Bolt

fedexhatch

Seasoned Expediter
I have talked to a couple of drivers that say bolt is a good company to drive for but you dont get paid for three to four weeks after starting?
 

BillChaffey

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
US Navy
Unless some things have changed, that's not quite true. I'm parked right now, but when I drove for Bolt ( a most pleasant experience) Paper work submitted by Sunday evening was paid a week after the following Friday. So if you were out of Orientation on say Tuesday evening. Had Freight Wednesday through Saturday. Submit your paper work by Sunday PM. Your first pay would come in a week from the following Friday. Slightly over two weeks from Orientation. Then it's evey Friday as long as your out moving Freight. At least that's the way it was. I would suggest you contact Ms. Anne Muszynski at Bolt.
 

Moot

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Bolt? You would have to change your screen name to Bolthatch or Hatchbolt. Have you considered signing on with Diamond Delivery Service (DDS)? You could be Diamondhatch or Diamondmatch.

I think my dentist worked for Diamond Delivery Service at one time. She has some sort of framed citation or award with her name on it and DDS.
 

ebsprintin

Veteran Expediter
I have talked to a couple of drivers that say bolt is a good company to drive for but you dont get paid for three to four weeks after starting?

If you don't send in your paperwork for a month, you'll have even longer than three to four weeks. I email my paperwork immediately after delivery. As often as possible from the consignee's parking lot. And I always see it in my account the second following week, sometimes sooner (don't know how that happens).

Or are you talking about reduced pay while your escrow is building up? That's standard op that some people never seem to figure out.

All the more reason why you want to have lots of money in the bank when you start.

eb
 
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Jack_Berry

Moderator Emeritus
I have talked to a couple of drivers that say bolt is a good company to drive for but you dont get paid for three to four weeks after starting?


here is an original idea........call bolt and talk to mark, anne or the new guy in recruiting and ask them directly. no reflection on your manliness to go direct for an answer.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator

here is an original idea........call bolt and talk to mark, anne or the new guy in recruiting and ask them directly. no reflection on your manliness to go direct for an answer.

Agreed Jack....an old saying comes to mind...don't ask the monkey, go right to the organ grinder...:eek:
 

Jack_Berry

Moderator Emeritus
manliness? where did that come from. I served with seal team four. want to talk?


get over yerself. and thank you for serving. my son is at great lakes right now. you ask a lot of questions of the drivers but did you call a recruiter? or maybe the payroll dept? puh lease. good suggestion to come to expo. with your screen name it seems a given you already knew where you were going to land. now as an after thought you ask about other companies. its a little confusing.
 

fedexhatch

Seasoned Expediter
thanks Chef! I just got on the net and looked up Bolt,driver problems and wow this investigator really gave them a black eye.
 

fedexhatch

Seasoned Expediter
I got over it! I just have to remember to consider the source. I was going with panther but have just heard alot of bad things from reliable reports. I normally do alot of research and may have jumped the gun.
 

dotcommark

Seasoned Expediter
I've been "stalking" these board for well over a year, reading and asking a question here and there. I've compiled a big list of questions over that time and while most have been answered directly you will find that there really aren't direct answers to some. There are so many variables. I've armed myself with just enough info to make myself dangerous lol and I will definitely be at the Expo to fill in the gaps.
This site is a very valuable resource but if you have to come at this with an open mind and that means you may not find out what you want to hear. Read the heck out of the old posts, that will give you a heck of a knowledge base. Heck, I went from knowing 99 percent of everything to realizing I know about 10 percent of a little bit.
 

Dakota

Veteran Expediter
I've been "stalking" these board for well over a year, reading and asking a question here and there. I've compiled a big list of questions over that time and while most have been answered directly you will find that there really aren't direct answers to some. There are so many variables. I've armed myself with just enough info to make myself dangerous lol and I will definitely be at the Expo to fill in the gaps.
This site is a very valuable resource but if you have to come at this with an open mind and that means you may not find out what you want to hear. Read the heck out of the old posts, that will give you a heck of a knowledge base. Heck, I went from knowing 99 percent of everything to realizing I know about 10 percent of a little bit.

Amen to that, read back at least a year, two would even be better since that is when some were just starting to struggle in this business. I started in April of last year and it was tough, this year I am doing much better, but the economy is very volatile right now so who knows what the next month and the next one will bring us.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Oh, I can tell you a lot of bad things about Panther, same as every driver at every carrier can tell you bad things about their carrier. All carriers will do things that drive you crazy. Every one of them. They are not there for you, to take care of you. They are there to do things that are in their best interest. They do things their way, and you either conform or learn to live with it, or find another carrier that drives you crazy in ways you can live with.

The most common bad thing you hear about a carrier, Panther included, is some sort of variant of "They done me wrong". And in almost all cases, nothing of the sort actually happened, but rather the carrier did what they usually do and the complainer either wasn't expecting them to do what they did, or they think some sort of remedy should be done to make things right and fair and the carrier won't budge from their normal operating procedure.

For example, you take a load to Miami and then sit there for 5 days waiting on a load, and no loads comes. The complaint is, "They done me wrong. They made no attempt to find me a load out of Florida, and left me down in Miami to rot." Well, no they didn't leave you down there to rot. You chose to sit there. You know how to drive, so drive yer butt out of Florida. You're just mad that your carrier can't wave a wand and "manufacture" emergency freight out of Miami for you, so you blame them for doing you wrong.

Most any bad thing you hear about a carrier can be explained or put in context for you here, if you choose to post about it. Like the three weeks thing at Bolt. Yeah, it's about 3 weeks, kinda sorta, but like others have said, as long as your paperwork for all of the loads you've done that week is in by Sunday night, you'll be paid for that week's loads not the next Friday after Sunday, but the Friday a week after that. Every week after that you get paid for the loads you did about 2 weeks or so ago.

Other carriers, like Panther, don't make you wait the until settlement for all of your money, and pay a percentage of each load's line haul upon pickup or delivery. Panther pays 45% of the line haul at pickup. This gives you some of your money sooner to use as operating capital for fuel and food. But of course at settlement time, these 45% advances are deducted from the settlement. But whether you get a portion at the time of the load or all of it at settlement, once you get past about the third or fourth week, it really doesn't matter. If you go with a carrier like Bolt who holds all of your money until settlement, you simply have to have enough cash reserves on hand to front your food and fuel for those first three weeks, and after that, as long as you don't blow all of your settlement at Nude Nudie Nudes, you're good to go until the next settlement, which is the next Friday and will contain the money for loads you did in the week that was 2 weeks prior to that.

Think of the settlement as a pipeline. As long as you have loads each week in the pipeline, you'll get paid for them on a weekly basis, it just takes a couple or three weeks for it to come out the other end. On the other hand, if you take all of next week off, then 2 weeks after that you're gonna get nothing, cause the pipeline had nothing flowing into it for that week.
 
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