Complaint Review: Swift Transportation - Phoenix Arizona

While it is true that there is a class action suit underway against Swift Transportation, it is in regard to mileage pay standards being used to calculate pay, based upon dispatched mileages. That aside, understand that the fact of the matter is that Swift is allowed to fire anyone at anytime, and for any reason. There is only one state left that does not allow employees to be fired without cause after they reach a 90 day probation period, and that is Montana. In addition to this, the interstate trucking industry is exempted from most employee job protections afforded other industries. Going after them for wrongful termination will be a futile and expensive effort, and the chances that you will prevail to any degree are literally nil. Swift is well known throughout the trucking industry for trashing the work records of people they terminate or who quit under less than desirable circumstances. So, even if they do list several "service failures", the chances are that most companies will overlook them, if all else looks okay on your DAC Report. But you can further protect yourself, and head off Swift getting in their word first, and increase your chances of impressing any prospective employer, by taking a few moments to type up a short and generalized letter, explaining these service failures offered by Swift. Simply put in the letter that you are being held responsible for issue of being late with deliveries or pickups due to circumstances outside of your control. Cite examples of those circumstances. "In all of these cases, the root causes of the service failures included such factors as the weather, an unforeseen delay due to a road I was traveling being closed due to a serious accident, delays in being notified of dispatches via electronic communication, and at other times being dispatched while my truck was out-of-service and in a repair shop." Now, as to clearing up your DAC report, you can make a challenge in one of two ways, and both will likely go in your favor, so long as you protest it highly. If none of these service failures were brought to your attention in writing, you can challenge the entries on those grounds. Negative entry issues must be discussed in person and you are to sign in recognition of the fact that you were called in to discuss them. If no action is taken to remove the entries for those grounds, then you could cite each and every service failure by date, and challenge them on the basis that they were failures due to circumstances outside of your control, or in contradiction with hours-of-service rules, in that to make up lost time, it would have placed you in violation of the laws and/or rules that you are bound to follow. Always remember to make each and every challenge in writing, and to send all correspondence to USIS via certified mail. Be firm and insist that the information is incorrect and that you will not give up until all incorrect information is removed. Threaten legal action against all parties if the letter of the law as defined in the FCRA is not followed. And to anyone else reading this, avoid Swift Transportation at all costs. This company has no regard whatsoever for anyone that leaves their employ. They are known for violating the FCRA routinely, and they have no shame. They know that drivers who leave them, will likely not fight them tooth and nail. And another good piece of advice I can offer when working for ANY trucking company, is to always keep a notebook of any potential issue that can come up at anytime in the future, and to write it down with the details involved, so that fighting false entries with rebuttal details will come easily to you. If you are late with a load, or for picking one up, and if you even THINK that it may come back to haunt you, write it all down. Include the dates, times, reasons for it being an issue, and anything else that will help you recall the details of the incident, if you happen to need to up to seven years down the road from the date it occurred. Do this for ANY issue that a company can twist and use against you. Accidents and any incident of any kind should be documented to the nth degree. Get copies of anything you sign if called in to safety or by any other member of management for any other form of disciplinary action taken against you. Verbal reprimands cannot be documented. Nor can phone conversations. If a company offers a negative issue on your DAC report, and it was never made aware to you in writing, and you did not sign in recognition of it, you have every right to demand it's removal from your report, because the incident has not been documented sufficiently to withstand a challenge.

