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Non-calibrated freight scales
Many of the teams at St.Louis arrived to find a handling bill from the drayage company for $45 (or so) for freight in excess of 400 pounds. Pure and simple, their scale was set such that a 398 pound crate weighs 416 pounds. We packed our crate on my scales, which have been shown to be accurate in the past.
Many people were working on the drayage company about this problem, but welcome to the world of monopolies! The same logic that justifies $3 for a hot dog allows the drayage company to set their scales wherever they want.
A couple us of figured we would check the calibration of the pallet scales on Saturday. A couple people and a couple batteries came out to 401 pounds. Wonder of wonders! Now the scale reads something like 384 pounds! They must have figured someone would check the scales, and they turned the cal down a bunch!
So, what did we learn? Next time, ship the crate about 20 pounds light or be ready to pay...
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