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Report: #979461

Complaint Review: Stageline Express - Coopersville Michigan

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  • Reported By: Anonymous — Internet United States of America
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  • Stageline Express 140 North 64th Street. Coopersville, Michigan United States of America

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Stageline express of coopersville, MI is not a good, honest place to work. They will say everything you wanna hear to get you to "lease purchase" one of their trucks, which are not worth half of what they are asking. And most of the older trucks other drivers have purchased, and paid off and then sell back to Stageline Express, and then the company Resells the truck again to another driver for the same price that the previous driver just paid for last 3-5 years. Then if you decide to lease a truck you will be told you will have $0.08 per mile of every mile taken out for a maintenance account till $4,500 is reached, which wouldn't be a bad thing if you were "allowed" to use the money for regular maintenance on your truck, but you can not the money can only be used if you blow your engine, blow your transmission, blow a rear end, or need 10 new tires. If your trucks problem isn't listed above you will not be able to use maintenance account. Now if your ok with having money you can't touch we move onto paychecks. You will be told you will be paid ten days from when they receive your load folders, and it will be every ten days you turn them in for about the first few months, unless payroll decides she doesn't want to do all folders that day or whatever excuse she can find. Now if you can deal with all that and being paid every 10-30 days we move on to the owner Mr. Tom Freeland, and he is nothing more than a lying, thieving, crook. Likes to yell and scream a lot when he's mad(which if you don't kiss his a** all the time) he will yell and scream and try to bully you but if you get back in his face he'll back down quick, he will charge you for anything and everything he can just to make more money and not work as hard, even things he should not even be able to charge you for, he'll find a way to twist it to make it look legit. Now if you made it this far, lets move on to road life with Stageline. Stageline will run you outside of your legal log book hours, they are a good target group for scales along I-80 and I-40 for out of hours, and fatigued drivers. And you will do a lot of swapping loads with other drivers because most of their drivers cannot make a full trip because of multiple excuses by them, leaving you with there load which 24 hour drive from where you swapped and you will be expected to do it in 12 hours or sooner. You have to redo log sheets multiple times a day to try to make it look legit, and dispatch will tell you to "make it look good" BUT if you get caught at scale and shut down, Stageline will charge you $2,500 fine, and will slam E-Logs in your truck. But if you want to run legal, safe, and trouble free its best to go with E-Logs cause once your out of hours your done for ten hours. Now on to equipment their trailers are mostly in good shape, they have bought a lot of new ones and traded off old ones. But their trucks, they break down on a daily basis and if you do have problems with your truck you will be told you have to wait to fix it till you get back to coopersville, MI so their shop can do it cheaper, and the only thing cheap is the parts he'll charge you double then petro/ta and since California is going with the emissions law Tom Freeland decided to buy 2012 frieghtliner Columbia glider kits and put Pre 2006 engines in them because he believes that he can still go into California with these trucks after 2014 which he will be sadly mistaken when they do emissions testing at the state line.

 So short recap, if you can deal with being lied to everyday, yelled at like a child, ran past your logbook and to your limit, may or may not have paycheck that week, trying to be pushed into buying his overpriced unreliable trucks, and pick up the slack for all the other drivers that you can't believe got a CDL, and having money you can't use unless you blow something up or blow all 10 tires at once, and being screwed out of money anyway they can find. Then Stageline is always hiring because they have extremely high turnover, most drivers never more than 2-4 weeks if that long. And Mr. Tom Freeland And his good friend and safety guy Dan Brown will tell you everything you wanna hear to get your signature on that contract so they can start making more money off other people. I just wish everybody Stageline hauls for(Perrigo, Tyson, Markon, Ect) knew what a thief Tom Freeland is to his drivers. Tom Freeland Already went out of business with ETV another former trucking company of Michigan, and from the looks of it I believe Stageline will follow in its tracks. While they are practicing poor business relationships with drivers that overwork themselves trying to make a living only to lose there truck, and money to be left with nothing.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 12/08/2012 08:42 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/stageline-express/coopersville-michigan-49404/stageline-express-tom-freeland-lie-coopersville-michigan-979461. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author
2Consumer
2Employee/Owner

#5 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Concerned Person, How can we get better?

AUTHOR: Stageline Express - (USA)

POSTED: Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Concerned Person,

I'm sorry that the Truck selection that we had on our lot when you visited that day was not to your expectations. I do not recall you specifically, so please forgive me if I do not address your particular situation.

