Help Me Learn About Lumpers

Being a driver of tender years, I have only had to use lumpers twice. Yesterday I delivered to a Dollar General DC and had to get lumper unloaded. They had me offloaded in approximately 30 minutes. However, it took another 45 minutes to get the call that they were ready for payment. When I asked what the delay was, I was told that they charged by the pallet and they were still counting it up. So, the total cost was $328. Now to me, that’s a lot of money for a 30 min offload and 45 mins of “counting”. Plus, it put me late to my next stop. I don’t know much about the lumper world. Was my experience typical?

From my experience that is their typical way of doing things. Depending on lumper service they price by pallet and/or piece. Mostly by piece.

I'd say you got out of there pretty quickly. I don't typically deal with lumpers but the last experience I had the US Foods in Plymouth MN wanted close to $200 to unload 4 pallets but it'd be if i remember correctly like 4 hours before they'd even get to me. I opted to unload and down stack the pallets on my own and was out of there in just over an hour. Only had to handle about 100 cases. Remember, the reason it takes longer than just taking pallets off is they're restacking it into different pallets to make it fit in their racking. It may come in with 14 layers on the pallet but the slot they store it in can only fit it 7 layers high. It's a pain in the ass but nothing we can do about it. Some of our employers do not want us doing it due to risk of injury, and some receivers will not allow us on dock due to liability issues.

I forgot where it was at but I had some numbers charge close to $500, lucky Schneider paid for it.

They said that was higher then usual but approved it.

It also didn't take them long, maybe 20-30 minutes but spent maybe another 30 minutes waiting for them them to I assume count it and what not.

I thought about combing some various sub-reddits and find somebody via interview process and background check that wants to do some traveling, and I'll cover their food costs....but, they'll have to help me throw straps and bungee tarps.

Some places the lumpers are expensive as hell. But there was one place in Michigan are delivered to they only charged me 35 bucks. I literally asked him three times to make sure I got the Price right. And by the way Bruce the company might pay it but they do charge whoever covers the freight for the lumper fee. So it's not out of your company's pocket. Just the cost of doing business

Company drivers should NEVER PAY LUMPER FEES. Lease/OO's may end up having to.

Many receivers don't allow drivers on their docks, as it creates a huge liability issue if you get injured. And many use lumpers, because everyone gets a "piece of the action", out of them. Lumpers are NOT company employees, may (or may not) be legally authorized to work in this country (especially in Cali and SW states).

Lumpers will typically take a ComCheck (get it authorized by your DM FIRST), and it's one of the bigger scams in the industry - and you will see a lot of OO's fighting with their brokers to get this covered.

For the average "company driver" we see here (big companies), you will likely NEVER have to touch a load. I've seen other instances of company drivers, where there isn't a "dock", the receiver forklifts a pallet jack into the box and the driver drags the pallets to the edge for the forklift to pull off (I see this down on the port all the time as a longshoreman, with trucks delivering food for the cruise ships).

Any way you slice it - it's about getting the stuff out of your box, and getting down the road.

Rick

For the average "company driver" we see here (big companies), you will likely NEVER have to touch a load.

During my time 7 months or so solo I have only had to unload the trailer twice, once was a JC Penney dedicated account, unloaded with a pallet jack and the other time it was to some 86 lumber store that didn't have a dock. So me and the guy working there had to unload 13,000 pounds or so of insulation by hand. It was terrible, very hot too. Each bag weighed around 45 pounds to 125 pounds.

Other then that nothing else.

Thankfully have yet to touch a load. Most the company (Prime) has paid was a little over $1 per piece and they weren't happy but paid it. Shadiest was a meat packager in Las Vegas. Wanted $150 cash before they'd touch it. Guess it was legit but still strange.