Beverly, It is true that Swift sometimes messes up. I worked for them for 2 years, 1 as a Mentor, and they made a mistake regarding Logs and other stuff. Sometimes this was painful. But I stuck to my guns, and it always worked out. My having a positive attitude ended up earning me big Brownie Points when they discovered their mistake. Unfortunately, a happy ending for you would be a clean DAC record and new job somewhere else. I encourage you to go into your UnEmployment Hearing with good documentation (and copies for the Hearing Officer) and a positive attitude. Avoid irrelevant issues like the ComData card; it's a Red Herring. While I agree with most of what you have said regarding Swift's responsibilities, there is one area that was your responsibility when you had the accident. Your mistake was -- depending on someone else (Swift) to notify the customers you were going to be late. That is also your Duty to yourself. When you get a Load Assignment on the Qualcomm, you are given Delivery information that includes the Consignee and their Phone Number. You could have easily covered yourself after the accident by doing 3 things. 1. Notify Swift by Qualcomm using the Accident Macro, then call your DM as a followup. 2. Refer to your TripCard record you wrote down from the Qualcomm Load Assignment macro message to get the Customer's Phone Number and use your Cellphone to call and alert them, and write down the name of the person, date and time of your notice to them on the back of the TripCard postcard. Customers appreciate calls from Drivers who alert them to their being late and requesting a new Delivery Time. If you do this, you have covered yourself effectively. 3. Pull out your Accident Kit with Camera, fill out the Accident Form and take the requested Photos. Regardless of the excuse when Running Late -- call the Customer and let them know why (weather, accident, lost, traffic is bad, load assigned late, etc., whatever!) and get a new Deliver Time and Date. Then, on the record, Qualcomm the new Deliver time to your Driver Manager (DM) and tell the DM what Customer Person you talked to at the Consignee and when you called. This MEMO is to cover you in just these kinds of circumstances. DM's only message the Customer Representatives (CR) so they are covered in writing, they rarely call that CR on the phone, and rarely if ever followup to make sure the Driver is covered. Sad but true. So, it's your job to call the Customer after you have made sure the trucking company gets their Macro messages and called your DM as your follow up. If you take detailed notes (kept on the back of the TripCard postcard, which you always save) about giving the Customer Notice, and you send Macros about the event making you late, and the Macro about Running Late and the reason, it is hard for the company to hold you responsible for even one Deliver Failure, or 9. In conclusion, Customers give their Phone Numbers so Swift and the Driver will call them and keep them informed of things like accidents, weather or traffic problems, and shipments that are going to be late. When and if a DM tells a Driver not to call the Customer, they mostly want customer contact to go through the Customer Representative - but, a CR only works 8-5 on weekdays, often leave early (doctor's appointment, children's graduation, etc.) and won't check their Voice Mail until the following workday, which could be Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. The Customer needs Running Late information immediately when the Driver knows it, not when the CR finds out about it. Once I picked up a cross-country load from Oakland, CA, with 4 delivery locations, starting in Ogallala, NE, then Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, and finally Atlanta, GA. When I showed up at the dock on time north of I-80 in Ogallala, Nebraska on Good Friday, it was obvious that the huge facility was deserted in the middle of the day on Friday. The DM finally got the CR on the phone and they had to contact the President of the Corporation back in California, who could not reach his Plant Manager in Ogallala at the office, at home, or on his cell phone (heads reportedly were going to roll on Monday). The plant had closed mid-day on Holy Thursday for the Easter Holidays, according to a nice neighbor lady who lived next to the plant and confided to me that pretty much everyone in town was "either Catholic or Baptist, and in church from Thursday evening onward..." Seems like only the police, firemen, and hospital workers were working that Good Friday, and they had only skeleton crews on duty. Don't you just love Mid-American values. Eventually, the President arranged for deliver to a consignment warehouse in the more cosmopolitan North Platte about 45 miles eastward, which would re-deliver the 1/4th partial load on Monday. At least I did not have to back-track, North Platte was on-the-way. But, I had lost about 5 hours. So, I dutifully sent the Qualcomm Macros to Swift of Running Late even though the DM & CR both already knew, and personally called the other 3 Customers to let them know I could be a half-day late and the unusual reason, but promised I would try to catch up. By the time the CR came back into her office on Monday after Easter, I had made 2 more deliveries that were "late", but which I had rescheduled myself and was actually early under the new schedule, to 2 very happy and Driver-informed Customers, and the 4th Delivery was on time as originally scheduled.