What I can say is this; Every truck that leaves our yard is DOT Certified and safe. We will not ignore or skirt safety for the sake of saving a few dollars. No person’s life is worth a load, period.

We recommend that every new Lease-Purchase operator take the truck that they are interested in signing the lease on to the local dealership for a full inspection. If they are not satisfied with something on the truck, or if an issue needs to be addressed we will make our best effort to correct it. If we cannot come to some sort of agreement on the equipment that you would like, then I will look you in the eye, shake your hand, and wish you the best of luck.

If you want to enter into a lease-purchase program on a brand new piece of equipment, then Stageline Express is not the place for you. Our equipment is not brand new, off the showroom floor. It has at least a year or two of miles under its wheels.We do, however, offer a Zero money down, Zero balloon or End-of-Lease buyout program. When you complete the lease, the truck is yours, title in your hand. You may do whatever you want with it.

Yes, the lot where we park our trucks is rather simple. But it fits our needs. We do not have large white buildings with marble floors and gigantic, spacious offices. We are a smaller company with simple needs.

One of your comments confuses me somewhat. You said “I had also been shown a truck that i would train in”. Does that mean that when you came to our yard you were not a Licensed CDL Driver? I would truly like to know, because we do not accept new driving school graduates into our Lease-Purchase program.

Regarding your final comments, MPH Logistics is a fine company. I have been told that their drivers get between 2000 -2300 miles per week. People who work with our company like to drive just a little bit more. Our drivers get between 3200 – 3500 miles per week for solo drivers.

Please contact our office when you get a chance Concerned Person. I would like to talk to you about your experiences that day and what we can do in the future to improve. 1-800-651-4388

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#4 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Anonymous - I'm truly sorry you feel this way

AUTHOR: Stageline Express - (USA)

POSTED: Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Anonymous,

 

Since you did not leave your name, I cannot comment on your specific situation. I will, however, discuss the information that you have provided here. Hopefully clearing up any misunderstandings that you have.

 

Firstly, older trucks in our Lease-Purchase Program. Yes, we do have older trucks in our Lease-Purchase program. Some drivers find that paying $325 a week for an older truck, and paying it off in 24 months a positive business relationship. Some people are interested in entering into a contract for newer equipment. We can provide that as well. We have some drivers that find the $600 a week for 2013-2014 equipment quite affordable. In either case, our Lease-Purchase programs are No-Money-Down and No Buyout/Balloons at the end of the lease. The Lease-Purchase operators that have paid off their equipment in the last few years find our program quite beneficial.

 

Secondly, our Maintenance Program. Our Maintenance Escrow program is $0.10 per mile (It was $0.08 per mile when you were in it) and maxes out at $4500. The Lease-Operator earns interest on all money in the Maintenance Escrow while the account is active. The Maintenance Escrow is designed to assist repairs for catastrophic repairs. Repairs that would put a Lease-Operator in a repair shop for weeks with thousands of dollars in repair bills. For example; head, turbo, transmission, clutch, rear-ends, money toward an in-frame or out-of-frame engine rebuild, etc. It is not designed for general maintenance like oil changes. I understand that this is different than other company’s maintenance programs. However when your truck is broken down in the middle of nowhere with a burned out turbo, and you call dispatch to give them the bad news you can rest a little easier knowing that the money is there to get your truck back up and running in timely fashion so you can get back out on the road, rather than trying to figure out how you are going to pay that bill with your truck in the shop earning you zero revenue. If you should need a repair that costs more than the amount of money in your maintenance account, we will finance the difference for you. Once again, getting you back on the road as quickly as possible, getting you back to work, earning money, feeding your family, keeping Mama happy.

 

 Thirdly, we have your personal experience with Mr. Freeland. Like I have stated, you did not leave your name on this review, so I cannot comment on your personal experience. However, Mr. Freeland has very little tolerance for drivers who do not pickup and deliver on time, and is not very tactful in expressing his disapproval. When a load is not delivered on time he is the one who calls the customer personally to explain why, and take the heat. As anyone who has worked in refrigerated transportation knows, delivery of perishable items must be made on-time, or product expires. Then companies lose money, and no one is happy with that. Regarding your claims that Mr. Freeland is a “lying, thieving, crook”, all I can say is that adults do not resort to name calling without facts. Since you have not provided any, I can only assume that these are your personal opinions.

