Swift Transportation (Gary Indiana) Negligent , fraudulent, innocent misrepresentation Gary Indiana

I want to bring to light what took place while I and 2 other of my classmates went through while trying to honor our 6000.00 contract with Swift. Many lies was told. My classmate Shomonique and I was going to team. She was told by Swift recruiters, she would make $900 and up and have weekends off when she get CDL and start working for Swift. 

She was told by our driver leader she would be making .53cents a mile and teams make more money than solo. After I got my CDL and was going over paperwork in office with driver leader, she knew I would be teaming and she told me teams make more money and I would be making .53cents a mile.

She showed me a paper with all the pay  per mile for drivers listed. I asked her if I could have a copy of that paper. She quickly replied , Oh No!  Can't give you that, we don't want our competitors to know what we pay our drivers. She quickly tucked it back into her folder.

She also told me I would work 2 weeks and get weeks off. I was fine with that. She said ,make sure you put in request 7 days in advance. I said ok. My classmate and I got our first check. We were in state of shock!  We were getting paid a quarter, YESSS .25CENTS ( might as well have been in a cotton field picking cotton working all day and night) for my .25 cents.

We both said this is not what we were told. I called our driver leader , I put her on speaker so we both could talk to her. We asked her why are we getting paid .25 cents a mile, because that is not what either of us was told. She said she did not know. Then Shomonique asked about the day off that she requested and the driver leader yelled" You don't get any days off!"

We really got heated when she said this. We both told her that is not what she told us. Shomonique told her she was told she would be off on weekends and I remindered her she told me I would work 2 weeks and be off a weekends. Driver leader said let me call you back, I need to ask someone about the paychecks and you will have to submit paper work 7 days in advance to be off.

But Gloria will be off October. Shomonique asked what about her time off. Driver leader said she don't see a request, but then said that if one person get time off the other person does too. I didn't remember putting in a request to be off, but my classmate put in a request. (There was times we would be on phone with driver leader and she didn't know who she was talking too, me or Shomonique).

Driver leader calls back and says you got the .25cents because you are teaming. We told her she should have told us that at the beginning. So I and classmate decided we would possibly make more if we split. When we were together we worked a dedicated account. When we separated we became OTR.   

The day I got my truck I witnessed a very very angry driver coming from the maintenance area. He was yelling and cussing as loud as he could. He ended up going to his car and I tell you he was furious about something. The manager was at his car talking to him.

I began to wonder what could have brought that on. But I never saw his car again. So now im solo and my first assignment was very irritating. I drove over half a day (waisted time) looking for a trailer. It seemed like nobody knew who really had a trailer I could take.

Many of times seemed like wild goose chase going nowhere looking for trailers that isn't there. As I kept working for them, slowly but surely the phones stopped getting answered. One time my driver leader called me and told me to give her a call. I called her 10 times that day. She never answered.my classmate tried to call driver leader.

No answer from her or anyone at that office. I have called at night with issues, no answer. We both had issues trying to pay Swift's bill at a customer loading dock. We both, eventhough we had our own trucks got the run around. I had never used a comdata check to pay a bill that Swift owed.

Well it was a very frustrating situation that the night dispatch put me through as I had ran out of time on my time clock trying to get this bill paid. When I called dispatch bout this bill, he hung up on me me while I was talking to him. I immediately called back and told him he hung up on me while I'm trying to get this bill paid.

He said, we are having phone issues, but it's working now that you called back. I just ignore his dum comment so I could get on with the business. Well he gave the instructions on what to do to get the bill paid. Ki followed the instructions on the Qualcomm he sent me. Called the 800 number on back of comdata card. The message was that I was not authorized to use the card.

I used this card to fuel my truck the day before. So now I'm calling dispatcher back. NO ANSWER.  Really, Really . At this point it's 8-10pm and I'm out of hours and I got stupidity on the phone. I was so done with this and was not going to make another phone call. So maybe 15-30min later got a message on phone or Qualcomm asking was I still at customer and do they take debit card. I said yes

. So I was given another number to call. Called the number and come to find out the dispatcher never made sure the money was approved to pay Swift's bill. All that needed to be done was put the debit card, that's all. I mean I and classmate was put through the wringer trying to pay Swift's debt.

