The town of Signal Hill, California, surrounded by Long Beach, is home to just 11,500 people according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But a look at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's registration system for carriers and brokers reveals the town also houses the principal address for more than 1,200 motor carriers and brokers, and more than 600 of those seem to be mocking the very agency meant to police them.
Freight broker Direct Expedite LLC President and CEO Dale Prax noticed these details and posted them on LinkedIn on April 19, strongly implying that this was a hive of fake carriers engaged in double brokering.
Prax has since deleted the fiery LinkedIn post, after he found some factual errors related to the number of carriers and how many were active or not, but he stands behind the post's central thrust: Something is not right here.
An Overdrive review of some the data found did find more than 900 entities (not all active) listed a Signal Hill address, 3377 California Avenue, as their principal place of business. "A single, 2,000-square-foot building in the town is home to an astonishing" number of carriers, Prax wrote in that since-deleted LinkedIn post, with hundreds of these companies sharing the same phone number and "the cheeky email 'WTFFMCSA@aol.com' registered with the FMCSA."
"If they each own a truck, where are they going to park it?" Prax said.
May 2022-taken Google Street View image of 3377 California Avenue in Signal Hill, California. Is that a no truck parking sign on the right?Google
A fleet that lists its physical address with the FMCSA at 3377 California Avenue told Overdrive that it is the office of a registered agent, or a company that handles business set-up with the state, authority filings and/or other administrative duties. A registered agent's address may house thousands of businesses, but may or may not store the physical documents for the business, as is required of trucking fleets' principal place of business, among other guidance most recently published in this 2009 Federal Register notice.
