Anyone Heard Of Lobos Interstate Services?

Mr Lobos, here's a true statement: United Motor Carrier Cooperative does not exist. I just did a Google search on that name. No web page from a cooperative exists. Only the incorporation notice from the state of Utah. My comment from a few months ago remains unchanged:

-- United Motor Carrier Cooperative. A Google search show data that UMCC is just over one year old (28 April, 2014), with an address leading to a mailbox at a UPS store in Provo, UT. No phone number listed on the web page.

I just read the entire thread. Yes, the ENTIRE thread. My head hurts a little...

To the guy (Matthew, I believe?) posting for Lobos: You honestly seem like you're doing the best you can to make sure the constantly changing info communicated by your company over the phone and on your website is accurate. But, as has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, the info on your site is not accurate or consistent.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it really seems like you don't know what you're talking and arguing about half the time, especially when it comes to details about the leasing. You're obviously trying to give your company a good name and it seems like you're trying to tell the truth, but that's all kinda hard to do when your own company hasn't been completely honest with you either. And the unfortunate part for you is that you're the one taking all the flack here on this forum, not the owners of Lobos who haven't made sure you understand how everything REALLY works. Maybe you should take your skills to a different company that doesn't screw people over?

That's just me trying to read between the lines. It's either that or everyone at Lobos including the poster "Matthew" is a lying SOB.

The 25% for the first 6 weeks and 50% after that is old information. This was changed a while back to be just a flat 50% of the net profit for everyone. This means that after the truck rental, fuel, etc. you get the total amount of pay which is split between the two team drivers. If you have a $3,000 repair then that would mean you've probably messed up pretty bad and damaged the truck. However, that doesn't mean that you owe $3,000 right that moment. Part of being a member of the United Motor Carrier Cooperative is the ability to spread expenses like that out. They have a service called Fleet Protect that allows drivers to take big expenses like that and pay them off over time. Again, if it is something you do to damage the truck (e.g. it is your fault) then you're responsible for the expense, but if it is something that is regular maintenance, a defect, etc. then Direct Lease covers that cost. So to put that in a nutshell, if you don't wreck the truck then you have nothing to worry about.

Regarding the $6,500 tuition for the school, there is not a time limit on that. It should only take about 6 months to pay that off with the vocation payment program we have set up but if it takes longer you don't get slapped with a fee. There is an early termination fee if you skip out on your commitment, but that's not a late repayment fee. As long as you continue working with the four companies until the tuition is paid then you are not charged any penalty. The tuition can be paid through the vocation payment program, through cash, or through a third party lender. I really don't see how requiring someone to pay for their tuition is unreasonable. As for early termination fees for drivers, as long as you finish your initial 6 weeks and give 2 weeks notice of termination there is no penalty. We only charge fees when people breach their contract and we give people a very easy way to back out of the contract if they decide it's not for them.

For being called Trucker "Truth" there's been a lot of incorrect statements made about our program even since we've cleared up our website and made information more accessible via our website and youtube. All of the information about our system is on our website and youtube videos. Again, we are very clear in our pre-travel conversations that we only cover travel here, not travel home, we are clear that there is a contract to be signed, the minimum time you have to drive as a CDL driver, how to properly cancel the contract, etc. This system is not for everyone but for those who are willing to work hard it can be very rewarding. You get out of this what you put into it.

50% of nothing is still nothing. So you have a pot to **** in but no widow to throw it out of. Why not form a real trucking company and pay a wage that drivers can live with. Your CEO may decide to buy a company plane, for example, and that comes out of the truck so the profit is less because of this new overhead expense and the driver's pay is less. There is just too much there that cannot be controlled by the driver. Bean counters can get that profit right down to nothing if they want to. Why should the driver share in the expense to buy you toilet paper for the office. If you want to keep drivers happy and working for you then the greed at the corporate level needs to stop. Business leaders are more responsive to shareholders than they are their own employees.

If the truck does not make a profit then neither does the driver. You do not have to really mess up to have a $3k repair bill. There have been a lot of incorrect statements from your side also.

You guys sound like my old boss. He is in jail now, by the way, for theft.

