Freight Fraud Action Plan for Agents

Freight fraud is one of the biggest threats facing independent brokers today, and many agents are left without a playbook for how to respond. In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe talks with Mark Funk and Shiv Narayan of SPI Logistics about building an action plan to protect agents, their customers, and their carriers. From red flags to response strategies, this conversation lays out the steps every agent should know.

Key takeaways: 

• Why freight fraud is escalating and what makes agents vulnerable. 
• The most common fraud tactics used against brokers and carriers. 
• How SPI equips agents with tools and processes to fight back. 
• The role of culture, training, and communication in prevention. 
• What agents should do immediately when they suspect fraud.

LINKS:

• SPI Logistics Freight Agent Website
• SPI Freight Agent Program
• Mark's LinkedIn
• Shiv's LinkedIn

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE

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Chapters

• 5:49 Starting the SPI Journey
• 13:25 The Realities of Going Independent
• 21:10 Building Partnerships Over Contracts
• 30:15 Culture as a Competitive Advantage
• 38:51 Helping Agents Scale Sustainably
• 47:08 The Future of Freight Agent Models

Transcript

Mark Funk: 0:42

So one of the nice things that that SPI has, and what they do with their tech stack is they make it they make life incredibly easy with regards to fraud and risk mitigation for the agents, we've got some tools in our tech stack that, you know, an agent can simply put in an MC number, and it runs through almost instantaneously, runs through all of our our algorithm algorithms, runs through everything that we have, and comes back and lets you know, hey, this carrier is good, or hey, this carrier is the carrier that exposed some opportunities and we're not gonna be able to load them.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:25

Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I am Blythe Milligan. We are proudly presented by SPI logistics. And for this episode, we're gonna be talking about freight fraud, because freight fraud and cargo theft have surged globally in recent years, evolving from simple truck stop heights into sophisticated scams that exploit digital tools. Organized cargo crime is hitting record levels in North America and really across the world amid a volatile economy. It's a $1 billion problem annually and climbing with ripple effects, costing businesses and consumers an estimated 15 to $35 billion each year. In this episode, we're going to be welcoming in Mark and Shiv, a couple folks from SPI logistics, to talk about what they've been seeing and how their agents are experiencing in preventing and battling the modern day cargo crime with a strong focus on the carrier selection process. So Mark and Shiv, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome into the show. And I guess let's start Shiv with you first. What is your sort of role within SPI Can you kind of give us, like a high level overview?

Shivrani Narayan: 2:38

So high level, I would say, I definitely deal with claims all the time. My title is Operations Manager. There was a point I was like, just claim supervisor, because I basically got pulled into this role, and now it's just gone into just such a much busier role than it was when I first started. It's just crazy to see, but high level, definitely, day to day claims and distress load situations is what I handle and deal with. And then just overseeing carrier vetting and carrier onboarding,

Blythe Brumleve: 3:10

that's going to be a fantastic resume in order to battle this, yeah, or not, battle this, I guess, combat this, this problem of what we're facing with freight fraud. And then Mark, I've listened to a couple of interviews with you on on Chris Jolley podcast. Shout out to him, because you guys had some great conversations. Can you kind of give us that high level overview of what your day to day looks like at SPI Well,

Unknown: 3:30

sure. So first of all, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Blythe, as far as my title, my role here, I'm the director of carrier procurement, and with that, comes with several different facets of the job, you know, reach out to carriers, trying to make sure that the carriers that we're bringing on board are who they say they are, they can meet the criteria that we need. But then also, kind of diving down to some of our carrier tools, and a lot of the tools that that we use and we we actually put into our tech stack here for you know, our agents and or potential agents that we're talking to incorporate various fraud detection methods, spoofing verifications, things like that. So I'll get in line and talk to a lot of different vendors and whatnot to make sure that they're offering matches what what we want. And I'll take that and work with our carrier base and inter agents, you know, to make sure that we're meeting their needs and the needs

Blythe Brumleve: 4:25

of the industry. And as you know, I kind of was doing research for this episode that just feels like there's so many tools out there, because I did, I did a very, very brief stint of carrier relations about a decade ago, before someone else more responsible took over. You know that that role and responsibilities, but the extent of it at that point was just, you know, let's see if the carrier is active in carrier 411, and then if they are good, that's the setup. Process is complete. Let me get the carrier packet, and we're good to go, how has that and Mark, I'll stay with you for a sec. How has that process, I guess, evolved over the last decade, where it's not as simple as just going to carry your 401, anymore. You have to utilize several different tools within that vetting process.

Unknown: 5:13

Yeah, you know, it's not your dad's fraud process anymore, right? So, and you hit the nail on the head. I mean, there's so many different pieces of technology and things out there that, you know, we didn't have, you know, many years ago, or even a few years ago, the days of just checking Kara 401, are pretty much gone. You've got different vetting platforms that have have introduced into the market. You've got highway, you got. But even our MIS they've stepped up their their offering. You've got my carry packet carrier, sure, and the list goes on. But you know, what we've seen is you can't really bring everything down to just one tool. You know? You kind of got to use a combination of different tools and different things to make it as foolproof as possible. The problem is, once you you think you've got everything locked down and and where it needs to be, you know, the the bad actors find a way to to exploit any weakness that you have. And, you know, if I can, since, since we're talking about technology, a lot of times the technology that's created to make it easier for for us as three PLS, or whatnot, is, is and actually is being used against us. And one of the things I'll talk about here, you know, because everybody likes to tell AI, you know, AI this, and AI that, right? And everybody talks about AI, but, you know, here's the reality of the situation. They have things out there that are called Voice cloning technology, right from AI, and I'll tell you, Blythe, some of this technology is so far advanced that it needs between three to five seconds of your voice pattern to replicate your actual voice. And are employing this, they're actually putting this in use. So if they call a an agent or they call a broker, and they get, you know, hey, I'm calling about your load from somewhere, somewhere, and that agent or that broker says, Well, I don't have a load from here to here. I've got to look now, they've captured a lot of voice, and they can put that together and from there. And there have been that that that's happened using that type of technology. So technology is good and and bad, but it's not just one tech stack anymore. You You have to mix it together, and that's what we do here.

