Dragon Creek Carriers Non-payment of wages, Illegal deductions from wages Farmington Minnesota
When I started with this company, they seemed pretty nice. It was ran by a family and they seemed professional enough. They took me to Farmington to get a truck and my first load out west with them. As soon as I started out from Minnesota to Oregon at the beginning of January, I realized the heat in the cab of the truck didn't work and the truck kept overheating. I told them and all they were worried about was the truck breaking down and having to fix it. I traveled all the way to Billings, MO before they even attempted to fix it. The only reason they did was because I had to keep stopping and adding anti-freeze and they assumed I would be late if I didn't .That's was only the first load!
Thru the 3-4 months, they would barely give me any fuel-enough to run about 300-400 miles and be stuck. I had to badger them to give me a paycheck that was suppose to be paid to me every week. It took 3 weeks after my check was actually due to get my first check and it was worse as I went along.
One day, the truck kept using fuel on one side and not the other. Me, not knowing anything about trucks, called them up BEFORE I ran out of fuel and told them exactly what was going on. The dispatcher called her brother, then called me back. He had told her the fuel line may have been accidentally shut off, but he was too busy to tell me how to open it back up and it was probably ok anyway so she sent me to get some fuel. So I drove and of course ran out of fuel. She sent an on-road service the first time with 10 gallons of fuel, which to her was suppose to get me 40 miles to the next fuelstop-then, of coarse, I ran out again. I had to sit in a cold truck for about 6 hours total that day in 35 degeree weather!! They may me pay $400 for that on road service with the excuse that they can't babysit EVERY driver they have (they had 4 including the brother). The next day, when they didn't have enough money for me to fuel the truck, they told me how to open up the line so the tank on the other side (that was completely full by the way) could be used.
I had had more than enough when I was pulled over and taken to the police station in Olympis Fields, IL because they had not licensed the truck I was driving nor had they bothered to get and IFTA license after March (I checked it when I got my truck non Dec 27 and it 3 months. I had forgotten about it). They had to post a bond to get their truck back on the road. They told me they had a lawyer that would show up to court and take care of it and after that court date, I got myself home and quit. Of course I gota letter from Illinois saying noone showed and had to take care of that later on.
By the time I quit, they owed me for a months wages. I have never seen them-EVER!!! I contacted the USDOL and they can't do too much so I never bothered any farther.
There were three other drivers they did similar things to just in the 3-4 moths I was with them. I am still shocked people would actually do things like that.
Of course, now, here it is February and I can't get a W-2 from them. It would be wonderful just to be COMPLETELY done with this nightmare called DRAGON CREEK CARRIERS!!!!
Lalla
Owensboro, Kentucky
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Dispatcher
Owensboro,Kentucky,
U.S.A.
Misleading Information
#2UPDATE Employee
Fri, April 24, 2009
Unfortunately there are disgruntled ex-employees with every company in the world. Dragon Creek is not alone. Ms. Lalla was employed by us for a VERY frustrating 3 months (not sure on time). I remember her well.
This company has been in business for over 30 years in the trucking industry. When someone tells us they are a truck driver, we expect them to know how to operate their equipment. We do understand that there are variations on each unit but, they are all relatively similar. If you can operate one, you should be able to operate others, tentatively.
In response to this disgruntled employee, we were drastically mislead as to her abilities. She was unable to perform the required duties of a "truck driver". You must be able to check fluids, tires, fuel and so on. Regretfully she was unable to do any of those things. She drove the truck and that is all she was able to do. Backing up was an issue as well as she demolished a fence in Tennessee. Weekly we were repairing and replacing tires that she would destroy. When she was asked how it happened she was baffled and said she must have ran over something, but she didn't know for sure.
As for her first run, I rememeber that as well. She had wanted to be driving an automatic, we do not own any. She complained about this the entire time. She did have an issue with the heat in the truck as it was VERY cold in Montana (not Missouri) at that time. She was asked if she could check the antifreeze levels and this is when we learned she knew NOTHING about a truck. She informed us she could make it to Oregon and we would fix it there. Upon completion of this run we probably should have terminated her employment as she had mislead us as to her ability to operate a truck. But we liked Lalla and were willing to give her a chance to redeem herself. This was not forthcoming.
As for being late, she was ALWAYS late. At one time she was 1 & 1/2 days late which lost a load with a revenue of over $7000. This became a constant issue with her. When asked why she took her own routes and was constantly late, she laughed it off saying "What's the big deal they are only trees".
As for allowing 3 -4 hundred miles of fuel, she is correct as she refused to answer her phone and communicate as to her location. So this was the only way we had to keep a tab on where she was. When she had the fuel issue in Iowa ... she ran out BEFORE she called me (I am the Dispatcher). She was told to check the valves, but to quote her "ME, NOT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT TRUCKS". She was unable to perform her duty. She told me she had 1/4 tank of fuel which is about 50 gallons but she couldn't make it 40 miles, however she drove past one fuel stop because she wanted to go to the other one further down the highway. Therefore she ran out of fuel again. When we sent the road service out (second time) we asked THEM to check the valve and they turned it on so the fuel would move from one tank to the other. They did charge us for doing her job.
As for the incident in Illinois, she was out of route ... AGAIN ... and was in a residential area, she had lost the plate off the trailer (she didn't know where or how) and did not have her proper paperwork in the truck (her responsibility) which caused her ticket. If we had not had the proper papers we could not have gotten the truck released, it was NEVER impounded, it was at a scale on the route she was supposed to have been on. I made several attempts to contact lalla regarding this issue after she had gotten back into Owensboro. However she refused to answer my calls and did not respond to voice mail messages.
As for her pay, I only know that I was giving her advances several times a week. As for what she had coming above that, I don't know. I am sure it wasn't much as she did not run many loads because she took so long just getting one load done. I got to the point that I didn't look for her a reload until I knew she was empty, as it makes me look bad that my driver is not on time. This also makes our customers question our ability to hire a "competent driver" to transport their goods.
Professionally I have nothing further to say regarding Lalla. Personally, even though I feel as though I was personnally attacked in this little area, I have nothing nice to say, therefore I will say no more.
"The Dispatcher"