No deposit means Broker finds you a carrier, then contacts you and asks for a deposit (and if you paying full amount by credit card for the payment as well). Then broker signs up the carrier.
Upfront Deposit is when customer pays Deposit upfront, then broker finds and contracts carrier.
| Upfront Deposit | No Deposit | |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability | Broker tells carrier there is a deposit, carrier is confident about sending the truck | Carrier knows that customer might not be real |
| Speed | Instant booking, customer not needed | Find Carrier, call customer to get deposit (possibly at odd hour), then complete carrier contracting. |
| Fraud | Paying deposit by other than Credit Card is most likely fraud. Also Terms could be predatory with deposit non-refundable. | Same exact fraud technics just half a day later. |
| Drama | Customers almost never pay multiple deposits - it is one truck picking up one load. Simple. | Without deposit customers hire multiple brokers. Car appears multiple times on load boards. Brokers see some of the copies.
If there is one dishonest broker - these scenarios will be at play:
Tricks by carriers when carriers see same car posted multiple times:
|
| Cost | Booking with deposit is easy and brings brokers better reviews on both sides. Future Carriers are easier to contract. | No-Deposit requires more time and more effort. Effort to go back and forth with customer, and handling multiple brokers and multiple carriers situations. Only one broker gets paid - other brokers waste time. More time and effort means higher cost. |
Most of the time brokers just place your order on load board and phone rings. In this scenario having multiple brokers
might save you small amount of money if brokers compete fairly, but if they play dirty you might have fascinating story to tell.
Multiple brokers are useful when they look at different venues - for example Alaska loads can be send by land and by sea. And having
one broker look for truck and one broker for sea vessel can be beneficial. Another scenario is shipping from rural area can be done
with one leg, or with 2 legs (get car to terminal in bigger city, then move to destination) so having one broker for each way might help.