Beverly, It is true that Swift sometimes messes up. I worked for them for 2 years, 1 as a Mentor, and they made a mistake regarding Logs and other stuff. Sometimes this was painful. But I stuck to my guns, and it always worked out. My having a positive attitude ended up earning me big Brownie Points when they discovered their mistake. Unfortunately, a happy ending for you would be a clean DAC record and new job somewhere else. I encourage you to go into your UnEmployment Hearing with good documentation (and copies for the Hearing Officer) and a positive attitude. Avoid irrelevant issues like the ComData card; it's a Red Herring. While I agree with most of what you have said regarding Swift's responsibilities, there is one area that was your responsibility when you had the accident. Your mistake was -- depending on someone else (Swift) to notify the customers you were going to be late. That is also your Duty to yourself. When you get a Load Assignment on the Qualcomm, you are given Delivery information that includes the Consignee and their Phone Number. You could have easily covered yourself after the accident by doing 3 things. 1. Notify Swift by Qualcomm using the Accident Macro, then call your DM as a followup. 2. Refer to your TripCard record you wrote down from the Qualcomm Load Assignment macro message to get the Customer's Phone Number and use your Cellphone to call and alert them, and write down the name of the person, date and time of your notice to them on the back of the TripCard postcard. Customers appreciate calls from Drivers who alert them to their being late and requesting a new Delivery Time. If you do this, you have covered yourself effectively. 3. Pull out your Accident Kit with Camera, fill out the Accident Form and take the requested Photos. Regardless of the excuse when Running Late -- call the Customer and let them know why (weather, accident, lost, traffic is bad, load assigned late, etc., whatever!) and get a new Deliver Time and Date. Then, on the record, Qualcomm the new Deliver time to your Driver Manager (DM) and tell the DM what Customer Person you talked to at the Consignee and when you called. This MEMO is to cover you in just these kinds of circumstances. DM's only message the Customer Representatives (CR) so they are covered in writing, they rarely call that CR on the phone, and rarely if ever followup to make sure the Driver is covered. Sad but true. So, it's your job to call the Customer after you have made sure the trucking company gets their Macro messages and called your DM as your follow up. If you take detailed notes (kept on the back of the TripCard postcard, which you always save) about giving the Customer Notice, and you send Macros about the event making you late, and the Macro about Running Late and the reason, it is hard for the company to hold you responsible for even one Deliver Failure, or 9. In conclusion, Customers give their Phone Numbers so Swift and the Driver will call them and keep them informed of things like accidents, weather or traffic problems, and shipments that are going to be late. When and if a DM tells a Driver not to call the Customer, they mostly want customer contact to go through the Customer Representative - but, a CR only works 8-5 on weekdays, often leave early (doctor's appointment, children's graduation, etc.) and won't check their Voice Mail until the following workday, which could be Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. The Customer needs Running Late information immediately when the Driver knows it, not when the CR finds out about it. Once I picked up a cross-country load from Oakland, CA, with 4 delivery locations, starting in Ogallala, NE, then Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, and finally Atlanta, GA. When I showed up at the dock on time north of I-80 in Ogallala, Nebraska on Good Friday, it was obvious that the huge facility was deserted in the middle of the day on Friday. The DM finally got the CR on the phone and they had to contact the President of the Corporation back in California, who could not reach his Plant Manager in Ogallala at the office, at home, or on his cell phone (heads reportedly were going to roll on Monday). The plant had closed mid-day on Holy Thursday for the Easter Holidays, according to a nice neighbor lady who lived next to the plant and confided to me that pretty much everyone in town was "either Catholic or Baptist, and in church from Thursday evening onward..." Seems like only the police, firemen, and hospital workers were working that Good Friday, and they had only skeleton crews on duty. Don't you just love Mid-American values. Eventually, the President arranged for deliver to a consignment warehouse in the more cosmopolitan North Platte about 45 miles eastward, which would re-deliver the 1/4th partial load on Monday. At least I did not have to back-track, North Platte was on-the-way. But, I had lost about 5 hours. So, I dutifully sent the Qualcomm Macros to Swift of Running Late even though the DM & CR both already knew, and personally called the other 3 Customers to let them know I could be a half-day late and the unusual reason, but promised I would try to catch up. By the time the CR came back into her office on Monday after Easter, I had made 2 more deliveries that were "late", but which I had rescheduled myself and was actually early under the new schedule, to 2 very happy and Driver-informed Customers, and the 4th Delivery was on time as originally scheduled.

