Warning: An 8-Day-Old Website Tried to Scam Us. They Almost Did.
By Michael Thomas, Founder, Logistical Forwarding Solutions
Key takeaways
• A fake shipper used an 8-day-old look-alike website to try to book 50 loads with us. LFS Shield caught it before anyone replied.
• What they really want is your bank account and your paperwork. Never send either to a shipper or broker you haven't verified.
• Read every email address, call the company's official number, and verify before you quote.
• If it happened to you, report it to the FBI at ic3.gov, to FMCSA, and at Freight Broker Complaint.
In this article
12. Our house rule
22. Sources
This is a warning
Please read this, then teach it to your truck drivers, owner operators, dispatchers and brokers.
This is a freight fraud warning. A sophisticated scammer tried to get past our system and take us for everything they could. They almost did. LFS Shield, our Circular Logistics Agentic Cybersecurity System, caught it.
A fake shipper scam is when someone poses as a real shipping company to get a quote, your documents, a load or your money. Recently, one came to us. It looked real. The website behind it was eight days old.
Here's what they're really after: your money and your bank account. Once they have your bank details, they can write fake checks against your account, hoping there's money in it and the check clears before anyone notices. Then they move on to the next victim.
Don't let that number fool you. The website was new. The people behind it are not. This isn't their first rodeo.
Fraud rings spin up hundreds, even thousands, of throwaway companies and look-alike websites all across the country. Some cost about $30 to set up. They use them for a few weeks, take carriers for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then throw them away and start again under a new name.
“The website was new. The people behind it are not. This isn't their first rodeo.” — Michael Thomas, Founder
It's all connected. Someone has to grab the load. Then it gets switched to a fraudulent chameleon carrier or a fraudulent broker. At the end of the day, the small trucking company is the one that doesn't get paid, and the one that loses.
~$725 million
Estimated cargo theft losses in a single year, U.S. and Canada — Verisk CargoNet
Verisk CargoNet estimates cargo theft losses reached nearly $725 million in a single year across the United States and Canada. That's over $700 million a year, and a lot of it starts with a fake email just like the one we got.
How the bank-account scheme works
Here's how the bank-account scheme plays out, step by step. I've seen every piece of it.
You quote the load. You reply, "I can cover that load for this amount."
They agree, fast. "Great. Please tell us how to pay you. We'll wire half up front and pay the rest on delivery." Everything sounds like a legitimate company.
You send your banking details. Your routing number and your account number, so they can "pay" you.
They print counterfeit checks. Now they make fake checks using your real business account information.
They use your name to rob other businesses. Painters, carpenters, contractors, other blue-collar companies. They hire them for a job under your company name and promise to pay. Then they send a check "written for an extra $1,000" and ask the contractor to deposit it and send back the difference.
That's a fake check overpayment scam. The FTC warns that a fake check can look real and even show up in your balance, but it can take the bank weeks to discover it's fake, and the person who deposited it has to pay the bank back. The contractor loses the money, and your company's name and bank account are tied to all of it.
This isn't a story I read somewhere. Police officers have contacted Logistical Forwarding Solutions three separate times about this exact scheme, because scammers were impersonating us.
So hear me plainly: they're not just defrauding you. They're defrauding multiple businesses under your company name.
What to do about it:
Never send bank details to a shipper you haven't verified. Not for a "wire," not for a "vendor setup," not for anyone.
Ask your bank about Positive Pay or check fraud protection. Many banks offer services that compare checks presented against your account with the checks you actually wrote, and flag the rest.
If you already sent your account information, call your bank today. Ask about closing or locking the account and watching for counterfeit checks.
Report it. File with the FBI at ic3.gov and file your case with Freight Broker Complaint at freightbrokercomplaint.com.
Warn the people you work with. Never deposit a check from someone you don't know and send back the difference. That's always a scam.
What happened
A quote request came in through the contact form on our website.
The sender said he represented a real, publicly traded consumer-products manufacturer. You'd know the brands. They're on the shelves of every grocery store and pharmacy in the country.