Blythe Brumleve: 7:29

Yeah, definitely, I have had the conversation with my parents on we have to have some kind of like a safe word for all of us to use the podcaster. You know, I people could clone me in, you know, 30 seconds having access to video and audio and all of that. And the scams are getting sophisticated, even for parents, where it sounds like somebody is impersonating your child in order to get something out of you. So I can only imagine of what it's being done at scale in the commercial world ship I'll go to you maybe what, same question, what? I guess advances in sort of the vetting process, or the, I guess the reassurance process. Have you seen evolve in sort of the the carrier side of things?

Unknown: 8:15

I think a lot of it for us. Just like Mark said, definitely not just looking at 411, we have to use multiple different platforms to look at it. We also have to really make sure that we're not sharing this information with other actors or like carriers and things like that. We can't just send screenshots of all this stuff, because that's exactly how people know, like now, the kind of technology we are, you know, using in order to verify carriers as much as possible. So there's a lot more rules in place from when I started with SPF five years ago. I would say one is verifying phone numbers, verifying email addresses, making sure, even in our internal system, we can't just, you know, send it to any email address that is just given to us over the phone. There's a lot more verification and like each step of the way. And I think even you know, highway has to do their part as well when it comes to that. But for us, it's multiple different platforms. It's not just just the one

Blythe Brumleve: 9:15

as it was before. Yeah, I think that it's just, it's almost like more technology, more problems, but then you still have to have sort of that human aspect of it where, and I think Mark with with one of your conversations with Chris, you made a great point along the lines of, you want to, I think you mentioned asking the carrier on the phone what the weather is like, And while you're talking to them, doing a Google search of what the weather is like, where they're located, just to see if they're if that's accurate. So it involves present day, more of like a blend between the technology solutions and then also just a little bit of, you know, instinctiveness. Yeah,

Unknown: 9:55

sure, it's anything you can do to kind of introduce that. And a lot of times, when you're talking just through a normal just through a normal flow of conversation, hey, where are you at right now? Talking about the weather. Another thing you can do that I've used in the past too, let's say, let's say you're talking to the care and they're looking to pick up a load Cincinnati. Well, hey, how did Bengals do last night? Or how did the Reds do last night? Did you see the game? I didn't check the game. Worried. And you start having those conversations now. Ai again. You know, the way they're advancing, it's quick to pull those things up. So there's different ways you can say things. You know, it used to be back in the day when you were really, really unsure. Send me a picture of you holding up a, uh, a number in front of your camp. Okay? But AI, you can go in and say, Hey, type this and put this there. Ai, still. Has a little bit of problems when it, when it's trying to do fingers and whatnot, but it's, it's evolving very quickly. But those little, those little tactics you can get to help out, I think, I think shipper, and this is maybe where you're going to go a little bit more to is, is having the shipper participate in some of the fraud and risk mitigation efforts is key nowadays, to where in the past, and I say past several years ago, that's kind of frowned upon, but now you really gotta get the shippers involved. They have to know who's picking it up and and expect who's going to pick it up as well.

Blythe Brumleve: 11:08

Now, in the intro, we talked a little bit about, or I mentioned briefly about how this is, you know, a billion dollar problem, and it's growing. It's costing, you know, taxpayers anywhere from 15 to 30 billion, I believe, I'm curious is, are we just talking about freight fraud more and we're more aware about it, or has this kind of trends? Is it just more symbolic to we're just spending more, there's more freight movement. So of course, things are going to be happening more like, what is, I guess, sort of the big picture view of freight fraud? Yeah,

Unknown: 11:42

sure. So theft and freight fraud has, has definitely increased, yeah, obviously, with social media and things like that, we're going to hear about it more. But when you look at the reported number of cargo thefts, things like that, if you look at cargo, cargo nets information and data. It's up significantly. You know, it's up 40 something percent, 43% year over year, from last year and then the year before that was like 70 something percent. So it's definitely, definitely increased. Yeah, here's another thing too. You know, freight theft used to just be straight cargo theft, right, where it was just pilferage. Somebody breaks into your truck, at it at a lot, and they break and take, you know, four or five packages out and they leave. It's not like that anymore. The number one type of cargo theft is actually strategic, and that is based upon, you know, technology, and being able to perpetrate those, those thefts through, through the use of technology, I mean, so that it's definitely up. And when you look at some of the other different crimes, and where it's happening is actually increasing too. Um, obviously you've got the big states, you got California, you got Illinois, you got Texas and and Florida, you have it as well, but we're seeing a significant increase in thefts and corridors coming out of California, right? If nothing else, thieves are very good at their ROI, right? So they see, they steal this, this cargo in California or something. And you know, why is it increasing in the next state over because that's the first place they can stop to get gas. It's cheaper to get gas over there. So it is increasing. I mean, shiv. I mean, Shiv, I don't know if you're seeing it on your end, as far as number of of incidents, yes, 100% and I think everything is getting much more complicated as well when it comes to that reasoning and a lot of it. I think the number one want like reasoning right now is hacked email addresses, actual carriers, legitimate carriers and them having their email addresses either actually hacked or supposedly hacked, but we're actually sending recons to valid email addresses, and loans have been getting stolen. And that's the really interesting part right now. There's some sort of strategy that's going on when it comes to that. And I think I just also the shipper. The shipper. Thing that Mark said is that shippers not, unfortunately, loading the carriers that are actually supposed to arrive there. When the broker advises, which is another thing we've, you know, had an issue with, they'll do their due diligence. They take the license of the driver down, they'll take down their MC and all of that. But there's some sort of miscommunication when it comes to Hey, broker said that this is the carrier that's supposed to arrive, but they don't check to see that that carrier actually arrived, and then they load this legitimate carrier, and then that legitimate carrier was hired by a fraudulent broker to take it to a warehouse somewhere. So I think that is one of the biggest things we're seeing right now too. Unfortunately, yeah, you know, to touch base on that some of the things that I'm hearing from some of the people that talk to in the industry, it's somebody who used a dispatching service, or they had former dispatchers who would work for them. So they have access to a cares email, just, you know, an at Gmail, public domain address. And then they leave, right? And then they go, they're a bad actor. And they go, maybe working with another bad actor, and they still have those, those login credentials, right? And then they monitor freight in a solicit freight, and then if they work out a load, negotiate the ability to take a load. What the What they're doing is inside the carrier's email address. They're deleting those, those those emails, they'll put a rule up no 40 forward those emails to, oh, hey, if you get an email from SPI, whatever, go ahead and send that to John Doe at Gmail and then delete this email so a legitimate carrier has no idea that that another another entity is using. Their email and then deleting the emails and forwarding it, right? So, I mean, there's good business practices that that need to happen. So if somebody leaves that carrier, they should change their email address password, right? They should do, you know, authentication through the phone. I mean, there's different things they could and should do to protect themselves, but then also to protect the industry as a whole. And we're not seeing that in general. I mean, I don't, I don't say everybody, just

