Protect your rights to recover overcharges

By Ray Bohman -- Logistics Management, 11/1/2000

A certain percentage of freight bills issued by for-hire motor carriers and freight forwarders operating in interstate commerce contain errors, although the percentage is relatively small. Some of these bills are issued to the wrong party; others contain overcharges or undercharges.

Although Congress has steadily deregulated various facets of these carriers' operations since passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, it hasn't left shippers or receivers unprotected when it comes to the recovery of overcharges, misbillings, or duplicate payments-nor has it left carriers unable to recover undercharges.

For one thing, it has left in place the Procedures Governing the Processing, Investigation, and Disposition of Overcharge, Unidentified Payment, Duplicate Payment, or Overcollection Claims, which were originally prescribed by the former Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in Ex Parte No. 342, which took effect on Dec. 21, 1979.

Basically, those procedures require carriers to:

• Acknowledge all such claims within 30 days of the date of receipt except where the carrier shall have paid or declined the claim in writing or electronically within that period.

• Dispose of all such claims within 60 days of the date of receipt except where the claimant and the carrier agree in writing or electronically to a specific extension based upon extenuating circumstances.

Note that the above procedures apply to all regulated motor carriers and freight forwarders. For those carriers party to the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC), the procedures are published near the end of the current issue-NMFC 100-Z (on Pages 709 and 710)-along with a sample Standard Form for Presentation of Overcharge Claim (on Pages 713 and 714).

On Aug. 26, 1994, when it passed the Trucking Industry Regulatory Reform Act of 1994 (TIRRA), Congress shortened the time limits for filing overcharge and undercharge claims. Those limits:

• Require shippers desiring to "contest" original billings or undercharge bills to do so within 180 days of the date of the bill's receipt.

• Require carriers issuing balance-due bills to do so within 180 days of the payor's receipt of the original bill.

Then, when it passed the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 a year later, Congress left unchanged a provision in the Negotiated Rates Act of 1993 that changed the statute of limitations for filing suits for recovery of such claims to 18 months. It had previously been two years.

You may want to keep a copy of these time limits handy to make sure that you don't forfeit otherwise collectable claims of this type because of missed deadlines. Staying aware of these deadlines will also help ensure that you don't inadvertently pay any undercharge claims for which you may no longer be legally liable.

Ray Bohman is a well-known consultant and author. Mr. Bohman is editor of several highly successful newsletters on transportation and is a consultant to a number of national trade associations. He is president of The Bohman Group, consultants and publishers in the freight-transportation field. His offices are located at 27 Bay Lane, Chatham, MA 02633. Phone: (508) 945-2272.