He asked about 50 shipments on a long-haul lane, from a small Western town to the Southeast. He wanted our pricing, available capacity, transit times, and "any additional charges or requirements." The message opened with "Dear Transportation Partner." He checked the box saying it was OK to text him.
To a new broker, a new carrier or a new dispatcher, that's the message that makes the month. Fifty loads from a household name.
It was fake.
How LFS Shield caught the fake shipper
LFS Shield, our Circular Logistics Agentic Cybersecurity System, checked the request the moment it arrived. It flagged it right away and laid out exactly why.
The website was eight days old. The email address used the real company's name with "usa" added to the end. The real company has used its own web address for years. This one was registered eight days before it wrote to us, through a discount registrar overseas.
The address wasn't the company's. Every contact the real company lists on its official website uses its real web address. Not one uses the "usa" version.
The phone number was set up to look right. It carried the same area code as the real company's headquarters. Anyone who looks up the company sees a match and relaxes. That's the point.
The lane didn't fit the company. The real company lists its North American locations publicly, and none are anywhere near that pickup town. A 50-load program out of a town where the shipper has no facility needs an answer before anyone quotes it.
It wanted to go off the record. Real shipping departments send quote requests by email or through procurement portals, with credit terms and signed agreements. They don't run a 50-load program through a personal text thread.
We didn't quote it. We didn't send a document. We didn't reply. The inquiry was flagged and logged, and that was the end of it for us.
Double brokering, chameleon carriers and other freight broker scams
This fake shipper scam uses the same playbook as double brokering, chameleon carriers and most other freight broker scams. None of it is random. Each piece is there to get you to skip a step.
A household-name shipper borrows trust. Nobody wants to be the broker who ignored a call from a company that size.
The company name plus "usa" dot com is cheap and easy to miss. Your eye reads the brand name and skips the rest. The FBI lists added prefixes and suffixes as a standard look-alike trick.
Eight days old means disposable. These web addresses get used for a few weeks and thrown away once they're flagged.
The matching area code is there for anyone who checks. The FBI says phone numbers in these schemes are often internet phone lines, app numbers, or numbers that only work for a short time.
Texting takes it off the record. There's no company letterhead, no email trail to inspect, and nothing your accounting team, your insurance company or a court can follow later.
Fifty loads makes people hurry. A big number pushes a new operator to move fast, cut the rate and say yes before checking.
They found us the same way they'll find you. Website contact forms, FMCSA records and load boards are public. Anyone listed there can be next.
The only time we got scammed, and why I'll never forget it
I'll tell you something most companies would never say out loud. We got scammed once. Only once. I don't mind saying it publicly, because it opened my eyes.
We found the load on the DAT load board. It was posted by a legitimate broker, approved on DAT and showing active with FMCSA. DAT did nothing wrong here. The load was real, and so was the broker.
We booked it. The broker information came to us by email. But that email didn't come from the broker's real address. One letter was different, just like the fake shipper above. We didn't catch it in time.
We moved the load. We delivered it. The receiver saw it delivered.
But somewhere in the switch, our proof of delivery, our BOL and our paperwork went to a third party. By the time funding came around, someone had already been paid ahead of us. The records didn't show us as the carrier who delivered that load.
When we contacted the broker, they acted like nothing happened. They didn't know. Or it was something else. We never got paid.
Here's what I believe. Someone inside a legitimate brokerage was working with a scam company. It had to be. They pushed the paperwork to the scammers and took something like 60% instead of a normal 20% commission. They run it as long as they can, until they get caught.
Big brokerages have thousands of agents. Any one of them can be infiltrated. It could be an agent, a dock manager, or anyone with access to the paperwork. We believe that's exactly what happened to us.
FreightWaves has documented this same pattern: spoofed email addresses a letter off, rate confirmations that look real, and BOLs sent to a third-party email address not tied to the broker. FMCSA says it plainly too: the real broker on a fraudulently brokered load is often a victim as well.
Follow the paperwork: be aware
Read every email address. Every letter. Then research the company behind it.
