“Hands are tied” is a scam run by the less reputable of agencies.
Client tells agency they don’t want a particular driver again…
Agency doesn’t tell driver this, but cuts their pay instead (at their end, so it’s theft - the client paid the agency, the agency withheld some of the pay from the driver)
The agency, if being challenged, tells driver “Hey, they’ll let you back in there if you take this one on the chin” - which is a complete lie to cover the fact they’ve stolen wages off you. The client has already said “never again”, but paid in full because the tacho supports the claim for the hours worked. That money paid by the client just never got through to the driver. The client cannot refuse to pay for hours performed, only refuse to have someone again if they are not happy. Strange how unhappy clients don’t ever stop using the actual AGENCY in question, but that’s another angle entirely…
In other words, the worst that can happen with an honest agency is you get paid, but you never get to go back to that client.
The best that can happen with a dodgy agency is that they really HAVE lost your tacho records (illegal) which gets you off the hook regarding 11 hours driving. If Vosa come down on anyone like a ton of bricks, it’ll be the agency first who’ve paid a wage (albeit the wrong, low amount) which means they are admitting they “once had” your tacho, but have now “mislaid it”. All entirely in their court.
They’ve paid a wage of 10 hours. You didn’t do 16 then.
Go on eBay and buy yourself a thing called a power bank, it’s a little bit bigger than a wallet. You charge it up off a micro usb (same as most phones now) and it has a usb outlet, when you haven’t got a cigarette socket you can plug into that (bring the right lead) instead . Mine is 20,000 mAh and was about £20. Used it for 8 hours once and it still had juice in it.
One agency i worked for would not pay all the drivers correctly and then have to chase up what was owed.
The excuses were the girl that does payroll is off sick.Ring the next day,she is on an errand for the boss.Ring back later.
They are hoping you do not check the pay slip or how much was paid by Bacs so if they have 100 drivers on their books and steal £20 to £30 a day.You do the maths.
I can agree with the point of having no power for a sat nav.On multidrop you need sat nav.No time to find a stopping place to ask directions lets say twenty times a day.You would never finish.
The information given by a pedestrian would be out of date.An old man that lived for all his life may not be aware that Joe Bloggs factory shut down yearsago but are trading as Jim Bloggs around the corner.
If the op fiddled with the electrics to fix the power,he could get billed for damage.Nothing worse than no power for a sat nav.
Silver_Surfer:
I wouldn’t name & shame, you’ve already incriminated yourself on here. No one will be arsed reading this but if you start putting details up…
Just chalk it up & improve your heads up in future. We’ve all been there & dropped a bollock, we’ve all learned from it though at least I have.
Thanks, I think Silver_Surfer is right.
You learn through experience and in retrospect I should have just kept calm (instead of feeling panicked and listening to the wrong person’s advice, which is what I did in this example!), then carefully thought through what was being presented to me and made absolutely sure I sorted it all out before leaving in the first instance.
Reading some of the other comments, it sounds like the “agreement” over pay between Agencies and their clients isn’t unusual, so naming specific Agencies and companies wouldn’t make any difference, although the same problem doesn’t seem to have happened to anyone else on here so far…
The object was to just flag it up and make others aware of what the Agency and Haulage company did as a result of an honest mistake, however unavoidable it could have been. -If you make a mistake like I did, this is what can happen-
Regarding going over my hours, I still don’t really know what I should have done; gone gallivanting off the motorway in a desperate search for a rest area, or stayed where I was and got the vehicle back as soon as possible. VOSA conveniently don’t mention any particular problems drivers can potentially face and what to do in those scenarios, only what they could potentially do to you if you do make a mistake.
Well I can see both sides of the argument here, Barebones is clearly inexperienced when it comes to finding his way around strange places. As a professional agency driver you need to be able to develop a 6th sense and know where everywhere is, regardless of the fact that you don’t.
You need to utilise every means at your disposal to ascertain the correct address and if that means upsetting the lazy fat ■■■■ behind the desk in the office then bring it on. It is their responsibility to ensure you have the means to perform your task correctly, safely and on time, so them being unhelpful gives them nothing to moan about when it goes a little pear shaped.