Blythe Brumleve: 16:06

in general, it almost feels like this, you know, it's a cat and mouse game that you're just, it just never ends, and they're going to continuously get better, and you're going to have to try to figure out, I would have the hardest time even trying to figure out that someone is receiving my emails and deleting them, and I don't even know what would be the first step to even figure out that process is or or that potential fraud issue is, are there? What are those early warning signs that maybe something has happened?

Unknown: 16:37

Well, I what you can do is, is one, change your password on a regular basis, right? Set up authentication where you when you sign on, you have to sign on through your phone too. So you got two places to do that, right? Another thing too, is you want to check your deleted folder a lot of times, because they'll just send it and they'll put it and let it stack up and delete a folder, and then they delete it that way. But I would just be on a constant process of changing your password and setting up it these, these public domains. It's really, it's really easy for that to happen. So, you know, kind of setting up your own email with your own company name. It's cheaper. It's more efficient to do it through, you know, at Gmail or whatnot. So those are things. So I would definitely change my email on an ongoing basis. A lot of times it's just a former employee who hacked it, or they click a link. I'm sorry. I should have you. Oh, yeah, no, I was gonna say I think also you should be able to check to see where your emails logged in from, or logged into, what devices your email is logged into. So maybe, you know, you delayed it a little bit, somebody left the company, but you haven't changed your password. If you do, go change your password, maybe check to see where was it last logged in? Is it still logged into a different device? And then also, maybe check to see if there's rules set up. I'm not 100% sure if that's something you can check, but I assume you can check to see if there is a forwarding rule set up for something specific and delete all of those. But that's kind of like a thing in case, you know, you don't change it in time, or you don't, yeah, I think after doing that, also do that due diligence

Blythe Brumleve: 18:09

and Shiva. I'll stay with you for a second. Is there any, I guess maybe, like glaring commodities that are being targeted for these, you know, fraud efforts.

Unknown: 18:21

Honestly, there is, like, definitely in the industry. For us, I think we've seen it for several, several things like we've seen We've seen it with Legos, we've seen it with protein powder. We've seen it with olives. Like, for us, I find that it's often there's no like specific thing. And of course, like you have your copper, you know, you have your you gotta be careful with steel, things like that. But in the industry, it is household items and beverages, which is what I believe, if I'm correct, mark the top commodity, targeted commodities, right? Absolutely. You know, with some, with something like that, it's, it doesn't stay around very long, right? So if it's food or commodity or something like that, you know you're gonna, you're gonna eat it, or you're gonna, you're gonna disperse it through the network. So it's not gonna, it's not a durable good that's gonna hang around

Blythe Brumleve: 19:13

forever, yeah, because they have the serial numbers attached to it, it's probably easier to trace, easier to track, versus, you know, something like protein powder, which would probably be gone and, you know, 30 days tops, or removing the labels, there's no, you know, as far as I know, there's no, like, you know, I don't know VIN number for a protein powder, that would just be probably too complicated,

Unknown: 19:35

yeah, and you know, You get, you get different cartels involved now, so it's, it's a full scale, you know, global situation, you got different cartels who will target certain commodities. You know, maybe there's a cartel out of, out of Eastern Europe that, for whatever reason, likes to target copper loads, right? You know, maybe there's a cartel out of India that likes to look at, you know, household goods. And then it's just wherever they can get it fenced, where they're used to getting it fenced from, and it used to be in the day to where you could bust a cargo ring. And it would take 678, months before they got, you know, more people involved to do it. Now, when they take down a cargo theft operation you you've got, they're just flying in another group of people, or spinning up another cell, in some cases, the next day.

Blythe Brumleve: 20:26

And is all this happening in the United States, or is it a North America problem? I mean, I know in in my show notes, I had that it's a global issue, but I'm, I'm curious as to if there's. Is anything that's, I guess, isolated to the United States, or maybe there's some, some varying or maybe it's isolated to North America. What are some of the, I guess, the location trends that we're seeing?