Pick up the phone. Verify using a number from the company's official website or its FMCSA record, never the number in the email. Ask two questions: "What email do you send rate confirmations from?" and "What email do you receive documents at?"
Send PODs and BOLs only to verified addresses. Keep your own copies, photos and timestamps of every document, every time.
It doesn't just hit the carrier. It hits the factoring company, the insurance company and every legitimate party in the deal. That's part of why insurance and operating costs for a one-truck company can outrun what the truck earns. With the kind of fraud that uses stolen identities up over 1,500%, every legitimate party is pricing in the cost of fraud, and the carrier pays for it.
It starts with you. Verify, or don't book the load.
Teach your brokers, truck drivers and owner operators. Don't let anyone book a load on your MC authority without verification.
“It starts with you. Verify, or don't book the load.” — Michael Thomas, Founder
This is why you need LFS Shield.
It reads the email address.
It checks it against the company's real contacts.
It flags the look-alike before you book.
One letter off? LFS Shield catches it.
Have you ever booked a load off DAT, Truckstop (Internet Truckstop) or any other legitimate load board and then got scammed? It's not the load board's fault. The scammers hide behind legitimate names. If it happened to you, reach out to us at Freight Broker Complaint. We want to know, and we want to investigate.
What happens after you send the quote
The quote is only the first step. Here's where it goes next.
"We accept. How do we pay you?" You get a fast yes on your rate, then a request for your bank account, routing number, W-9 and insurance certificate "to set you up as a vendor." Now they have what they need to pose as you, open accounts in your name, or redirect money that was meant for you.
The chameleon play. Sometimes they let you haul it. The load is real, the paperwork looks clean, and you deliver. Then the "shipper" or "broker" goes quiet. The phone stops working, the web address goes dark, and the same people come back next month under a new name. You're out the fuel, the driver's time and the full freight bill.
The inside agent. This one hurts the most, because it starts clean. A bad agent working inside a real, big-name brokerage sends you a legitimate load. You get paid. You build trust. Then that agent hands you off to an outside "partner" for the next loads, and the outside partner is a scammer. They split the money, and you're the one left holding an unpaid invoice with a name you trusted on it.
Here's what I tell every carrier I work with: a $5,000 or $10,000 scam is enough to put a small trucking company out of business. One missed payment means a missed truck note, a missed insurance payment, a driver you can't pay. Small trucking companies close over that every day.
For a one- or two-truck fleet, it doesn't even take that much. One $4,000 to $5,000 hit can put them under. They've already paid for the fuel. The fuel card bill is due. The insurance payment is coming due. They hauled that load hoping to get paid on it, and the money never comes.
This is what's killing trucking in America. It's a big reason trucking companies are closing faster than new ones can open.
Freight fraud is not slowing down
1,500%
Rise in strategic cargo theft using fraud and stolen identities — American Trucking Associations
The American Trucking Associations reports that strategic cargo theft, the kind that uses fraud and stolen identities to divert freight, has risen 1,500% since 2021. The FBI has warned the industry that criminals impersonate brokers and carriers, use spoofed email addresses and look-alike web addresses, and use phone numbers that only work for a short time.
Is freight fraud a big problem? Yes. That's why this matters to the one-truck owner-operator as much as it matters to a big fleet. It doesn't stop at the border, either. Carriers in Canada are fighting the same chameleon carriers and fake shippers, and readers overseas know it as haulage fraud.
And it isn't only freight. Fraud is hitting the truck repair, insurance and funding industries too. Logistics fraud hits every link in the chain. Every dollar stolen from a carrier is a dollar that should have gone to a driver, a mechanic or a family.
Logistical Forwarding Solutions is not standing for it.
How to spot a fake shipper: the two-minute check
Before you answer that email, before you price that lane, take two minutes.
Look up the web address. Type the domain into the ICANN lookup at lookup.icann.org. If it was registered last week or last month, stop.
Compare it to the real company. Go to the company's official website yourself. Don't click the link in the email. Check what web address their real contacts use.
Call the company's main number from its official site. Not the number in the email. Ask for shipping or transportation and confirm the request.