 

You also expressed concerns about our settlement terms. Payment is issued to our Lease-Operators and Owner-Operators 10 days from when we receive their trip reports in our office. Drivers are paid via ACH into their bank accounts. Some drivers are paid in slightly longer terms if they do not provide all the information or paperwork we need to process their settlements accurately. It is unfortunate when it happens but we need all the necessary bills-of-lading and other trip paperwork so we can pay you the funds that you have properly earned. If you experienced slightly longer times than the 10 days stated in our contract, then it is likely that you failed to provide us with all of the trip paperwork we needed.

 

Next you have addressed the topic of Legal Log books. Our company has, in the past, had drivers who have exceeded their hours-of-service in an attempt increase their income. This is a matter of public record and is not in dispute. However, since you have left our company we have moved to Electronic Logs to ensure that our drivers follow the Hours-of-Service and the law. I am also pleased to report that in spite of the electronic logs and operating legally our drivers still average 3200 – 3500 miles in a week for solo drivers, and teams routinely average over 6500 miles in a week. Our CSA scores reflect that fact. With a score of 55% for Hour-of-Service as of this post, our score is a huge improvement, something that we are quite proud of.

 

You also talked about or Out-Of-Service violation fines for Hours-of-Service. It is unfortunate that in some cases our drivers are placed out-of-service, and we do have fines attributed to those violations. However you failed to mention our Safety Bonus of $250 for each clean inspection. Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3, it does not matter. Get a clean inspection and you will get $250 on your next trip settlement. In the last 12 months, Stageline Express has paid $8,500 in clean inspection bonuses, which is pretty good for a fleet of 35 trucks. Unfortunately we have needed to charge one driver for an out-of-service violation. He is still operating in our fleet and has happily accepted the clean DOT Inspection bonus a few times since then.

 

At Stageline we see each Lease-Purchase driver and Owner-Operator as a business partner. We will work together to try and make each of our business partners as successful as possible. We have some very successful partners, and others fail. It is unfortunate but it is the nature of business.

 

Anonymous, I’m not sure what our company did to cause such anger in you. However I would like to speak to you when you get a chance and see what we can do to make the situation right. I know it has been a few years since you have posted this review, but if there is anything I can do to correct it, I will do my best to help you.  

Call us on your Toll-Free line at 1-800-651-4388

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#3 General Comment

Stageline Express Coopersville Mi

AUTHOR: concerned person - ()

POSTED: Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I was going to go work for Stageline Express, they seemed to be on the up and up but i checked their csa score and the reputation and it was exactly like what the previous person had reported.

They talk a really good game but if you are a potential employee looking to get into a good job, dont go to Stageline if you are one that cares for your csa score. I asked to see their fleet of trucks, WOW, when I first pulled up I thought it was a joke. all the trucks look really rough, none of the truck look to be able to make it from Coopersville to Grand Rapids let alone state to state. If you know anything about DOT regulations you know that your steer tires can not be recaped or regroved and they must be same size and same type. The very first truck I layed eyes on clearly had one re-grooved tire ( zig zag type grove )  on the front pass side and the other was correct. However upon further inspection I noticed they were also a different size. Their " fleet yard" is a pole barn with a small parking lot with all the trucks cramed into one corner. I was told they bought a truck from a previous company whos insurance company had deemed it "totaled" but Stageline bought it and will put it back into service. I dont know about you but thats not anything I want to drive. I had also been shown a truck that i would train in, the tires sucked and eventhough " HE " said the tire would be fixed, he still had shown me a truck without a hood and a very leaky rough looking engine. Sorry people, forget Stageline, Go with MPH logistics of Fremont Mi.

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#2 Author of original report

violation of contract.

AUTHOR: Anonymous - ()

POSTED: Sunday, March 17, 2013

Yes, they did violate the contract that they had me sign.

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#1 Consumer Suggestion

Did They Violate the Contract you signed?

AUTHOR: Michgan-Driver - (United States of America)

POSTED: Monday, December 10, 2012

Dear Anonymous, Just a couple of quick questions;

1. Did the carrier disclose the total monthly payments at the time you signed the contract?
2. Were you aware that the money you put in your maintenance account would only be used for those things you listed above when you signed the contact?
3. Did you inspect the truck that you signed the lease-purchase for prior to signing the contract?

If you did not double-check any of these things prior to signing the contract then why did you sign it? Please remember; before you sign ANY agreement read it carefully and make certain that you are aware of the commitments before putting your name on the line. Do your Homework! Do not get "New Truck" fever.

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