The FreightCaviar Podcast: Vetting the Real from the Fake in Freight

In this week’s episode, we sat down with Andrey Drotenko, President of Strategic Relations at Verified Carrier, a vetting platform. Andrey goes behind the scenes of fraud detection. He explains the role of Verified Carrier in preventing fraud, how scammers manipulate current systems, and emphasizes the importance of inspections for freight brokers. 

Role of Verified Carrier in Fraud Prevention

Andrey started off by explaining the role of Verified Carrier in fraud prevention. “We are a vetting platform. Everybody knows fraud, cargo theft, and  double brokering is rampant. All this different stuff, we want to get rid of it by letting people know who real carriers are. It's so hard to know who the real guys are versus the fake companies, people who inflate their numbers, people in other countries pretending to have trucks, and they don't. So that's our whole thing— we want to let people know who the real hardworking people are so that this money stays where it's supposed to.”

Bank Verification Process

He also explained the company’s bank verification process. “The bank thing is where some people do get hung up because they think,  ‘They're going to sync up my bank,’  like we're a mortgage company, we're going to start pulling money out. We can't do that. We don't have that ability. The whole point of it is to verify the identity. It's like another piece that closes this identity loop.”

Importance of Inspections for Freight Brokers

Andrey also emphasized the importance of inspections for freight brokers, stating that they’re not there to show you if someone’s real or not, but they’re good to have because they contain a timestamp and other important information.

Opinions on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

He also touched on the subject of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the negative opinions surrounding its actions. “It's about safety, and that's what they do. A lot of people right now are asking, ‘Why isn't the FMCSA doing this or that?’ And, they're going to try to roll out some stuff. But it's the government; they're always going to come out with a solution for five years ago. At the end of the day, people are looking to this metric for a different reason. And some of these tools that people are using– 10 years ago this stuff was awesome, right? It was cutting edge, but now all the scammers know how to break all of that stuff.”

The Future and Elimination of Scammers

Andrey also shared his views on the future and elimination of scammers in our industry. “They found these loopholes, and they're exploiting that right now. There are so many loopholes, but the thing is, it's so behind other industries. And as everybody increases their security measures and trains people better, we get to a point where you can verify loads, for example, at pickup. Different steps will be taken to where they're just going to see that it’s not worth the trouble anymore. They're going to go shift to some other industry where it's going to be easy, or they might stop and then wait for a while and then come back.”