Check the lane. Does the company have a plant, warehouse or supplier at that pickup? If you can't find one, ask before you quote.
Check the authority. For brokers and carriers, look them up on FMCSA's SAFER system and compare the phone, email and address to what you were sent.
Watch for the push. Rushing, texting only, "personal" numbers, and big volume from a stranger are all signs to slow down.
Before you quote: screenshot this checklist
☐ Web address checked at lookup.icann.org (not days or weeks old)
☐ Email domain matches the company's official website, letter for letter
☐ Called the main number from the official site or FMCSA, not the email
☐ Asked: what email do you send rate confirmations from and receive documents at?
☐ Lane makes sense for this company
☐ Authority checked on FMCSA SAFER
☐ No bank details sent to anyone unverified
One box unchecked? Don't quote. Don't book.
Teach your truck drivers, owner operators and dispatchers
Trucking scams don't only target brokers. They go after whoever answers the email, the phone or the load board post.
Owner operators are targets. Many owner operators book their own loads, between driving, fueling and sleeping. A scammer knows a tired owner operator with an empty truck is more likely to say yes fast. Load board scams are built for exactly that moment: a great rate on a posted load, from a broker you've never checked.
Dispatchers are falling prey to trucking dispatch scams. Dispatchers are opening and downloading attachments, a "rate confirmation," a "BOL," a "load tender," that infect their computers. One click can hand a scammer your email, your load board logins and your bank details. LFS Shield checks emails and attachments before they can do damage, so a bad file gets flagged before anyone on our team opens it.
Truck drivers need to know it too. Drivers get texts and calls asking to change a pickup, a delivery address or a payment. Teach them to call dispatch first, every time.
Walk your whole team through the two-minute check above. Print it. Put it next to the phone.
Our house rule
At LFS, nobody quotes, sends a document, or shares bank information with a new shipper until the web address, phone number and company have been checked against the company's own official sources. No exceptions for big names. Big names are exactly who they copy.
This is why we use LFS Shield
That house rule is only as strong as the people following it on a busy day. A dispatcher with ten phones ringing can miss an eight-day-old web address. That's why we don't leave it to memory. We use LFS Shield, our Circular Logistics Agentic Cybersecurity System.
When that email came in, LFS Shield went to work before anyone on our team typed a word back. It checked who the sender said he was.
It compared the web address, the email and the phone number against the real company's own official sources. It researched the domain, how old it was, where it was registered, and whether the lane even made sense for that company.
Then it checked where the request really came from. This is not an ordinary IP lookup. LFS Shield traces the origin of a message through the email headers and the servers that sent it, the metadata inside PDFs and documents, the data embedded in files, and the network and routing trail the message left behind. VPNs and proxies don't hide anyone from it. LFS Shield pinpoints where a fraudster really is, down to their exact location. If they come in, we find them.
The question it answers is simple. Is this a legitimate American company operating under real FMCSA motor carrier or broker authority? Or is it an operation outside the United States hiding behind a US-looking front?
Let me be clear about one thing. The people of those countries are not the problem. The criminal rings are, and those rings operate inside the United States too.
We also use other proprietary methods to confirm where a sender really is. We don't talk about those publicly, because we're not handing scammers our playbook. They were built and tested over more than three years on real scam attempts against our own company, and they go well beyond the basic lookups most tools stop at.
When LFS Shield identifies a fraudster, it automatically reports them to multiple authorities, including FMCSA, the FBI and the US Department of Transportation, with the IP addresses, the subjects involved and what happened. Malware defense is built in too: every PDF, picture and rate con is scanned, whether a driver uploads it or a broker or shipper sends it. The case is documented and in front of the right people before the scammer moves on to the next target.
Then it flagged the request as fraud and showed us, in plain words, exactly why.
LFS Shield protected us. LFS Shield caught it. Nobody quoted, nobody sent a document, and nobody shared a bank account. The scammer got nothing.
We didn't build LFS Shield in a weekend. We have been running it in beta testing inside our own company for over three years, on real loads, real emails and real scam attempts like this one. It's working for us every day. It's coming to the public soon, starting with select companies, and it will be offered for free.
