In its latest attempt to best serve its customers, Direct Connect Auto Transport has conducted and published an interview with founder John Costelac, where he touches on the nature of the auto transport business and recent changes in government regulations that promise to alter the face of the industry.
The interview explains the difference and the relationship between auto transport brokers, who are the entities that take on shipping jobs, and carriers, which are the companies or individuals that actually field and operate the transport trucks. The challenge of a broker is to find a carrier that will complete the transport job for the price that the former quoted; the carrier’s task is to find and schedule jobs that will allow its trucks to run at capacity on each leg of their journey.
Direct Connect is one of the firms that act both as a broker and carrier. Many of the older and better-established auto transport companies also work by this model; however with the advent of the Internet, getting a start in auto transport brokerage became extremely easy, which led to a profusion of broker websites that either sold leads or subcontracted jobs to carriers.
These sites began attempting to underbid one another, and many turned out to be entirely fraudulent operations that would disappear with the customer’s deposit and reopen under another name. For this reason, Congress passed legislation last year that tightened auto transport broker licensing requirements and raised the necessary bond to $75,000.
This and other measures will make sure that there is less malpractice and fraud in the field, and hopefully lead to a better experience for auto shipping customers and carriers alike.
To read the rest of the interview, click here.
Ava Miller
February 13, 2013 — 9:49 am
I believe they are just smart enough to make these changes and to adapt the current trend although it might not seen at the moment but a day after tomorrow or two there should be a noticeable betterment on sight.