Unknown: 20:48

Well, you're always having cargo theft worldwide. There is a significant increase in North America, and I think that's because, you know, there's, there's a lot of freight moving in the United States, and also, there's a lot more of an infrastructure to report this. But in Mexico, there's a lot of theft that happens in Mexico. And if thefts that happen in Mexico or a lot more violent than than in the United States, it's happening after the truck is loaded. And you can go out, and you can see these types of things when you go to these conferences and whatnot. You can look them up as well, and they will follow a truck down the road, and they will box a truck and pull it over. And it used to be in a day, they would have the drivers sit on the side of the road while they empty out the truck. Now it's easy for them just to shoot the driver, no witnesses, and it's a scary situation for these drivers in Mexico. And there's a certain corridor in Mexico where it's a crazy number. It's, and this is, don't, don't hold me to this number, but it's something like 40% of the freight is, it's stolen, it's, it's insane. You know, Scott Cornell is a very, very keen individual. And if you, if you don't know Scott, you may want to touch base with him. I mean, that guy, he's just a phenomenal person, and we'll give you the right numbers. Yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely love something

Blythe Brumleve: 22:01

now i shiv, I saw you. You nodding your your head along with with that. Do you have any, I guess, maybe war stories to share with us, of some incidences that have happened in Mexico?

Unknown: 22:12

Well, that's what, exactly what Mark is talking about. I remember seeing a video that they showed at a conference, like, literally, where, you know, these drivers go in and they stop the truck and they're, like, shooting at the truck. So that's what I that's exactly that I probably saw the same video because it was Scott Cornell's conference, basically. But yes, that's why I was like, yep, that's exactly what happens in Mexico, unfortunately, it's really scary, so I guess I at least we're lucky in that sense. But definitely,

Blythe Brumleve: 22:45

yeah, because I, my first thought process goes to like, well, how? Why would you even become a truck driver in Mexico? Like, what if this is, you know, if upwards of 40% of all the freight is being stolen and your life is at risk. Why

Unknown: 24:25

in a specific corridor? I want to classify that, you know, right? But still, yes, why would you run that corridor?

Blythe Brumleve: 24:31

I mean, the insurance costs have to be insane for for that route alone, I would think so. It's a lot of, you know, additional maybe, like, you know, waterfall effects that happen, you know, from one terrible incident that happens after that, and what in situations like that? What can be done, anything,

Unknown: 24:54

you know, something like that. I don't think, well, you can have armed transport that's going with it, but a lot of times, you have the cartel involved. And there's listeners corruption all over the world. But in certain situations, in certain areas, you you have cartel who in working with local officials, right? And, and, you know, there's agreements made, and you know, we're, hey, listen, we're going to pull over this many trucks, and maybe there's agreements where they don't do any harm to the driver, maybe rough them up a little bit, right? There's a lot of things happening. And I think there's in Mexico, you have to, you have to really look at the governments, and you have to look at the cartel, and there's a lot of corruption here in the United States when it comes to cargo theft. How do you, how do you prevent some of that stuff? Well, that's, that's what we're talking about here, betting with the carrier, carrier having security the the shipper, knowing who's coming in the loading, you know, maybe, hey, ask for this guy driver's license. In some cases, that can still be, still be fake. You know, some of the very sophisticated, I say sophisticated, but, you know, maybe more aware. Maybe that's a better term, more aware shippers, they'll put tracking units inside the loads. We've had situations where a load was stolen and the tracking unit was activated, because these tracking units are really nice, and they can tell you that, hey, there's light now in the back of this this truck, the doors open, and the light sensor went off, and here's where it's located, and it actually alerts the authorities, and you know, we can recover some of that freight. And when you think about it, these tracking devices, they're fairly cheap, you know, 36 bucks, 50 bucks, something like that, compared to a $200,000 load. Makes sense to me.

Blythe Brumleve: 26:38

Makes a ton of sense. And I'm curious as it, you know, we've been talking, you know, a little bit about technology already. I'm curious and maybe how some of these fraudsters are using technology. You mentioned AI and sort of voice cloning. You know, we've talked about email addresses. I've heard of, you know, load boards being a problem too. You know, I think they say the best freight never makes it to a load board. But sometimes, you know, you have to use a load board. So what are maybe. Some of the tech that the fraudsters are using that other, you know, the brokers and the carriers can be a little bit more cautious about or, or maybe do their, their double checking the shippers as well.

Unknown: 27:16

Well, you mentioned load boards, right? So they screen, scrape all these load boards, and they say, okay, hey, I have these loads going. Some of the, some of the tech that I see, a lot happens. Happening is where they send a link to somebody, it looks like maybe a a load board. Do you have this negative review? I mean, nobody ever wants to have a negative like, what somebody's saying something bad about us, right? So by by instinct, what is it? And we click that link, and as soon as you click that link, you may not even know, but then now you're infected with malware, right? And we're phishing, and they're gathering your data, and the link comes in and and sometimes the link will take you to a web page that looks like the page that sent it to you. Enter in your enter in your password, right? And then you enter in your password, thinking that, okay, well, I gotta and now they have your password, they may have access to all your other passwords. And you have, we have some opportunity for for disaster, right there. So as far as some of the malicious attack would be the links, you know, spoofing, that's an old school thing still works. There's telephony solutions. We have some telephony solutions in place that will capture a spoof number and block that out, right? So, you know, there's apps that you can get, and I could call you and it would look like, you know, maybe it looks like shiv is calling you, but it's really me, and then I can get, and get some information that way, but with, with some different technology,

Blythe Brumleve: 28:38

what was that phrase you used? It? Telephony, telephony,

Unknown: 28:41

telephony. It's, it's just a general term to deal with anything that deals with a telephone or anything

Blythe Brumleve: 28:45

like that. Oh, interesting. I had never heard that word before. So you learned something. You know, I'm learning a lot in this episode, Shiv, I'm wondering, you know going to you for a second, when, what take me inside, sort of that, I guess, the action like war room, whenever you know that fraud has happened, or you suspect that that fraud has happened? What are the steps being taken to, I guess, get the freight back, to get insurance, involved law enforcement. What does that process look like, without giving away too much to the criminals?