This article isn't about software, though. It's about the habit: check who they are, check the address, verify before you quote. LFS Shield is how we make sure that habit never takes a day off.
Dispatchers: The Door Scammers Walk Through
Carriers, listen to me. Your dispatcher is not just somebody answering the phone. Your dispatcher books loads on your behalf. Your dispatcher represents your company, your name and your MC authority. Every rate con they sign, every email they answer, every document they send goes out as you.
That's why scammers go after dispatchers. They're the door. An unprotected dispatcher is what loses your money. One bad booking, one look-alike email, one fake rate con, and the money's gone. For a small carrier, that's enough to bankrupt you.
Warning: do not let a dispatcher work for you without protection. If someone is booking loads on your behalf, they need LFS Shield checking every shipper, every broker, every email and every document before they book. If they don't have it, they're putting your company at risk every single day.
Any dispatcher working for a carrier needs LFS AOS, the operating system we run our own freight business on. LFS Shield is built right into it. It's working for us every day, and it caught the fake shipper in this article before anyone replied.
“Your dispatcher is booking loads in your name. If they aren't protected, you aren't protected.” — Michael Thomas, Founder
If you run a dispatch company, this is for you.
LFS Shield helps you build your business. It lets you offer real security services to your carriers, not just load booking. It helps you grow your carrier count, because carriers stay with the dispatcher who protects them. And it keeps you from putting the carriers who trust you at risk. Protect your carriers, and your carriers will build your business.
The dispatcher's five-step protection check
Verify the shipper or broker before you book. Check the web address age, the email domain letter for letter, and the FMCSA record. Call the official number, never the one in the email.
Never send the carrier's bank details or paperwork to anyone unverified. Rate cons, W-9s, insurance certificates, PODs and BOLs go only to addresses you've confirmed by phone.
Don't open attachments you didn't expect. A fake rate confirmation or load tender can hand a scammer your email, your load board logins and your carrier's money.
Run every load through LFS Shield. It checks the sender, the web address, the phone number and the documents, and flags the fake before you book on your carrier's MC.
Tell your carrier what you checked. That's the security service you sell. It's why carriers stay with you and send you more trucks.
Tip: Carriers, ask your dispatcher one question today: "What are you using to verify the loads you book for me?" If the answer is "nothing," that's your answer.
If you already answered one
Don't panic, but move today. Here's how to report freight fraud and protect your company.
Stop all contact and don't send anything else.
If you shared bank details, call your bank and your factoring company now and tell them what happened.
If you sent your W-9, insurance or authority documents, tell your insurance agent and keep an eye on your FMCSA registration for changes you didn't make.
Save everything: emails, texts, phone numbers, web addresses and screenshots.
Report it to the FBI at ic3.gov and to FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database.
File your case with Freight Broker Complaint. If you've been scammed, file your case at freightbrokercomplaint.com. We help investigate it, and we send the information to the FBI.
Trying to scam Logistical Forwarding Solutions is the wrong move
Trying to scam Logistical Forwarding Solutions is the wrong move. We detect it, we investigate it, we research it. We report fraud to the FBI and FMCSA and send them what we find.
That's the same work we do for carriers through Freight Broker Complaint, and it's the reason we built our own system instead of waiting for someone else to.
A warning from Michael Thomas
I'm Michael Thomas. I've spent 25 years in logistics. I'm a circular logistics architect and the founder of Logistical Forwarding Solutions. This part is for anyone trying to cheat, steal, run a chameleon carrier or impersonate a company.
To the people who tried this on us: you made a mistake coming after my company. You tried to defraud the wrong people, and we are not letting it go.
Now you're on our radar, and you're inside our investigation.
We are investigating the company that tried this. We're tracing the digital trail, the IP addresses and the locations, with technology built by a circular logistics architect, technology this industry hasn't seen.
We fight fraud. We will push for prosecution, and hopefully prison is the outcome. We work with government agencies, using multiple methods, and we report every case to the FBI and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. We won't stop until they are shut down.