On occasions when trying to deliver loads on time you find out from customer your delivery date been switched. Swift don't tell you nothing and they should know so that they can tell drivers. They preach that communication is very important, but they will not answer phone, hang-up on you, and get smart on phone.

So now it's time for my off day, I put in this request 7days in advance. I see a day before I'm to be off it's still pending. I call driver leader to tell her that Friday start my off day. She says let me see IF WE CAN GET YOU BACK this way. So they gave me a load that literally made me sick. I was sent to a factory surrounded by homes. To get down this street to shipping and receiving was a bad situation.

I called the contact at the company to see how do I get down the street. The contact person told me the only way was to run over the concrete divider in middle of the road and come down the street. The street was fit for a box truck not a semi. What was working in my favor was the fact that people was at work so traffic was very light, because I had to go into oncoming traffic to get down this narrow street. 

This caused me a headache that stretched to my nose. The situation got worse, the street was a dead end. Everything about this assignment was bad. This place had 4 narrow docks. I went in to shipping and receiving only to be told that I needed to get to the dock on other side of building and to get out from this street, I could either go into the community or try to turn around.

My stomach was sick, because this whole situation was bad and it was my day I'm supposed to be off. By the grace of God I I got out of there. Another trucker helped me out so I could turn around. When I finally got this load I was on my way to deliver and an accident occurred which kept me stuck for 2hours. I alerted my driver leader and planners about this.

When I got to customer he said I'm sorry nobody here to unload, they left at 2:30. I was so not happy. Because as I was letting them know my situation, and they called to check on the load , not once did they call me to say the customer won't be able to take load after 2pm so let me make other arrangements. My driver leader who never knew anything said she was told they would take the load at 4pm.

So now I'm stuck with a load and now my driver leader says let me see if you can drop the load at Gary terminal.   Driver leader famous words was I called customer service, so just wait and someone will call you. NOBODY CALLS and you waste your time and she goes home. 

My classmate Shomonique put in request months in advance to be off on Friday. They gave her a load to deliver on Thursday and when she delivered it, customer told her the day was changed from Thursday to Friday morning at 8am. She go back Friday morning and customer told her your appointment was changed to Friday night at 1:30 am.

She is furious of course because she was going out of town with family. So she delivers load and they don't get done with her till close to 7am Saturday. So family plans was held back and not once did Swift notify the driver on anything. Finally my other classmate was Warren was stuck in Nebraska he was told he was getting layover pay by his driverleader because he was broke down.

When he got the check no layover pay and then when he called about what he was told the driver leader said he never told Warren about getting layover pay. He said he could not support family on 100 dollar checks. On a daily basis Swift send out to drivers automated messages about low bridges, speed limits, high winds, or you will be going to a  state with frigid climates to protect the truck and the load.

Swift practices deception when recruiting drivers. Seem like they deliberately try to sabotage progress and to be discouraging. I think the reason is because they figure that a person will be obligated to them one way or another. So people are sitting in the offices who don't care if the driver likes the job or not, because at the end of the day they go home and the same deception starts over again the next day.

I forgot to mention I was at Walmart in Minnesota and I had my safety vest on that said Swift on the back. A man walked up to me and said "I HEARD ABOUT YOU SWIFT DRIVERS!" I didnt say anything, but i definitely was not comfortable wearing anything belonging to swift after that. I thought suppose he was a driver who Swift messed over and he was angry with this company. 

Stopped wearing Swift stuff that day. So after all the deception and lies this company allows, they still believe they deserve to get paid back all of the tuition. I say NO, they don't deserve the tuition because deception was used from the beginning and during employment drivers are given the run around or difficult time trying to get get loads delivered.

The worst thing a company can do is stop answering drivers while they are handling the business and when something happens, the driver is at fault. Swift used deception in the hiring process and should void the contracts for not just us three out of the Gary terminal, but for other drivers that was lied to. Swift just seems to be a don't care trucking company, I care about my license, my paycheck, the quality of my work,  days off, my life.

To me Swift does not. So for anyone who wants to get CDL BEWARE OF SWIFT!!! Perhaps Swift may be better in Arizona at corporate or Texas, I don't know, but these are the experiences of myself and two other classmates. S there anybody starting a class action lawsuit? I'm sure we would be interested