Unknown: 29:21

Every situation is so different. And right now, as soon as you ask me that I'm thinking of like three people that I can think of in my head in terms of like, there was, you know, one where it was like a fraudulent CDL that was given, it wasn't even a CDL. So we're contacting anybody and everybody that we can, obviously, cargo net, we go to often, sometimes we do reach out to Scott Cornell. We've been in touch with, like the California detectives. So there's many, many different parties. It's just dependent on the situation and what we know and who we're in touch with. So for example, what Mark was getting at, where the shipper, like, put in a little sensor, or a little thing in the in the trailer, in their shipment. And this was when, you know, we kind of had this clue that, oh, maybe the shipment is is being stolen, because now the driver is Mia. And this one was actually a great one, because we were able to contact cargo net, but also the shipper contacted their their contacts as well, and they were able to cargo net was there, and apparently there were choppers there, and just all sorts of parties that busted this warehouse. So it's really dependent on the situation. And of course, we're going after insurance like we're contacting the carriers insurance company, we're contacting carrier and all of our contacts that we have, as well as the local police from where it was picked up. And unfortunately, in that sense, because the local police departments don't know too much about car theft, they're not very like they don't know how to handle it like this. Over the weekend, I was working with a detective in California who, you know himself, went inside this location, versus the police went there. They just scoped the scene outside and they left. They didn't actually do any any, you know, any digging, and they didn't try and ask anybody anything. So the problem becomes that as well. So we're really just contacting any and all parties as much as we can to try and figure out, find a lead. You know, check online. Run these phone numbers online, check these names, CDL names, like, it's, yeah, it's just a lot. But every case is very, very different and very interesting.

Blythe Brumleve: 31:32

It sounds like a full time job trying to do all of this, like, how? And I think that that, you know, as I'm saying, that it's almost like, Thank God you're a, you know, a freight agency for your freight agents that they don't have to, I don't say worry about this, because they obviously have to worry about it. But when something happens, I'm assuming that they reach out to one of you two, and then that's when the investigation kind of starts. And it's more it's an extreme amount of value add to be able to have a resource like that. Versus if you were just, you know, maybe, like a smaller brokerage trying to figure this out on your own, trying to get all the technology and detectives involved. So it sounds like you know that with the freight agents, they're able to call y'all immediately and be able to to get y'all on it.

Unknown: 32:20

Yeah, yeah. We actually just had one of our shippers who was telling us how much we've done for them, like no other broker does as much, like, time and effort, and, you know, this is unfortunately, possibly a lost cause. We don't know yet, but we're still trying, like, we're still talking to the detective, we're still trying to get leads, we're still doing as much as we can, and it's been over, like, a month, and they're just like, you know, there's no other broker like that would have helped us as much as you guys are helping us. Are helping us. So that is definitely a good it's a good feeling to hear that, but it would be nice to have that win as well.

Blythe Brumleve: 32:54

Marcus, I saw you shaking your head there, as far as like, you know, being that resource to your your agents out there, you know, what? What does, I guess, what does that sort of flow of action look like for the freight agents, are they? Do they suspect it? Is it? You know, maybe you guys have an internal team that's monitoring things, and they can kind of shine a light on it for them, almost, imagine, like the agent needs to keep, like, a freight fraud tab open. That's, you know, seven different tools monitoring every single load is, Am I over dramatizing this? If that's awkward.

Unknown: 33:28

Okay, so this is a shameless plug for SPI so, by the way, so one of the nice things that that SPI has, and what they do with their tech stack is they make it they make life incredibly easy with regards to fraud and risk mitigation for the agents, we've got some tools in our tech stack that you know, an agent can simply put in an MC number, and it runs through almost instantaneously, runs through all of our our algorithm. Algorithms, runs through everything that we have, and comes back and lets you know, hey, this carrier is good, or hey, this carrier is a carrier that exposed some opportunities, and we're not going to be able to load them. So right up front, you know, we're helping them identify possible bad actors. So that's key, and that's helped us tremendously. Now, when you get a carrier on. And, you know, for whatever reason there, there is a bad actor involved, and it's made it through the initial screening. You know, what SPI has set up is we have an internal notification system, and an agent sends, it sends, basically an email into this, this system, and says, Hey, I think I have a problem. And from there, you know, shift scheme, you know, they, jump all over it. And, you know, she was going through it, she was being a little humble. They've got a lot of different things that they put together. And it's, it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like clockwork. It just comes right through and and they, they hand hold those agents through that process, call the carrier, ask him this, call this. We'll take care of this. We'll do that. We do we as an SPI, we do everything we possibly can to make it as easy as possible for the agent when it comes to a situation like that, because, listen, you know, it may maybe that agent is is never encountered this type of a situation before, so we can bring the full expertise to bear for them. No

Blythe Brumleve: 35:22

that, that definitely makes a lot of sense, and it definitely a value add resource that you can take advantage of a team that is working on your side, and can can be the trusted advisor that you need. And, you know, those moments of panic, so I couldn't imagine, you know, what, what they would go through during that process. So it sounds like it's a little bit, you know, you have a good reaction plan in place when something happens. What about some of the, I guess, the preventative ways that you can, you know, try to prevent, you know, fraudsters or fraud carriers, and, you know, double brokering, anything like that. From my understanding, it comes down to, like, a certain checklist of your carrier selection. Can you maybe run through like, what does, what does a good carrier look like in SPI size, eyes? Shiv, you want to take that?