No matter what continent you're on. We know much of this fraud comes from overseas, and we can deal with that. We'll notify the government agencies in other countries too. There is nowhere to hide.
To anyone defrauding American trucking companies, carriers, owner operators, dispatchers or brokers: if we find out about it, we're coming after you.
Our job is to keep the carrier alive and protect the carrier. That's why LFS Shield will be offered for free. Interested? Reach out and inquire.
I'm Michael Thomas, founder of Logistical Forwarding Solutions, and I approve this message.
If you feel you've been victimized, or someone has done anything to your business, go to Freight Broker Complaint at freightbrokercomplaint.com and report it.
Get early access to LFS Shield
LFS Shield runs inside LFS AOS, the operating system we run our freight business on. It's coming to the public soon, starting with select companies, and LFS Shield will be offered for free. Our job is to keep the carrier alive, and that's how we do it. Interested? Reach out and inquire. Tap the button below and we'll get back to you.
If you want your team trained to catch these scams, Freight University trains freight brokers, agents and dispatchers.
Why LFS Shield is free
Our commitment. It's not about cost, and it's not about who has the best. It's about us, Logistical Forwarding Solutions, protecting everyone against what just happened to us.
We're making it free because that's our job, and because we want to. To keep trucking companies, freight brokers, dispatchers, anyone involved in moving a load, alive. All of it lands on small trucking companies in America.
We are free to protect American trucking. Nothing hidden.
Here's who we mean. According to the American Trucking Associations, citing U.S. DOT data from June 2025, 91.5% of active U.S. motor carriers operate 10 or fewer trucks. That's the majority, and our job is to protect them.
We're not trying to make money off it. Our job is to make sure small trucking companies in America live, survive and prosper.
Shield works across our whole circle: LFS AOS for the loads, LFS Compliance for your carrier files, Freight Broker Complaint when someone gets hit, and the LFS Shield site for how it all works.
Keep the carrier alive
Logistical Forwarding Solutions is a carrier-first company. Everything we build, teach and investigate is here for one reason: to keep the carrier alive.
“Our job is to keep the carrier alive and protect the carrier.” — Michael Thomas, Founder
Check before you quote. Teach your people. And if it already happened to you, file your case. We'll help.
If you feel you've been victimized, or someone has done anything to your business, go to Freight Broker Complaint at freightbrokercomplaint.com and report it.
— Michael Thomas, Founder, Logistical Forwarding Solutions
What is LFS Shield? Questions and answers
What is LFS Shield?
LFS Shield is our Circular Logistics Agentic Cybersecurity System. It keeps trucking companies, brokers and agents alive against freight fraud and security attacks. It checks the identity behind a load, the web address and phone number behind an email, the documents in a deal and the payment details on an invoice, then explains in plain words why something looks wrong.
Who is LFS Shield for?
Carriers, owner-operators, freight brokers, agents and dispatchers. If one bad load or one changed bank account could put your company under, it's for you.
How does LFS Shield work?
It works the way it did on the fake shipper. It checks the sender, compares what they sent against the company's own official sources, researches the web address, phone number and lane, and flags anything that doesn't add up before you quote, send a document or move money. It backs up your people; it doesn't replace their judgment.
Is LFS Shield proven?
Yes. We have run LFS Shield in beta testing inside our own company for over three years, on real loads and real scam attempts, and it caught this one before anyone replied. Shield works alongside our house rule, and the rule still matters: verify before you quote.
When will LFS Shield be available?
Soon. It will open to a select group of companies first, then to the public. LFS Shield will be offered for free.
How much does LFS Shield cost?
Nothing. LFS Shield will be offered for free, because our job is to keep the carrier alive. Interested? Reach out and inquire using the Request LFS Shield early access button.
How do I get early access?
Use the Request LFS Shield early access button in this article. Tell us your company, your role and what you want LFS Shield to check, and we'll get back to you.
How does LFS Shield fit with LFS AOS and Freight Broker Complaint?