Beverly, It is true that Swift sometimes messes up. I worked for them for 2 years, 1 as a Mentor, and they made a mistake regarding Logs and other stuff. Sometimes this was painful. But I stuck to my guns, and it always worked out. My having a positive attitude ended up earning me big Brownie Points when they discovered their mistake. Unfortunately, a happy ending for you would be a clean DAC record and new job somewhere else. I encourage you to go into your UnEmployment Hearing with good documentation (and copies for the Hearing Officer) and a positive attitude. Avoid irrelevant issues like the ComData card; it's a Red Herring. While I agree with most of what you have said regarding Swift's responsibilities, there is one area that was your responsibility when you had the accident. Your mistake was -- depending on someone else (Swift) to notify the customers you were going to be late. That is also your Duty to yourself. When you get a Load Assignment on the Qualcomm, you are given Delivery information that includes the Consignee and their Phone Number. You could have easily covered yourself after the accident by doing 3 things. 1. Notify Swift by Qualcomm using the Accident Macro, then call your DM as a followup. 2. Refer to your TripCard record you wrote down from the Qualcomm Load Assignment macro message to get the Customer's Phone Number and use your Cellphone to call and alert them, and write down the name of the person, date and time of your notice to them on the back of the TripCard postcard. Customers appreciate calls from Drivers who alert them to their being late and requesting a new Delivery Time. If you do this, you have covered yourself effectively. 3. Pull out your Accident Kit with Camera, fill out the Accident Form and take the requested Photos. Regardless of the excuse when Running Late -- call the Customer and let them know why (weather, accident, lost, traffic is bad, load assigned late, etc., whatever!) and get a new Deliver Time and Date. Then, on the record, Qualcomm the new Deliver time to your Driver Manager (DM) and tell the DM what Customer Person you talked to at the Consignee and when you called. This MEMO is to cover you in just these kinds of circumstances. DM's only message the Customer Representatives (CR) so they are covered in writing, they rarely call that CR on the phone, and rarely if ever followup to make sure the Driver is covered. Sad but true. So, it's your job to call the Customer after you have made sure the trucking company gets their Macro messages and called your DM as your follow up. If you take detailed notes (kept on the back of the TripCard postcard, which you always save) about giving the Customer Notice, and you send Macros about the event making you late, and the Macro about Running Late and the reason, it is hard for the company to hold you responsible for even one Deliver Failure, or 9. In conclusion, Customers give their Phone Numbers so Swift and the Driver will call them and keep them informed of things like accidents, weather or traffic problems, and shipments that are going to be late. When and if a DM tells a Driver not to call the Customer, they mostly want customer contact to go through the Customer Representative - but, a CR only works 8-5 on weekdays, often leave early (doctor's appointment, children's graduation, etc.) and won't check their Voice Mail until the following workday, which could be Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. The Customer needs Running Late information immediately when the Driver knows it, not when the CR finds out about it. Once I picked up a cross-country load from Oakland, CA, with 4 delivery locations, starting in Ogallala, NE, then Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, and finally Atlanta, GA. When I showed up at the dock on time north of I-80 in Ogallala, Nebraska on Good Friday, it was obvious that the huge facility was deserted in the middle of the day on Friday. The DM finally got the CR on the phone and they had to contact the President of the Corporation back in California, who could not reach his Plant Manager in Ogallala at the office, at home, or on his cell phone (heads reportedly were going to roll on Monday). The plant had closed mid-day on Holy Thursday for the Easter Holidays, according to a nice neighbor lady who lived next to the plant and confided to me that pretty much everyone in town was "either Catholic or Baptist, and in church from Thursday evening onward..." Seems like only the police, firemen, and hospital workers were working that Good Friday, and they had only skeleton crews on duty. Don't you just love Mid-American values. Eventually, the President arranged for deliver to a consignment warehouse in the more cosmopolitan North Platte about 45 miles eastward, which would re-deliver the 1/4th partial load on Monday. At least I did not have to back-track, North Platte was on-the-way. But, I had lost about 5 hours. So, I dutifully sent the Qualcomm Macros to Swift of Running Late even though the DM & CR both already knew, and personally called the other 3 Customers to let them know I could be a half-day late and the unusual reason, but promised I would try to catch up. By the time the CR came back into her office on Monday after Easter, I had made 2 more deliveries that were "late", but which I had rescheduled myself and was actually early under the new schedule, to 2 very happy and Driver-informed Customers, and the 4th Delivery was on time as originally scheduled.

