Business ProfileforAveritt Express

We utilized Averitt Express to handle shipments. Most shipments were sent directly to a homeowner. On our bills of lading, we expressly forbid the addition of any accessorial charges, specifically for the use of a liftgate and inside delivery. Neither is required for the delivery of our product. Averitt has a practice of allowing the customer to elect for the use of the liftgate and inside delivery which would typically be moving the product into a garage. These charges are roughly $100 each and take a freight bill that is typically $165 and almost doubles it. At the time of allowing the customer to elect additional services without our authorization, the customer is not made aware of how much this service would be. Averitt will say that is because they charge varying amounts for this service depending on the shipper, they cannot make this information available to the driver to provide. Further, they contend that rather than billing the end customer directly, we are responsible for the charge because we are their customer. We contend that if we are their customer then we should get to elect which additional services are rendered and they should honor our prohibition of any additional fees without our consent. We believe this practice to be a fraudulent effort to boost revenues at our expense. It is our understanding under applicable federal laws we are not required to pay any charges levied by a freight carrier that we do not authorize. These shipments were signed for by Averitt drivers on our Bill of Lading stock that expressly forbids unauthorized additional charges.We have stopped using Averitt. However, the issue at hand is that there are four outstanding invoices that are contested. Averitt has turned us over to a collection agency. Our desired resolution would consist of 1) removal of the unauthorized fees on the open invoices and removal of our account from collections and 2) discontinue the practice of adding unauthorized fees.