Black list/Poaching work

2 sides to this one for me

Yes I quite agree,
My point was leaving cards and or phone numbers when working for another company,
fair marketing is just that fair!
 

Absolutely....anyone doing just that deserves to be shot BUT if we're all giving our customers what they want then it doesn't matter who leaves what with them does it, cos it'll just go in the bin.

Poaching it's a mine-field I have done a couple of jobs from Ebay customers where the pick up point is a business I have left my card with the business and had two jobs off them since. would you call this poaching, as when i went in the first time for the Ebayer there was a guy in an old R reg escort in white & rust in colour, if i get another job I am going to ask what happened to him

is it poaching if you go in to a local shipper for somebody who is out of your area but return at a  later date to offer your services?

Yes!

yes

Not something I've done as I've tried to stick to subbing but with things being as slow as they have been lately I think I'm going to have to try to get some customers of my own. thanks for clearing that up for me.

I also agree. I wouldn't dream of approaching a company I have picked up from for someone else as it's morally wrong. However, if I send out flyers to companies I have not dealt with then I agree it's fair marketing. The trouble is, there is a fair chance that a lot of companies that are available do do business with are looking for a courier to replace the one that got fed up with the lousy rate they paid &/or the lateness of invoice settlement.

Oh look, we can quote others now!

Quote: Badger Courier Services

Just a different angle i came up with a few years back :0)

OK, Here's my dilemma. and please bear with me if i rattle on it's all relevent I promise.

after 2 years as an unemployet IT Manager I used an inheritence to buy a Fastway franchise in August 2010. It took most of my money but I felt that the cash was better spent generating an income than being used to live off whilst trying to get a job in IT. in June 2011 the regional depot was closed & I lost my investment and a month's earnings. So now I'm broke with no hope of getting any money from fastway. I decide to try to make it as an independant doing same day work. I was put in touch with a company in Cardiff who offer Specialised Services on a Global level (I'm sure you can work out who this is). they started putting a resonable amount of work my way so I was quite please at the way things were going. when the fist payment was due (1/9/11) I called to make sure payement had been made and sure enough about a week later I had cleared funds. The second month was 2 weeks late after a fair bit of chasing. November's payment never arrived but Icarried on working for them untill December arrived and when I still wasn't paid I refused to do any more work for them. I should point out that Mr Cullompton also failed to pay at the begining of November so I was again short on funds. Frequent phone calls to Cardiff yeilded only empty promises of funds being BACSed through so on the thursday before Christmas I went and knocked on their door. on of the directors came and gave me a cheque for Octobers work but not Novembers and told me in a hushed voice that it was late because the MD kept whitholding payment and that it'd be best if I no longer worked for them (no shit?). November's cheque arrived between Christmas and new Year. End of, move on.

Now we get to it. a couple of weeks ago a different local firm call me and ask me to do a run for them from a printers I'd done a few runs for for the Cardiff lot. I accepted but the run was cancelled an hour before I was due to pick up. The Printers are obviosly not happy with the Cardiff lot which is something we share.

Would it be unethical to approch them or seizing an opportunity presented?

Not unethical at all

Hello. Unethical ? no , its not serious enough to warrant your ethics.
Morally right or wrong. Is your god keeping score , then -200 to that company not honouring your payments , for work completed in good faith.
Go get that work. Stuff the dim wits who failed to pay. They poached your income.

Now you explain what transpired it looks like each man for himself and good luck to you if you get the contract. 

It really f**in annoys me the amount of people out there deliberately tryin to shaft as many as they can.

Question Did you accept your cheque in a hushed voice???

I f**king wouldn't have (Please pardon my french)

naw I took it and left quietly, there was still money outstanding for November that wasn't due till January

I totally agree speedy,
I had an email back from a customer yesterday ref a delivery for Cullompton man,
it turns out that gods gift to the courier industry charged the customer £90.00 odd less than he agreed to pay us!!
no the more cynical people of this world would assume that he had no intention of paying us.
 

and there's the thing

as slippery as a greased weasel sprayed in WD40 is Cullompton bloke!

As much as I hope to get customers from my flyers/letters, I would have to think very carefully before subbing any work out as I would pay on return and know my customers were highly likely not to. What's the point of having subbies if you haven't the funds treat them as you hope to be treated yourself? It's a fine balancing act.  

As for as and when paid, I've only done one job from here (no names but they put more work on here than most) and although I put my bank details on my invoice, when I do get paid it's a cheque!

Dont knock getting paid by cheque Pete a lot of companies do this just to get those few extra days of credit. If your flyers work out for you and I hope they do most companies especially if they use a lot of couriers will want invoicing at the end of the month and then if your lucky 30 days from there, meaning jobs done at the beggining of the month are more like 60 days and as I say thats if your Lucky 60 and 90 days are not uncommon. Your flyer drop will be getting work from other courier firms so not only will you have to be competitive with price but also on payment terms.

which is why i invoice weekly

Thanks for the advice guys. I approached the company at the start of the week and had a phone call off them yesterday with a run up to the NEC this morning. when I phoned through the POD the were genuinly pleased with the service and said they would definately use me again... result.

up at Harlorw yesterday so I waved in the general direction of Stanstead as is the tradition I believe

lol.....and a belated wave back in the general direction of the badgerman

back to the subject, I've just had a phone call from somebody I used to work with at Fastway. the guy is a full on Bulls**tter and didn't warn me about the cardiff company I mentioned earlier in this thread even though he was warned off himself. Anyway, to the point. He has seen a run from Risca to Glasgow frequently posted on cx and was asking if I knew who the customer was beceause he wanted to match the run up with a regular run he has coming the other way. he didn't want to go through the company who had put it on the evchage, just wanted it for himself. I didn't know and wouldn't have told him if I had, it's sort of like poaching by proxy

and i would be straight on the phone to the vendor of said job!!! TOSSER

Another thought on the lines of poaching. if you collect from a business on behalf of somebody but but you're collecting on behalf of the recipient not the sender is it ok to solicit work from the sender? I believe this is called ex works?

Nowt wrong with that....the best way of touting in my book cos you're showing what you can do already, before you get em signed up.