Beverly, It is true that Swift sometimes messes up. I worked for them for 2 years, 1 as a Mentor, and they made a mistake regarding Logs and other stuff. Sometimes this was painful. But I stuck to my guns, and it always worked out. My having a positive attitude ended up earning me big Brownie Points when they discovered their mistake. Unfortunately, a happy ending for you would be a clean DAC record and new job somewhere else. I encourage you to go into your UnEmployment Hearing with good documentation (and copies for the Hearing Officer) and a positive attitude. Avoid irrelevant issues like the ComData card; it's a Red Herring. While I agree with most of what you have said regarding Swift's responsibilities, there is one area that was your responsibility when you had the accident. Your mistake was -- depending on someone else (Swift) to notify the customers you were going to be late. That is also your Duty to yourself. When you get a Load Assignment on the Qualcomm, you are given Delivery information that includes the Consignee and their Phone Number. You could have easily covered yourself after the accident by doing 3 things. 1. Notify Swift by Qualcomm using the Accident Macro, then call your DM as a followup. 2. Refer to your TripCard record you wrote down from the Qualcomm Load Assignment macro message to get the Customer's Phone Number and use your Cellphone to call and alert them, and write down the name of the person, date and time of your notice to them on the back of the TripCard postcard. Customers appreciate calls from Drivers who alert them to their being late and requesting a new Delivery Time. If you do this, you have covered yourself effectively. 3. Pull out your Accident Kit with Camera, fill out the Accident Form and take the requested Photos. Regardless of the excuse when Running Late -- call the Customer and let them know why (weather, accident, lost, traffic is bad, load assigned late, etc., whatever!) and get a new Deliver Time and Date. Then, on the record, Qualcomm the new Deliver time to your Driver Manager (DM) and tell the DM what Customer Person you talked to at the Consignee and when you called. This MEMO is to cover you in just these kinds of circumstances. DM's only message the Customer Representatives (CR) so they are covered in writing, they rarely call that CR on the phone, and rarely if ever followup to make sure the Driver is covered. Sad but true. So, it's your job to call the Customer after you have made sure the trucking company gets their Macro messages and called your DM as your follow up. If you take detailed notes (kept on the back of the TripCard postcard, which you always save) about giving the Customer Notice, and you send Macros about the event making you late, and the Macro about Running Late and the reason, it is hard for the company to hold you responsible for even one Deliver Failure, or 9. In conclusion, Customers give their Phone Numbers so Swift and the Driver will call them and keep them informed of things like accidents, weather or traffic problems, and shipments that are going to be late. When and if a DM tells a Driver not to call the Customer, they mostly want customer contact to go through the Customer Representative - but, a CR only works 8-5 on weekdays, often leave early (doctor's appointment, children's graduation, etc.) and won't check their Voice Mail until the following workday, which could be Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. The Customer needs Running Late information immediately when the Driver knows it, not when the CR finds out about it. Once I picked up a cross-country load from Oakland, CA, with 4 delivery locations, starting in Ogallala, NE, then Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, and finally Atlanta, GA. When I showed up at the dock on time north of I-80 in Ogallala, Nebraska on Good Friday, it was obvious that the huge facility was deserted in the middle of the day on Friday. The DM finally got the CR on the phone and they had to contact the President of the Corporation back in California, who could not reach his Plant Manager in Ogallala at the office, at home, or on his cell phone (heads reportedly were going to roll on Monday). The plant had closed mid-day on Holy Thursday for the Easter Holidays, according to a nice neighbor lady who lived next to the plant and confided to me that pretty much everyone in town was "either Catholic or Baptist, and in church from Thursday evening onward..." Seems like only the police, firemen, and hospital workers were working that Good Friday, and they had only skeleton crews on duty. Don't you just love Mid-American values. Eventually, the President arranged for deliver to a consignment warehouse in the more cosmopolitan North Platte about 45 miles eastward, which would re-deliver the 1/4th partial load on Monday. At least I did not have to back-track, North Platte was on-the-way. But, I had lost about 5 hours. So, I dutifully sent the Qualcomm Macros to Swift of Running Late even though the DM & CR both already knew, and personally called the other 3 Customers to let them know I could be a half-day late and the unusual reason, but promised I would try to catch up. By the time the CR came back into her office on Monday after Easter, I had made 2 more deliveries that were "late", but which I had rescheduled myself and was actually early under the new schedule, to 2 very happy and Driver-informed Customers, and the 4th Delivery was on time as originally scheduled.

I have spoken to a lawyer who is doing a lawsuit for pay that was not given to the driver for the miles that were driven and I talked with them about my wrongful termination and told her I would like to find others with the same problem to fight against this company, Swift Transportation on how they are messing up people lives while passing wrong information about you They have me employed from 1/26/2006 to 5/28/2009 I have been there since 7/2/2007 to 5/28/2008 If you are interested look up Swift transportation lawsuits