I would not have left the yard without finding which location was the correct one, then I would drive to that town and stop at the first garage or even a service station en route. Pick up an A-Z and pay for it if need be, better to part with a fiver than look a completely useless ■■■■■ besides, a decent agency driver will make the A-Z pay for itself by stopping for a 15 minute nap somewhere, oops! did I say that? This is the old method of doing things as its not easy to ask passers by at 2 in the morning. It is also how to survive without prat nav.
You could also get some friends who work the same shift pattern as yourself, ring them if need be as they might know the drop or at least how to find it. One of them may even be at home and be able to log on to google maps on your behalf to tell you where the drop is.
Sat nav is indeed a handy tool as is a smart phone but they are subject to errors and failure.
Now the agency part, the agency “MUST” pay you regardless of the fact that the company have not paid them ( this is the law) so grow a pair and stand up to them.
You need to toughen up my friend and if they are rude to you and unhelpful then get in your car and go home, after all, it beats doing 15 hours of work for nothing
iceman1:
ive had a lot of that at firms when they know your agency, simple mate if the [zb] wont help behind the desk give him keys and say your off, believe me bud i do it all the time theres tons of agencies out there i did it just last week after a 15 shift and some fool in yard wanted me to take trailor at 14and a half hours i said ha ha he said well you wont get paid for today so i took paperwork and key for filler cap locked up and hid keys, needless to say agency rang me so said if money not in bank in half hour no paperwork no keys and be the best 140 pound ive lost they paid me asap and it was a wednesday i thankyou take no crap off them bud theyre rats treat em as such or they will shaft you
Ramon123:
Why would you be afraid? We need to finally end this culture of fear so well entrenched on his board.I’ve noticed from reading these posts, every one is afraid.You are not lying after all.All companies pass information between themselves about you, and it is not all always an honest information, so why would you be afraid of giving an honest opinion and other drivers of cowboys operating out there?
If do not know of which ones are the dodgy operators out there , other drivers will be get stung by them again and again.
Sometimes when I read this board I have a feeling we are living in some oppressive communist regime where people are afraid of saying bad word about companies they’ve had a bad experience with.By the way, it is nothing against you personally, Barebones, I actually can only applaud you for the having the courage to let us all know about your bad experiences with some of those operators out there, it is a more a general opinion of how this BB operates.
Everyone is afraid to say a bad word about companies that mistreat them and abuse them, name them and shame them and warn other drivers.
obviously never read any of my posts then? the WHOLE industry is [zb] as its all built on lies, and if anything goes WRONG it’s the DRIVERS fault
sign of the times , the sat nav is a good tool in your box but should not be relied on too much any way if you had a post code that would have given some clue to where the drop was i.e cf = cardiff area , sa = swansea e.t.c should have put you in the right county anyway , the t.m. sounds a right ■■■■ it’s in their interest to help you , now they have a late delivery on their record , though the attitude of a lot of traffic staff is “do it or **** off” nowadays
toby1234abc:
They are hoping you do not check the pay slip
It’s amazing how many people don’t. In our office there’s a pile of wage slips on the side that drivers can’t be bothered to collect and some drivers have 5 or 6 in there meaning they haven’t checked their wages for over a month.
I’m straight in there Friday morning and if there’s a penny missing they all know about it
cav551:
The traffic clerk has a computer right in front of his nose, it takes 2 minutes to print out a map of the last 10 miles to the delivery address and another minute to ensure that there is a contact phone number for that address on the delivery notes or the manifest.
They’re idiots. I was sent to a warehouse by Stobarts once and was given an address and postcode. Now I always check the route instructions on my TomTom to see if the final road it sends me down matches the road on the address I’ve been given. Which in this case it didn’t. I checked the road it tried to send me down and it was about 3 mile away from the road I needed. Went on to the company website and I’d been supplied with the road for the warehouse and the postcode for their head office. The TomTom didn’t recognise the road for the warehouse either so I was left with only the postcode for head office. Had I not had a smart phone I’d have been stuck and had to start making phone calls.
Now this must happen to everyone they give it to and someone who doesn’t do the necessary checks would’ve ended up at the head office. I can’t have been the first to have told them it was wrong so you’d have thought they’d have changed it by now.
The problem with sat navs is you dont learn anything.We had a bloke who did the same 5 or 6 drops every week for ages with a sat nav. A couple of weeks later he has to do same round without sat nav.He says cant do it as he dosnt know how to get to any of the towns or deliveries!!!
