We were with Tri-State for 2 1/2 years.......Never in that time did they ever mention a problem with refusals. Although we very seldom refused a load.
One thing we did was look at the load, miles to pick up, paid miles to delivery, etc. Look at the $0.00 the load paid and the FSC.....then decide......If we didn't think it was a good load for us, we'd simply qual-comm back with the message "Refusing load, not a good business decision". Never had a problem.
Not sure if she's still working there or not, but one of the best dispatchers, by far, was Betty. She worked the midnight shift and you could tell just by talking with her that she knew what she was doing.
We'd actually wait until it was time for her shift, call dispatch and ask for her specifically, ask her for suggestions for an empty move or load possibilities from where we were sitting. She'd always try to move us to a better location or give us little "hints"....She might say..."give me a few hours, I"ll see what I can do to find you a load". 9 times out of 10 she'd have us on a load before the end of her shift......It was a pleasure working with her!!!!
To bad there weren't more dispatchers like her.
I must say from my experience at Tri-State, most all of their dispatchers are easy to work with and pleasant to talk to. They try hard to keep the trucks moving. Several times a dispatcher would call us asking for a "favor" in getting some freight moved. Some short run they couldn't get anyone else to take, or a van load they couldn't get any vans to take.....We'd take the load, at our contracted straight truck rate, keep our original board position when we were done and the dispatcher would dig us up a very good run after that......
Sometimes you have to give a little to get alot......