LFS Shield is built into LFS AOS and Freight Broker Complaint today. When it opens to the public, it will come three ways: a free standalone LFS Shield, built into LFS AOS, and built into LFS Compliance Pro. Freight Broker Complaint is where you file a case if you've already been hit. We help investigate it and send the information to the FBI. Shield helps stop the next one before it starts.
Why is LFS Shield free?
Because protecting small carriers is our job and our commitment. Most U.S. motor carriers run 10 or fewer trucks, and fraud hits them hardest. No hidden fees, no catch, no upsell. Select companies get it first.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fake shipper scam?
It's when someone poses as a real shipping company to get a quote, your documents, a load or your money. They often use a look-alike web address and a phone number that seems to match the real company.
How do I know if a shipper is real?
Look up the web address's registration date, compare it to the company's official website, and call the main number listed on that official site to confirm the request.
How do I check how old a website is?
Type the domain into the ICANN lookup at lookup.icann.org and look at the creation date. A web address only days or weeks old is a warning sign for a "major" shipper.
What are chameleon carriers?
Chameleon carriers, and chameleon brokers, are companies that close and reopen under a new name, often to escape bad records or unpaid bills. In fraud cases, they may let you haul a load, then disappear without paying.
What is double brokering?
When a broker or carrier takes a load and re-brokers it to another carrier without the shipper's knowledge, often to collect payment and never pay the carrier who hauled it.
How do scammers steal payment on a load I delivered?
They get between you and the real broker. A look-alike email address, often one letter off, sends you the rate confirmation and receives your POD and BOL. They submit your paperwork to get paid ahead of you, and the records no longer show you as the carrier who delivered. Verify every email address by phone using the broker's official number, and send documents only to verified addresses.
Why would a fake shipper want my bank account?
To use it. With your routing and account numbers, scammers can print counterfeit checks on your real business account and use your company name to run fake check overpayment scams on other businesses, like contractors and painters. Never send bank details to a shipper you haven't verified, and ask your bank about Positive Pay or check fraud protection.
How do I check if a freight broker is legit?
Look the broker up on FMCSA's SAFER system and confirm its operating authority is active and its broker bond is on file. Compare the phone, email and address you were given to the official record, call the number on file, and check the web address age at lookup.icann.org. If anything doesn't match, don't book.
Can LFS Shield tell where a fake shipper is really located?
Yes. LFS Shield pinpoints where a sender really is, down to their exact location, VPN or not. If they come in, we find them. It checks whether the sender is a real American company with FMCSA authority or an overseas operation behind a US-looking front. Our methods are proprietary, and we don't disclose them. No tool catches everything, so always verify before you quote.
Does LFS Shield report fraudsters to the authorities?
Yes. When LFS Shield identifies a fraudster, it automatically reports them to multiple authorities, including FMCSA, the FBI and the US Department of Transportation, with the IP addresses, the subjects involved and what happened. You should still file your own report with FMCSA, the FBI's IC3 and Freight Broker Complaint.
How do I report freight fraud?
Report it to FMCSA through the National Consumer Complaint Database, and to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Then file your case at freightbrokercomplaint.com. Freight Broker Complaint helps investigate it and sends the information to the FBI.
Why does my dispatcher need fraud protection?
Your dispatcher books loads on your behalf and represents your company and your MC authority. If a dispatcher books a fake load, sends your paperwork to a look-alike email or shares your bank details, your company takes the loss. Don't let a dispatcher work for you without protection like LFS Shield, which is built into LFS AOS.
How does LFS Shield help a dispatch company?
LFS Shield checks shippers, brokers, emails and documents before you book, so you can offer real security services to your carriers. It helps you build your business, grow your carrier count and stop putting the carriers who trust you at risk.
Sources
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Cyber-Enabled Strategic Cargo Theft Surging (PSA I-043026-PSA)
Verisk CargoNet, Cargo Theft Losses Surge to an Estimated $725 Million
FreightWaves, 5 Red Flags on a Rate Confirmation Sheet You Should Never Ignore
U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General, Individual Charged in Double-Brokering Conspiracy
FMCSA, Fraud Alerts: Do Not Sell, Purchase, or Lease USDOT or MC Numbers
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