yourself. No one's gonna protect you but you at this point, because uh just based on listening to Jonathan talk, you know, I knew that this was rampant, and that's why we're doing this podcast on it, because we we feel the pain of our insureds trying to manage this once it happens. But listening to some of these oh golly, the sophistication behind it and the uh it's just like hurting people on purpose for money is terrible.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

One of the big things I think I can take away from this hearing your real life experiences that you have seen from the risk management side, and then also what Jonathan has seen from the actual cargo claims side is that one of these incidents can just create so many delays for your business, extra works, and just challenges that are going to be hard to come back from beyond just the shipment itself, and that sometimes it's so important just to do that extra due diligence to protect your business.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

I think putting, you know, you know, I'm big on policy and procedure and making it repeatable and consistent. I think that you need to do that around accepting loads and vetting the folks that you're carrying for, unless, you know, like so many of our folks are livestock callers and they've been dealing with, you know, the feedlot for years and years and years. Okay, well, that's a little bit different scenario, but most folks are using load boards, or most folks are using brokers. And so putting, you know, the the okay, we're gonna verify they are who they say they are, and then we're gonna make sure we have a bill of lading procedure in place. And then um, I've even been hearing where brokers are, you know, they're also facing this, just like a carrier is facing it, and brokers are putting pieces in place to verify I need his driver's license information beforehand. I want a picture of his driver's license before this guy comes and picks up a load, which can also be um dangerous, you know, because do we want to be sending people's driver's license? I mean, it's it's such a tough thing. So I would suggest that anybody listening to this start to think about what we can do to build that hedge of protection around our drivers, our loads, the cargo, our authority. Please make sure that you are checking your MCS-154 monthly. You have to look at it and verify nothing has changed. The incident that I told you about at the beginning of the podcast, that smaller carrier in Colorado, he caught that because he he's diligent about looking at his MCS-150 form. So um, the crazy thing about that is we saw his name was no longer. I mean, he couldn't even access his portal anymore. They they took away his ability to log in, they changed passwords, everything. So we figured out who that person was. So even with that information, trying to get justice for what they did to him was super difficult. So an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as our friend Ben Franklin once said. So making sure you're putting a hedge of protection. With policy and procedure around accepting loads, what your bill of lading process is gonna look like, who you work with, verifying they are real, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

I think this topic has definitely brought a lot of items to light that maybe motor carriers didn't know that they should be looking for. And I think this is why it's important to make sure that we are having these conversations and having this communicate communication across the entire industry. Um, you know, when companies share trends and stay alert, others can benefit from that awareness too.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Absolutely. And on that same note, I think we're seeing the FMCSA and our federal folk, the impact that this is having, cargo theft is having on the everyday American, on our on our wallet, how much it costs now to purchase goods and services, but especially things that have been brought somewhere by truck. Um, it's really impacting cargo theft is a giant issue. Millions of dollars every year. That does impact the the folks that are just buying stuff from food to clothes to shoes to tires to parts to everything. So I think that the awareness of this hopefully will start to um have some eyes from lawmaking perspective uh on the situation so we can hopefully find and punish these bad actors in ways we haven't been able to up to this point.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Absolutely. So here's our big takeaway. Not all cargo theft looks the same anymore. Some incidents may still be physical and opportunistic. Others may involve planning, impersonation, or process breakdowns long before a truck moves. That's why awareness, verification, and consistent internal processes matter. The more clearly companies understand the risk, the better prepared they may be to respond. And before we wrap up, it's time for our diesel tip of the week. Build a simple load verification checklist. Before assigning or releasing a load, confirm key details like contact information, carrier identity, pickup instructions, any last minute changes. Taking a few extra minutes to verify may help avoid much larger problems later. And that wraps up this episode of Driven by Diesel. If today's conversation helped you think differently about fraud risk in trucking or tighten up your internal processes, be sure to follow the show and share it with someone in your cab or crew. New episodes drop regularly with practical insight you can actually use. Until next time, stay informed, stay alert, and keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

Driven by Diesel is a JMS production. Material is intended to be a broad overview that's provided for informational purposes.