In recent months, a single company approached our firm eight separate times. Eight cases, eight different carriers, eight stories that are essentially the same. The debtor changed providers, but not their behavior: they hired the service, moved the cargo, and disappeared when it came time to pay. When we add up the outstanding debts, we’re talking about millions of pesos in unpaid freight and several trucking companies and freight forwarders, some of whom are now on the verge of closing their doors, not due to poor management, but because they trusted the wrong people. This isn’t an isolated case or a market downturn; it’s a perfect illustration of what happens when credit is extended without proper evaluation.
What should most concern the industry is not the amount, but the pattern. All eight cases share the same origin: zero documentation prior to service. There was no written rate confirmation, no signed contract, no credit application or evaluation. Cargo was moved based on a verbal agreement and good faith, which in collections is not a guarantee, but a vulnerability . Each of these carriers assumed the cost of fuel, the driver, tolls, and insurance to unknowingly finance a client who had already demonstrated—eight times—that they had no intention of paying. When the invoice is due and there is not a single document to support the agreed-upon terms, the carrier didn’t just lose a client: they became, without signing anything, their bank.
And here’s the detail that turns this loss into an avoidable tragedy. That same company had already been reported to the Transportation Bureau on all eight occasions . The information was available, public to the industry, and all it took was a quick check a few minutes before accepting the first trip. None of the eight drivers did it. It wasn’t a problem of access to information; it was a problem of discipline: they skipped the only step that would have protected them. In credit and collections, there are no surprises, only warnings we choose to ignore. Payment reports to the Transportation Bureau aren’t just a bureaucratic formality; they’re the voices of eight other colleagues shouting, “They let me down too,” and yet they still chose not to listen.
Why would a serious operator, with years of experience on the road, let their guard down like this? Because the debtor doesn’t come asking for credit, they come boasting . In this case, the company stood before the carriers and freight forwarders brandishing the name of an automaker as a calling card. “We’re bringing the assembly plant project,” “we’re suppliers for a major brand,” “this is just the beginning and there’s a lot of volume ahead.” And the promised volume clouded judgment. The prestige of the end customer was confused with the solvency of the intermediary standing before them. But an automaker doesn’t pay its delinquent supplier’s invoices, and the name of a major brand in a presentation never appears on the statement of account. We let ourselves be dazzled by the shop window and forgot to check the cash register.
That is perhaps the most expensive and most repeated mistake in our industry: believing that a large client is worth more than a paying client. It’s not true. The size of the project doesn’t reduce the risk; it amplifies it, because the larger the volume offered, the faster the exposure accumulates when payment doesn’t arrive . The thrill of “winning the big account” has bankrupted more trucking companies than any other crisis. The debtor knows this and exploits it: they disguise their insolvency as a respectable third party and wait for the illusion to do the rest . Against this strategy, the shield isn’t distrust, it’s the process. Written rate, contract, credit application, evaluation, and consultation with the Transportation Bureau—in that order—before moving a single kilo.
The lesson from these eight cases is as stark as it is simple: collections don’t begin when the invoice is due; they begin before the service is even agreed upon . Prevention is infinitely cheaper than recovery, and recovery is merely the consequence of failing to prevent. None of these losses would have occurred if, before loading, each carrier had taken the necessary time to document the agreement and review the client’s history. The tool existed, the information was available, the report had been submitted eight times. The only thing missing was the discipline to look. Let these cases serve not as statistics, but as a warning: in the trucking industry, the company that reviews before moving is the only one that remains standing when the debtor disappears.
I’ll close with a wish that is also a warning. This debtor has already dragged eight companies down in just a few months, and eight is one too many. My sincere hope is that the next paragraph of this story won’t be written by a ninth bankrupt company, but by a colleague who sought help in time and was saved.
The difference between nine victims and no new ones is not in luck or the goodwill of the debtor: it is in the minutes that each carrier decides to invest before providing a service .
Until next time .
See Salvador Bañuelos’ previous column: Double intermediation: The silent cancer of freight .
*The author is a founding partner of the binational collection firm specializing in freight transport, AFS International, with offices in Mexico and the United States ( www.cobranzadeltransporte.com and www.freightcollections.com ) .
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