Lift-Gate Charges Billed At Destination

When a shipper requests that a carrier pick up a shipment for delivery to their customer the carrier is to make the delivery regardless of the requirements unless the carrier is unable to deliver, usually for reasons or circumstances out of their control. Carriers can and will bill for a lift gate if it’s needed to off load the freight, even if carriers aren't given authorization to do so upfront. Simply requesting or writing that the carrier must call the shipper for approval of any service not requested on the BOL does not protect the shipper from incurring and having to pay additional accessorial fees required to deliver a shipment. 

It is the carrier’s responsibility to deliver a shipment in good condition, and it’s the shipper’s responsibility to provide accurate information about a shipment to the carrier for delivery. Residential deliveries don’t always require a lift-gate, but probably more than 95% of the time they do. Logic dictates that most residences do not have a dock and forklifts or equipment for unloading shipments off trucks. If there is no loading dock, then how would they get it off the trailer?

The back of a tailgate is anywhere between 48”-50” so it would be rather difficult to get a heavy skid off the back of a truck by hand, never mind the fact that a driver would never let someone try to do that for liability reasons.  Drivers will also not wait for a skid to be broken down piece by piece so it can be moved either.  Carriers monitor a drivers’ time by the minute so a driver isn't going to wait around for an off-load too long. Something else to consider is the fact that carriers monitor how long it takes to make pickups and deliveries.  If your deliveries always take longer than others that will be calculated into the OR by the carrier and it will eventually affect pricing.

The carriers can't wait at the consignee's location, radio the terminal and have them call the consignee, wait for the consignee to provide them with some type of written authorization, and then get back to the driver with an approval for a lift-gate. No carrier does or will do that. The next best course of action rather than delivering the shipment with the lift-gate and billing for it after the fact would be driving it back to the service center and putting it away until authorization is obtained; however, that would result in a re-delivery charge coupled with the lift-gate charge. 
Additionally, if that route were taken, on top of a re-delivery charge the freight is left on the truck for the carrier to have to work around the rest of the day, which leaves it exposed to an increased likelihood of damage as a result of more handling and ride time. The easiest solution for avoiding unexpected lift-gate charges is obtaining accurate and detailed information about the consignee and delivery up front. By simply asking if the consignee has a dock for delivery, these situations can often be avoided. 

In most all cases, in carrier rules tariffs the accessorial charges are billed to the party that is paying the freight charges. An exception to this is when a service is required at destination and the consignee elects to pay the carrier at time of delivery. 








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