“Dont ask me how I got there,I just followed my Tom Tom” !!!
A bit like saying to a 5 year old starting school " dont bother to learn to add up,subtract,multiply or divide,we are not in the dark ages now,we have calculators you know".
old 67:
The problem with sat navs is you dont learn anything.We had a bloke who did the same 5 or 6 drops every week for ages with a sat nav. A couple of weeks later he has to do same round without sat nav.He says cant do it as he dosnt know how to get to any of the towns or deliveries!!!
“Dont ask me how I got there,I just followed my Tom Tom” !!!
A bit like saying to a 5 year old starting school " dont bother to learn to add up,subtract,multiply or divide,we are not in the dark ages now,we have calculators you know".
Sorry but that’s not true. That driver didn’t learn because he didn’t bother to not because of his sat nav.
Last year I got to Goodwood from Bedford having never been there before solely because I put it in my satnav the night before and looked at the route. The sat nav packed up 300 yards out of the gate and I was going from memory the rest of the way.
Stop blaming technology for idiots, it’s just a tool and is only as good as the man using it.
Sorry but that’s not true. That driver didn’t learn because he didn’t bother to not because of his sat nav.
Last year I got to Goodwood from Bedford having never been there before solely because I put it in my satnav the night before and looked at the route. The sat nav packed up 300 yards out of the gate and I was going from memory the rest of the way.
Stop blaming technology for idiots, it’s just a tool and is only as good as the man using it.
[/quote]
You are right 10 08 about a man and his tools,its just this “no sat nav and the lorry isnt going anywhere " attitude that gets this old timers goat,and yes I must admit I am a bit of a " wouldnt have happend in my day” sort of bloke !!
10-08:
Sorry but that’s not true. That driver didn’t learn because he didn’t bother to not because of his sat nav.
Last year I got to Goodwood from Bedford having never been there before solely because I put it in my satnav the night before and looked at the route. The sat nav packed up 300 yards out of the gate and I was going from memory the rest of the way.
Stop blaming technology for idiots, it’s just a tool and is only as good as the man using it.
You are right 10 08 about a man and his tools,its just this “no sat nav and the lorry isnt going anywhere " attitude that gets this old timers goat,and yes I must admit I am a bit of a " wouldnt have happend in my day” sort of bloke !!
The thing is, times AND workload have changed…
Now, although you got sent to places you didn’t know back in the old days, you weren’t tracked whilst you were getting lost, diesel wasn’t over £6 per gallon and you didn’t have another 51 unknown jobs to do after that 1, followed by the next day going to a completely different firm and doing it again.
I’ll admit, I did coach driving and taxi driving before sat navs, but I wouldn’t be without it now I drive a truck - although I carry a smart phone with both google maps and an offline mapping program on it for emergencies.
I used to drive for Lynx parcels and we were sent out blind with 40 odd drops, plus 16 collection and sat nav was not invented. Somehow we managed. Too many dumb asses out there nowadays who want the job doing for them. I’ve seen drivers walk off jobs because the company don’t have a sat nav to lend them.
I used to drive for Lynx parcels and we were sent out blind with 40 odd drops, plus 16 collection and sat nav was not invented. Somehow we managed. Too many dumb asses out there nowadays who want the job doing for them. I’ve seen drivers walk off jobs because the company don’t have a sat nav to lend them.
40 odd jobs + 16 collections is around 100 drops and collections these days
I did 60 when I was driving a van for DHL, but they were always around the same area and you get to know areas, not like a C or C+E with 450 litre tanks and bosses with an interest in using each and every litre
waynedl:
40 odd jobs + 16 collections is around 100 drops and collections these days
I did 60 when I was driving a van for DHL, but they were always around the same area and you get to know areas, not like a C or C+E with 450 litre tanks and bosses with an interest in using each and every litre
Its a doddle in an artic because you only have to find one or 2 places. I’m sorry but if your powers of deduction can’t rule out other towns and you can’t use a little bit of noggin then you are in the wrong job. Once again, too much dumbing down so drivers are unable to think for themselves. The companies wanted it this way but when they get an agency driver unable to suss out the very basics then the ■■■■ hits the fan.
Also, drivers have turned into ■■■■■■■ scared of losing their already crap jobs. They dare not stand up for themselves when being spoken to in a rude manner. Sorry but all the whiners deserve everything they get.