Unknown: 36:13

Yeah. So for us, of course, similar to what Mark said, like, we have a system in place, and there's a bunch of different points that that system pulls in terms of the carrier. Of course, we look at them in highway to make sure they're a pass, which, you know, basically, that's vetted through our process, and everything such as that. But also to prevent this stuff, I think, to reiterate, like when it comes to email addresses, making sure you're sending it to the verified email address, making sure you've spoken to the person you're not just and if they're calling from, you know, a load posting, hang up and call back the actual number. Make sure the person that's calling you, because people aren't checking the phone number like this happens to be, you know, similar to that email hacking. If they call you from a random number, but they have hacked the legitimate carriers email address now they're telling you, hey, I send it to the. Verified email address, but they're receiving it on the back end, but that phone number is a fraudulent phone number, so you have to do your due diligence in all those areas, which is emails, phone numbers, you know, obviously checking 411, for additional reports, and then it for us, it have to be a passing highway. I if I've missed anything, Mark, sorry. Yeah. So a couple things I would say, as far as what, what classifies as a, as a, as a good carrier, I think that was the question. You know, I don't necessarily want to look at it and say, Hey, here's what's a good or bad care. I think I would just look at a carrier and say, here's a carrier where there's where there's less risk, right? So some of the things that that pop for us, for less risk, is we, you know, we look at how long have they had their authority? You know, have they had it one day versus six months? In some situations, we look at the insurance provider. There are some insurance providers out there where we would look at it and say, You know what? It's not necessarily an insurance provider that we would want to work with, right? Versus, you know, somebody else. Another thing that we would look at is, have there been specific changes on cares information? You know, that's another red flag. You know, without getting too far down a rabbit hole, and, you know, giving up some of the secret sauce, there are ways that that carriers, bad actors can, can weasel in and and make themselves appear as as somebody that they're not. So there's some identifiers that we use in our tech stack that pops that right. You know, another thing that we're looking at is, hey, is this carrier actively tracking? Right? Do they have a tracking history? Because our technology, we link in with several different providers. You know, I keep saying that, you know, we link in with Highway, with carrier Sure, with trucker tools, with Project 44 with macro point and it goes down the list, goes wire B, and it goes all down this list. So we look at, are they tracking? Because then have they trapped regularly, right? You know, has this carrier ran a specific Lane before? You know, if it's a carrier that that has only and ever ran in Florida, and we're only based in Florida, why are they looking for a load in Alaska, right? Just, just something like that, that's, that's kind of odd. So, so there's different flags that pop up. So again, it's not necessarily a good or bad carrier. It's just carries where there's less risk.

Blythe Brumleve: 39:28

Yeah, because I was just seeing a report earlier today about you would think in sort of the economic conditions that that we find ourselves in, and rates are really low and freight is is slow, the opportunities are few and far between for right now. But I just saw a report that even more carriers are continuously entering the market, despite all of the downturn and that we've seen. And so I sort of feel bad for the folks that are coming onto the scene, and they're new and, you know, they're hungry and they want to get to work, but maybe there's a lot of these hoops that they have to jump through. I'm curious, because I would love to do this for, you know, carrier shippers and agents out there, what are sort of, what are the ways that a new carrier can make themselves appear or maybe not appear, but show that they're valid, show that they're real people, show that they're just, you know, good, honest, hardworking folks. What? What? Maybe, what are some of those signs outside of being new, that they can prove that they're, you know, a good, good company to hire. I'm sure.

Unknown: 40:31

Shave. You want me to start? Yeah, you can start. Okay, so from my perspective, attend some of these conferences, like the broker carrier Summit, right? You attend that broker carrier Summit? I've met a plethora of carriers at that summit, you know. And if they're there, they're serious about their business. It's something to be said. Okay, they're taking time off the road to be there. And, you know, you can build that rapport right away. I think that's that's a big thing, too. Another thing that they can do is they can call you and, you know, they call like a corporate procurement office. I'm looking for freight. How do I get set up? How do, instead of just calling off of a post it load? I think that's one thing. You know, I've also seen it where they have a carrier who's within your network, and they have that carrier call you and vouch for him. I've had that just the other day. Hey, this guy just started. He's starting up his company. I, I'm very good friends with him, and, you know that type of rapport, and I've got on a commerce call just just the other day with these two carriers, and just kind of talk through the process, right? But those are, those are big things that I see they can get on podcast, right? Hey, hey, black, I'd really like to be on your show. I'm a new carrier. What do I do? That's a great way to do it. So I think that's key. It used to be in a day, get a bunch of reviews, but you can have aI fake some of the reviews and things like that. But, you know, Cheryl, you got anything that I missed? No, I think that's, that's pretty good. I mean, obviously there are certain brokers that have a specific, you know. Know they won't onboard a carrier unless they've been active for six months to a year for us at 60 days, which isn't bad at all. But I think, yes, just like Mark said, if you start, especially if you start building that with one office as well within our agency, and you run some loads, and then you build that relationship, that would happen like within freight, freight brokerage, right? You can always try and reach out to other brokers within our brokerage and see you can move some other lanes. But if you build that relationship with, you know, one agency within a brokerage, like, that's something too that could help.

Blythe Brumleve: 42:37

So it sounds like I need to have my own, like, carrier vetting process for podcast guests. So that's maybe there's some kind of like a highway or a carrier, sure that can help me with that in the future, to just make sure that the carriers are legit before they come on the show.

Unknown: 42:52

Another shameless plug for carrier, sure Cassandra is going to love me, right? So, so she's got a really nice platform for carriers, because it didn't exist before, where they can go in and they can type in A a MC, for a broker or for an agent, right? And see. So that's a good way for carriers not to get scammed, right? Because when you think about it, the these carriers are are a lot of people were injured, but they're a true victim. Somebody stole their identity. Now they're held liable, and now what are they going to do? You know? So you got to look at it from that perspective as well, too. So it's not just a, yeah, it's not just a broker and a shipper situation. You have legitimate carriers who are victims. And a lot of these, a lot of these thefts, what happens is they these bad actors will steal load, and they'll take it from a shipper, and they'll rent time at a warehouse, and, you know, they're paying cash. They got the load here. It's coming in. They're changing the paperwork instead of TVs, it just says electronics, and then shipping out the other side to a legitimate carrier who just thinks, and they are just picking up a low from one warehouse going to another. Maybe they're paid, maybe they're not.

