How to Vet a Carrier Before You Tender the Load

None of these checks takes long, and the one that gets skipped is the one that works.

Authority, from the source

Look the USDOT number up in FMCSA’s own records rather than trusting a screenshot or a PDF in the packet. Confirm the status is active, the authority type is motor carrier, and the legal name matches every document you have been sent.

One thing changed recently. FMCSA stopped issuing MC numbers on 1 October 2025, so the USDOT number is the federal identifier you check. An older carrier still has an MC number in legacy records, which is not a red flag on its own. A carrier who can only give you an MC number, with no USDOT number to look up, is worth a second question.

• Confirm the operating status is active and there is no out-of-service order.
• Confirm the authority type is motor carrier. A broker authority answering a truckload posting is a load that is about to be re-brokered.
• Check how long it has been active, and whether it was reinstated after a long dormancy. A quiet authority that suddenly wakes up is a well-known hijacking pattern.
• Check the legal name and DBA against the name on every document you have been sent. Small mismatches matter here.

Insurance, direct from the agent

Do not accept a certificate emailed by the carrier. Certificates are trivially edited, and a forged one is the second half of most identity-theft cases. Request it from the agent or insurer listed on the FMCSA filing.

Confirm four things when it arrives: the named insured matches the carrier exactly, the limits meet your requirements, the policy is current, and your brokerage is listed as certificate holder so you are notified on cancellation. The federal minimum for general freight is $750,000 of public liability, which is a floor almost nobody actually operates at.

Check cargo coverage against the commodity rather than against a default. A $100,000 cargo limit is standard and is nowhere near enough for a full trailer of electronics or pharmaceuticals.

Safety record

Review the carrier’s inspection and crash history and its safety measurement scores. You are not looking for perfection, because every carrier that runs enough miles collects violations. You are looking for a pattern that suggests the load will not arrive: repeated out-of-service violations, a cluster of unsafe-driving entries, or an alert on a category that matters to your freight.

Weigh it against the freight. A carrier you would not put a tanker with may be perfectly appropriate for a light dry-van run, and refusing every carrier with a blemish is how a brokerage ends up with no capacity.

The identity checks that catch the fraud

The common attack is not an invented company. It is a real carrier’s USDOT number presented with a different phone number, a different email domain and different banking details. Every check below exists to find that gap.

1. Call the number on the FMCSA record. Not the one in the email signature or on the packet. If nobody there knows about the load you just tendered, you have found a hijacked number before it cost you anything.
2. Look at the email domain. Free webmail, or a domain registered a few weeks ago, on a company claiming years of operation, is worth a second call.
3. Check the address. A mailbox service shared by dozens of unrelated carriers is a signal. So is an address that does not match anything else in the packet.
4. Watch for recent changes. A phone number, address or email updated on the FMCSA record within the last few weeks, on an older authority, deserves a direct call to confirm the change was real.
5. Be careful with urgency. A carrier pushing to skip setup steps on freight nobody else wanted is applying pressure for a reason.

Put it in the carrier agreement

• An explicit prohibition on re-brokering or subcontracting without written consent, with a stated consequence.
• A requirement to notify you of any change of insurance, authority status or payment details.
• Consent to tracking, and agreement on how it will be provided.
• A clear statement that payment goes only to the entity named in the agreement or its factor of record.

Verify again at pickup

Onboarding is a snapshot; the load is the moment. Confirm the driver name and the tractor and trailer numbers match what dispatch told you, ask the shipper to note them on the bill of lading, and a photograph of the truck at the dock costs nobody anything. If a different carrier’s truck arrives, the load has been re-brokered and you want to know before it leaves, not when two people invoice you for it.

That failure has a mirror image on the carrier side, and reading both lists together is the fastest way to understand the whole thing: how to spot a double-brokered load.

Monitor, do not just onboard

Authority lapses, insurance cancels, and safety scores move. Re-check anyone you have not tendered to in a few months, and set your process so a carrier cannot be dispatched on an expired certificate.

The bottom lineLook the number up yourself, get the certificate from the insurer, and call the phone number FMCSA has on file rather than the one you were given. Almost every carrier fraud case fails one of those three.