The down side to exchange sites

We all have views on what exchange sites have done to our industry, but here's an angle you may not have come across before.

An employed driver, the van, all its fuel and all the x's paid for by his employer, on an hourly rate plus overtime when applicable, joins an exchange site.

He gets given jobs by his employer, but on the sly, without his boss knowing, also gerts alerts enroute from the exchange site, and quotes on some of them that he thinks he can do without being noticed.

All very clever you may think, pretty harmless perhaps?

I beg to differ. It's taking the p*** on a grand scale.

Said employer, believing his employee was empty where he should have been (and why shouldn't he) quotes on a job on another exchange site that will take said driver home. That collection, that should have been done inside 15-20 mins doesn't get collected. This is highlighted 2 hours later by the vendors customer asking when to expect the courier! The courier, unbeknown to his boss, has done a "private" job, and because of that "private" job, has been found out.

The job, although picked up some 3 hrs after being allocated , eventually gets completed at no charge, and the vendor of the job offers his apologies and a freebee to his customer.

On this occasion there were no adverse consequences, with the exception of a lot of phonecalls, quite a bit of biting ones bottom lip, and an awful lot of swearing behind the scenes.

Suffice to say one hopes the driver will have his extremities examined very closely by a large hairy dog, with equally large incisors, and a dog that hasn't been fed for a while.

A lesson learnt that all isn't what it appears to be

Not good, employee should be sacked. After all he is using employers van, fuel, time etc.

Rob, this is yet another good reason to have van trackers fitted!

Also a good reason to pay the driver a decent rate in the first place. Yes, I know he may not have to work for them but in the real world some don't have a choice. And trackers can be installed quite easily nowadays if a company is prepared to pay for it.

Apparently he did have a tracker , but the sly lil devil had managed to disconnect it at various time of the day... Ie when doing his own jobs. The exchange site is sending the guy a breakdown of what his driver has done for them. Should make interesting reading. From what i'm told he wasn't on a bad wage either, and was a family friend.

I actually said durung one of the phone calls " are you sure he's not doing a private job without telling you" to which he replied " no he's not that clever". Well he was, and some.

Not sure how i'd react. Annoyed for sure, but more for anyone thinking I was stupid enough not to notice, than for the actual "crime".

A tracker correctly hard wired, [NOT the free App types] would take 45 mins to disconnect, that is IF he could ever find how /where it is wired! Nothing surprises me how devious and corrupt some people are.

I'd have thought the employer, once he'd calmed down from having the piss taken out of him, would be interested in the proven extra earnings potential of the van.

I'd deduct the earnings from his pay

Would never happen here all our vans and trucks are on trackers ;-)

Had a subby that i have used for a number of years double up on one of my jobs last month

Boxs give to driver 1215pm 2 drops manchester, rough eta 1st drop 1430, 1500 i call no answer 20 calls later still no answer, 1540 gets a phone call pod 1440 blar blar name,

Next one ffs if 4 miles away ring no answer 1 full hr of me ringing no answer, final get a call at 1740 all done pod blar blar, my customer is going crazy :(

I get the pods in the post 1st drop 1705 not 1440 like i was told and also a different name on pod to what i was told

Second drop 1740

5 hrs to get from mansfield to manchester and still says he didnt take a second job on for someone else, ffs i wasnt born yesterday

Nearly cost me one of my biggest customers £100k per year, had to go down to london for a meeting at head office and kiss butt :-(

thus subby lost everything from us and can bollocks to getting paid for that job, as good will told the customer no charge for that job

Only subbies we will use know must have some sort of tracker

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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A tracker correctly hard wired, [NOT the free App types] would take 45 mins to disconnect, that is IF he could ever find how /where it is wired! Nothing surprises me how devious and corrupt some people are.

My if they are disconnected show up in red on the pc and still run for 48 hrs before the battery goes dead :)

Suffice to say one hopes the driver will have his extremities examined very closely by a large hairy dog, with equally large incisors, and a dog that hasn't been fed for a while. Thats not fair on the dog cos it would be destroyed (sadly). I think the employer of said employee should go and bite his bits off personally.

This happened to a company called Watson & Phillip that I worked for some years ago, now part of Brake Brothers. One of their 18 tonners broke down when it should have been empty. When the recovery vehicle turned up to collect it and it was taken back to the garage, the driver had a lot of explaining to do as to why it was chuffed full of pork pies. He had been doing his own chilled deliveries on the sly for a local farmer. Needless to say he was promptly sacked!