Blythe Brumleve: 44:02

Oh, that's so tragic. Because, I mean, I hate to say, like, oh, a big company can kind of survive that, but, you know, a smaller company, 90% of you know all the trucks on the road, or seven carry, or seven trucks or less. And so one incident is probably bankruptcy for that carrier, for that company. And so that that's really tragic is carrier, sure the only company that helps, you know, carriers deal with potential broker fraud.

Unknown: 44:29

Well, there's some other companies I know that are building tools for it. I think highways in the process of building something for that, that piece as well. I don't know if it's actually released yet, but you know, when I go to the some of these events and stuff, and I know Cassandra, I mean, her platform does, does a pretty good job vetting that out.

Blythe Brumleve: 44:49

Now, shifting gears a little bit, because we have seen, you know, well, actually, I kind of want to stay with that for a minute, because there has been somewhat of a increase in fraud focused conferences within our industry. I'm curious as to, you know, what happens maybe at some of these broad conferences, you know is what kind of topics are being discussed there that you're taking back to the office shiv, I'll go to you for this one, that you're going to these conferences and, you know, learning things there, what kind of topics are being discussed there that you kind of take back to your learnings.

Unknown: 45:24

I think there's a lot, I mean, for us, especially, a lot of it that we come back with are either a contact, so that's the kind of way that we got in touch with, like the detective and things like that. Or even websites where you can use, you know, these, these tools to either search phone numbers or, you know, fraudulent emails, things like that. I know we come back with a lot of email, I'm sorry, those kind of like techno technology resources as well as, I would say, connections, when it comes to like in the industry, somebody who can help us out when these thefts occur, that's a huge thing. But the topics, I would say, it's a lot of that, as well as insurance, and what insurance providers are good, and what to look for in carriers, you know, insurance certificates, or when vetting these carriers, what's what to also look for. There's so much, because these conferences are, you know, a couple of days long, and there's so many different kinds of sessions, like even insurance policies, like I said, when it comes to what is going to be covered. What kind of exclusions exist, what to kind of watch out for, what carrier should watch out for as well? There's a lot. I'm just trying to drawing a blank, but we come back with so much and so many stories too, right? We're just kind of like, okay, well, how did you guys combat that? Or how did you guys recover that cargo? And that gives us ideas on other things to do in the next time, or even recovering load. Like it's not just fraud, but even recovering loads and kind of knowing what we have the right to do as a freight broker and how we can go about talking to the police or talking to, you know, insurance companies or tow facilities when. Things like this occur. So there's, it's just a huge, huge array of things, I think, that are discussed at these conferences. Yeah,

Blythe Brumleve: 47:10

that's amazing. I mean, you would just think that there would be, you know, oh, just get a few tools, and you should be fine. But you're involving detectives. You're involving tow truck companies detect. I just, I'm, my mind is a little blown that like detectives are going to, you know, the these freight conferences as well, and being a resource to folks like yourself. So I think that's incredibly impressive, and just proves that just this industry is just the more layers you peel back. There's so many more that you can dive into. And I would imagine for a lot of shippers, it could be just daunting to even try to think about, you know, some of these solutions that you would have to deploy, which is probably why that they, you know, offload that to someone else. So I'm curious, for maybe some some shippers that are are wondering how they can approach this topic better. What signs should they look for in a brokerage partner, an agent partner, that they should look for to formulate that that relationship with them.

Unknown: 48:11

Well, I think the first thing a shipper should look for in a situation like that is, is that broker agent, or are they acting as a supply chain consultant? For me, right? Be having the opportunity of working on a shipper side as well. You know, I would always value those, those relationships from carriers or brokers who would bring me information. Here's what's happening in the market, here's what's going on. And some of my better relationships I had were times where somebody would say, Hey, listen, I just want to make sure you're aware of this right now. Obviously they may be trying to do a soft sale or so maybe. But you know what? It really helped me out in those regards. So I think in today's world with what's going on, if you're a shipper out there and you're shipping partners, your three PLS, your carrier, even your asset based carriers, if they're not coming to you and telling you, here's what's going on, x, y and z. Then, then why? Right? They should be saying, what questions should I be asking that I'm not you know, what conferences should I be going to that I may not be aware of, because in the end, if you're looking if you as a shipper, you're looking at a freight brokerage or an asset based carrier. Is just somebody who's going to pick up my product from A to A to B at the lowest possible cost. Well, you're kind of setting yourself up for an opportunity in future, really, right? You want somebody who's going to come in and be a supply chain consultant for you, not just a freight brokerage that's that's not going to work for anybody. So that's what I would be looking for.

Blythe Brumleve: 49:51

And I would love to flip the script a little bit. Maybe there's a freight agent out there who's thinking about making a switch, hopefully to SPI what should, what should they be building, I guess maybe in their resume or their own sort of skill set to be able to either join SPI and have these resources available to them, or maybe kind of sell themselves a little bit better, or get a little bit more knowledgeable on freight fraud as a whole, so that they can sell themselves better and make those relationships like with SPI a reality for them in the future?

