You mean we paid for the freight twice?

By Lloyd Meyer Director of Transportation Northwestern Lumbermen's Association Minneapolis, Mn.

A FREQUENT business error in Flour industry is the duplicate payment of motor freight charges.

It goes this way. A small shipment comes in with a $15 freight charge. It has been prepaid. The agent looks at the freight bill, sees the amount of the freight and without really looking, asks for a check for that amount. He doesn't notice the fine print that says the freight has already been paid.

The lumber dealer in tum doesn't question the matter. He has his bookkeeper write a check and $ l5 of profit has disappeared, perhaps forever.

This can be caught in either of two ways. First the bookkeeper should check to see if the freight is actually due. It says so right on the bill. Second, the motor carrier should periodically audit its paid bills and return double payments. Sadly enough, all too often neither do anything.

Most dealer accounting systems are not set up to uncover a double payment unless they have someone who actually audits all freight bills. The ICC has found that truckers aren't the least bit interested in returnins money they already have in their tillsl

Suit has recently been filed against a group of midwest carrien for over $2 million. One carrier has alreadv refunded more than a million and is still holding another $1.4 million.

The question always comes up - if I uncover a double payment, how long do I have to get it back? The answer isn't really clear, but we know you have at least three years. This applies to overcharges. It is my opinion that double charges are not quite the same. The first payment should satisfy the requirements of the ICC Act and the second payment is really not an overcharge, but money errroneously paid and if not returned promptly, constitutes fraud. This is governed by the statutes of limitations of the various states.

Another little rip-off occun when there is a Transport Clearing to which freight bills are assigned.

In the Twin Cities, for example, you don't get a bill from the carrier, you get it from Transport Clearings. If a carrier sells a bill to Transport Clearings that is prepaid, and it isn't picked up prior to the time the invoice gets to you, chances are you won't know anything about it. Transport Clearings gets the money and that's the end of it. The carrier has alreadv been paid - twice, by the shipper

Story at a Glance

Steps you can take to avoid duplicate payment of motor freight charges what to do when your freight bills are assigned to a clearing house.

and Transport Clearings. Because of the nature of the transactions, there is small likelihood that the error will be discovered.

There are ways to protect yourself. Just make sure that nobody pays a freight bill until all of the documents are thoroughly checked. The examination of the invoice is the surest way to determine if the freight charges are prepaid.

The law states you have seven days to pay. Don't be rushed into making a mistake. You will find it is a lot harder to get money back from a motor carrier than it is for them to get it from you. They have a federal law, the ICC Act. You have only yourself.

The other way is to make sure all of your freight bills are audited annually. We no longer do this work, but there are those who do and it doesn't cost anything to have it done. In addition to double payments, auditors find overcharges. The usual fee is half of what is recovered.

A few years back, we thought with the advent of computers, problems relating to freight charges would ease up. They haven't. Small freight lines don't have very sophisticated accounting equipment and there is no motivation for them to look for money they have to give back.

Remember this when you pay a freight bill.