@Pat M.: I understand what you're trying to spin here, but your analogy is severely flawed. It's the income and expenses of the -truck- not all expenses of all businesses providing services to the owner operator. So the things that come out of the truck profit are things that relate to the actual truck and operations. If you spend $500 in fuel then that comes out of the profit, if you wreck the truck and have to pay a $1,000 deductible then that comes out of the profit. If you drive well and maximize your time and haul a lot of loads and get $6,000 worth of revenue for the truck then that adds to your truck profit. It's really that simple.

@Paul W.: yes indeed things were pretty unclear and our website was pretty awful when I first took on handling the online presence for Lobos. It took a while but I eventually was able to build something better and more informative, some of the changes even came from suggestions here. Now the site is informative, clear, and consistent. I also revamped the recruiting process for Lobos and more checks and disclaimers were put in place before purchasing travel for new students and drivers. We lose money when people come out to the office and then decide to leave, so it's not in our best interests to be misleading. I appreciate the kind words re: myself, I truly am trying to make sure everything is presented clearly and concisely while dealing with the mud slinging.

@Errol V.: By your own statement you just disproved your claim. UMCC does indeed exist as you just said it is an incorporated business entity. Just because it doesn't have an online presence does not mean it doesn't exist. The UMCC is not a consumer facing business and does not do it's own recruiting or advertising so it has no need for a website. That is part of what Lobos does.

@Brett A.: I would think name calling would be a bit beneath the owner and moderator of a forum like this. I see you took down your post, and I am glad to see that, but the fact that it was posted at all is rather unprofessional. It's not the first time I've seen that happen here too. Time and time again I see this forum being more about slinging mud than clearing things up. When you sling mud it's pretty hard to get a clear picture of anything.

Brett I sent you an email re: Lobos.

I would think name calling would be a bit beneath the owner and moderator of a forum like this. I see you took down your post, and I am glad to see that, but the fact that it was posted at all is rather unprofessional. It's not the first time I've seen that happen here too. Time and time again I see this forum being more about slinging mud than clearing things up. When you sling mud it's pretty hard to get a clear picture of anything.

Whatever. You're a shyster and shysters always use the same tactic - you try to distract people from the topic at hand, which is your deceptive business practices and utter lack of ethics, by deflecting the attention onto others. That's grade school stuff and it's easy to see through.

And yes I'm calling you names like shyster and unethical and deceptive because I've yet to see any evidence to the contrary. So far we have yet to find anyone with anything good to say about your company or how you do business. You're a shady operation and that's obvious to everyone.

If I ran my business the way you run yours I wouldn't want people's honest opinions either because they would most certainly involve being called a lot of things that I didn't want people knowing. So you can cry about me being unprofessional but the people that are avoiding your company because of the exposure we're giving you are quite happy about the fact that we're calling you out. My job isn't to please people who are taking advantage of others. My job is to protect the others from people like you. Hence, the name of our site. And we're doing an excellent job of it.

As you can see we promote all kinds of companies and schools across the country and we rarely ever say the first bad thing about anyone. Your company is without an equal at this point in time. I don't know of a single company anywhere in the country that's doing what you're doing to people by forcing them to come off the street and take financial responsibility for your operations. It's unethical and immoral.

Now if you would give people an honest opportunity to be a company driver and you trained them properly like you claim you will we'd be happy to put out the good word about you like we do about the rest of the schools and companies we cover. But this just never ends with you guys.

In fact, yesterday someone just sent me their pay stub from a week of running for you guys:

Total miles driven: 3669 miles
Settlement check: $363.21

Now CR England is one of the lowest paying companies out there and they start people at like 25 cpm. Driving 3669 miles you would gross $917.

So as far as I can tell your driver made 1/3 of what he would have made working for the lowest paying carrier for new drivers.

Am I wrong about this?

We've also obtained a copy of your contract and we're going over it now........so we'll certainly have some questions for you here soon......stay tuned.......

We've also obtained a copy of your contract and we're going over it now........so we'll certainly have some questions for you here soon......stay tuned.......

Brett sent you a pm. Thanks G

There is a tried and true theory in business, happy employees usually develop happy customers. In my 30 years of business I have seen this scenario repeatedly. Almost always the root cause of customer dissatisfaction are a high number of unhappy and poorly trained employees.

I think as Lobos continues to prey on and take advantage of the desperate and uninformed student driver, their customer satisfaction will degrade, eventually causing a loss in market share and customer base.