Unknown: 50:26

Sure. So you're talking about a value proposition. Here's what I would say. If there's an individual out there who's a broker right now in a brokerage, or somebody who's an agent, who's not with SPI let's just stay with a broker, because I think that was the context of your question. If you're a broker at a freight brokerage. What do you what you should be looking for is, how do you get more knowledge? What conferences Can you attend? And not everybody can attend those conferences, right? So, but you know what? There? There are so many different sources of information out there, in the on the internet. You know there, there's freight waves, there's freight caviar, there's podcasts like yours. There's podcasts out there that they can just sign on and join and learn, and then they should take that information and go to kind of what I just said before, and then bring that to their shippers. Right? What sets them apart from the other broker that's calling? Because in today's environment, those shippers are getting 200 300 calls a day, right? So instead of calling somebody saying, Hey, you got any freight today, or, Hi, my name is Mark, you know, could I send you a quote? You know, what would you come at a different perspective? Listen, I'm going to what's your email address, or I've got your email address for my a marketing tool, and I'm just going to send you this information. Maybe I'm not even going to ask for the freight. And you kind of build it up that way. So once you build your business and you got a deeper understanding with your customer, then you can take that customer and bring them to a company like SPI, right? And then you you open yourself up to everything that we offer, which I think is tremendous. It

Blythe Brumleve: 51:59

definitely sounds like it sounds like an incredible lifeline for for folks out there. There that you don't have to go it alone. You don't have to, you know, take on all this monetary risk and credit risk and all of these different factors that could, you know, one bad decision could put you out of business. It's definitely, I tell myself all the time, like, if it was, you know, 20 years ago, I would be a freight agent for SPI I don't think I'm built for it anymore. I don't have, you know, the patience for the broker life or for the agent life, but it really is one of the most, I think, enviable positions in all of logistics, where you have, you know, the security of a big company, of working for a big company, but then you also have, you know, that little bit of an entrepreneurial side of the coin where you can really, you know, build your own brand, build your own business, and merge those two worlds together. I would love, you know, a couple final notes here, maybe final pieces of advice, Shiv, I'll start with you. How do you prevent it? How do you rectify it when relative to freight fraud, and any advice for maybe some freight agents out there, who are, you know, kind of swimming upstream right now?

Unknown: 53:10

I mean, I think what Mark said was really good, as well as basically notifying their shippers of all these risks and what's happening in the industry. One thing I did want to point out that recently happened, that somebody was telling me is shippers not just checking, like, okay, like, you know, ABC carrier supposed to come and then they look in, they're like, Okay, this is ABC carrier, but really checking their trucks as well, because there's trucks with just like, little cardboards on them that just, you know, has the name of the company right now, and they're really not looking at all. And I think that was one huge thing that I recently found out about, and you know, I think that's a huge thing for shippers, but also freight agents to notify their shippers of these risks, and also them learning of all the risks that's happening. I think one of the biggest things is really being open to all the technology that is coming and because everything's changing. So like you said, 10 years ago, it was so easy to vet carriers and onboard carriers, but now a lot of the time, I find that they're not okay with this change, but we have to really be open to this change, because we have to change just like the industry is changing and we have to start doing extra vetting. I think that's a huge thing is, you know, not staying back and saying, oh, but we didn't have to do this like 10 months ago, but now, unfortunately, we do, because we have to change with the time. So I think having that mindset would be really, really helpful for agents to prevent and as well as no shippers and brokers,

Blythe Brumleve: 54:38

yeah, great insight. That's a great takeaway, because it's either adapt or survive. And I know a lot of carriers hate looking at the technology, and, you know, there's some gripes about it, but if it's going to keep you in business, you gotta evolve

Unknown: 54:52

Exactly, exactly. What about

Blythe Brumleve: 54:54

Mark? What about for you? Any, any last minute advice for for freight agents out there, maybe curious about working with SPI? Well,

Unknown: 55:00

sure, if you're curious about SI, and they can always reach out to us as a company, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, always willing to help anybody out, even if it's not related to being an agent for SPI I have individuals who will call me who who don't work with us. They don't haul a load for us. They saw my name somewhere, and they'll reach out, and I'll do everything I can to help them, as far as last words or anything like that, I would just say over communicate, truly, if you're a shipper, over communicate. This is what I'm shipping. This is what it is. And then also ask those questions from your broker, who's supposed to pick up my load? What's the name? What's the driver's name? Let's get some tracking on it, because you know why put it to you like this. Let's, let's say you put 200 because that's about the price of a load. Now you put$200,000 in your purse, right? And you post that on that and you got a truck driver is going to pick up your purse. Do you trust that truck driver to take your purse? And at $200,000 from your house in Florida to California,

Blythe Brumleve: 55:59

I'm working with SPI I do well, you want

Unknown: 56:02

to make sure you know who that individual is, right? And in today's world, you got a lot of different avenues to do that. So

Blythe Brumleve: 56:09

now that that's great perspective, and just, it's such a it's bringing it back. I guess the earlier comment about, you know, carrier 411, is just no longer enough. You have to do several things, both tech wise and just feeling people out wise and position yourself, you know, be a sponge. You know, learn as much as you can about these different tools and processes. Go to conferences, meet people, because this is still at the end of the day, it's a relationship driven industry, and those relationships can get you far. As you know, you two are very evident of that. And so thank you both for coming on the show and sharing this insight and perspective. I could talk about these different, like cargo crime stories at ad nauseum, and I watch all of the, I don't know if y'all watch all the shows, but I watch all of the, you know, border crime and how to catch a smuggler. And you know, all of these different, you know, carrier focus shows or. Crime focused shows that involves at the border or just trying to get goods in and out of the United States. So I don't know, do y'all watch any of those shows by any chance? Yeah,

Unknown: 57:16

yeah, definitely. I'm

Blythe Brumleve: 57:21

over here like guessing the type of drug that's in the truck, or, you know, that this one is smuggling this kind of stuff over here in statues. And I love it. And they, you know, they have a lot of tech involved in that as well. So this was a fun and interesting conversation. Obviously, it's a sad reality of, you know, the sort of the nature of what we're all discussing and trying to deal with, but it's good to know that there are resources out there. And I'm sure you know all of the agents with that SPI are super happy that they have, you know folks that got their back, and you know they're able to lean on y'all during tough times. So thank you again for coming on the show. I'll be sure to link to both of your linkedins in the show notes, and, of course, link back to SPI for folks who want to reach out and hear more, but thank you guys

Unknown: 58:08

again, take care.

Blythe Brumleve: 58:15

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain for the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching everything is logistics, and if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords, head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions, all the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode and Go Jags, you,

Unknown: 59:23

you you.