Try to be calm, and contact Panther to ask them to go through each charge with you, item by item, so that you know exactly what and why you're being charged.
From what you have posted, it looks like you are throwing in everything but the proverbial kitchen sink, and may be mixing up a whole pile of different issues and charges and maybe even trucks, into one big confused pot.
The way that carriers show their various charges on settlement sheets can be really confusing. I haven't seen all carriers' settlement sheets, but I have seen enough to know that one really needs to educate themselves on what everything means and what exactly you're paying for every single thing. I like to break everything out so that one can know exactly what they're paying for separate things, rather than just taking the bottom line figure as revenue. It can be time consuming depending on how convoluted the carrier likes to make it, but it's worth it to at least know what everything is actually costing in reality.
My guess is that Panther has a reasonable explanation for each charge, if only you would take the time to understand each of them. Your post is too difficult to follow as far as the base plates and going or not going to RI. It sounds like perhaps you chose one way of dealing with it over another way, but each way had its own set of financial implications. If you counted on Panther to look after paying whatever fees/taxes were owing on baseplates instead of dh'ing to RI yourself, Panther would need to recoup those costs, correct?
Sometimes the carrier will pay for things upfront on behalf of an owner, and then bill the owner on a weekly/monthly basis to reimburse themselves. While this is convenient for the owner at the time and the carrier is doing the owner a favor, if a contract comes to an end before the carrier is completely reimbursed, the carrier still needs to be compensated for the balance. This is where I think many owners get confused at the end and feel like they're getting ripped off, when in fact, they may not be.
Bringing the value of your truck, and unfortunate accidents, and unfortunate drivers into the discussion has nothing whatsoever to do with Panther. It is part of the trucking industry that your truck is highly devalued way sooner than your payments might end. It's called being upside down in your lease/loan. If you happen to sell it during that time, you are SOL. In the case of an unfortunate accident where the truck is totalled during this time, an insurer will only pay for what the truck is worth, and not what is owing on the truck, but there is insurance for that potentially big difference, called 'gap insurance'.
Charles, in another post, was asking what 'perks' drivers are seeking when looking for a new carrier. It seems that many drivers/owners want carriers to look after certain things for them, and that's great, but it still costs money that needs to be paid back. Having the carrier do things for you may look like a great deal until the deal is over and the money owed is suddenly due and recouped.
To me this looks like one of those cases where perhaps the expediting industry looked simple and easy and straight forward and just rode with the flow, found it not as financially rewarding as expected, and got out of it, without ever really understanding it. If one doesn't decipher what they're paying for, understand the industry, read their contract, or look at the fine print, then how can any kind of meaningful business decisions be made along the way?
PS Do carriers really charge TWO HUNDRED bucks a month for the privilege of loaning drivers a QC????
(<pjjjjj> considers getting into the QC business)
And $38 per WEEK for 'messaging'?? I would really like to see the proof on that one!
