- Time pressure is a reason to verify a carrier twice, not a reason to skip checks.
- “I’ll send the documents later”, phone-only arrangements and requests to move conversations away from a verified channel were identified during the webinar as red flags.
- Any change involving the driver, vehicle, subcontractor or delivery address should be confirmed again.
- Experts recommend short, practical checklists that teams can use every day, rather than lengthy procedures that remain on paper.
- Rock Trans Spedition contacts carriers using details taken directly from their verified platform profiles.
- Trans.eu stresses the principle of “verify before release”: platform verification does not replace a company’s own checks before a load is handed over.
At the webinar “Cargo security and transport fraud during the Q4 peak season”, organised by the European Institute of Road Transport (EITD) in cooperation with Trans.eu, speakers warned that peak demand makes mistakes caused by time pressure more likely.
Agnieszka Wojnowska of XBS Logistics said one common failure is accepting a change without checking who authorised it. A replacement driver, vehicle, subcontractor or delivery address should pause the process and trigger an additional check.
Any change — whether it involves the driver, vehicle, subcontractor or delivery address — needs to be verified. A seemingly minor detail can protect a company from losing its load, Wojnowska stressed.
When order volumes surge, such a deviation can look like a routine operational adjustment. That is precisely when even small changes deserve closer scrutiny.
The first red flag: “I’ll send the documents later”
Małgorzata Łazowska of Senior Security Consulting Poland highlighted some of the clearest warning signs. One of them is time pressure. She described a carrier calling a freight forwarder to say that a truck was available, could arrive within 30 minutes and that the documents would follow later.
I’ve got a truck free and can be there in 30 minutes. I’ll send the documents later. That message should immediately trigger a red flag. Check the documents first, and only then release the order, Łazowska said.
In her view, urgency must never replace the verification process.
Arranging everything by phone is another warning sign
The second red flag is an attempt to arrange the entire transport by phone. Łazowska described a caller claiming to have seen the offer on a platform, have several trucks available and expect the order to be sent immediately. Phone calls are a normal part of transport operations, but key information and documents should also be checked through another channel.
Phone calls are part of our everyday work, but nothing should be agreed solely over the phone. Documents and the counterparty must be checked first, Łazowska said.
A third warning sign is an attempt to move the conversation away from the platform or to contact a company through a generic email domain.
Łazowska also pointed out that using Gmail or Yahoo does not automatically mean someone is committing fraud — many small businesses use these services. It should, however, lead to additional checks rather than the automatic approval of the counterparty.
Do not retype contact details — copy them from the verified profile
Elena Ladariu of the Romanian forwarding company Rock Trans Spedition described the process used by her business. If a carrier’s verified profile lists a specific email address, the employee copies that address and sends the order there. The same rule applies to phone calls: the forwarding team uses the number listed for the verified user.
Ladariu explained that the company uses the email address listed on the platform and calls only the number saved there. A call from another number does not automatically establish that the person represents the same company or is the correct contact.
Rock Trans Spedition also applies additional in-house checks. Ladariu said the company works only with carriers listed on the platforms it uses and requires at least 12 months of platform history. It also reviews the carrier’s previous transport work for other customers. These are the company’s own rules, not universal market requirements.
Ladariu said the stricter approach followed an earlier incident: a carrier that had been present on the platform for around five months collected a pallet of wine that never reached its destination. The company later disappeared.
Delivery address changed? The driver must call first
Rock Trans Spedition also follows a strict rule for changes to the unloading address. According to Ladariu, only the forwarding team may pass a new instruction to the driver. The company does not want customers arranging a new delivery location directly with the driver.
If you receive a different address, call us first. Do not drive to another unloading location without confirmation, Ladariu said, describing the rule used at Rock Trans Spedition.
The aim is to prevent criminals from impersonating the customer or transport organiser and redirecting the truck to another location.
A short checklist beats a procedure nobody uses
Łazowska said one of the biggest weaknesses is the absence of a clearly defined carrier-verification process. Her recommendation is a simple checklist that a freight forwarder can actually use in daily work, rather than a multi-page procedure that nobody opens.
You do not need a procedure spanning dozens of pages. You need a short, clear checklist that every freight forwarder can use when checking a carrier, Łazowska said.
The other webinar participants made similar points.
Agnieszka Wojnowska recommended a checklist covering the business partner, driver and vehicle, along with confirmation of unusual changes through a second communication channel.
Elena Ladariu, meanwhile, advocated building procedures gradually.
Set aside five minutes to check the carrier and start introducing procedures. Do not try to roll out a hundred controls at once, the Rock Trans Spedition representative advised.
The challenge is therefore not simply the absence of a procedure. Just as important is the gap between what a company has written down and what its employees actually do.
A platform can verify a company — but not its future intentions
Piotr Sobala, area leader for product security at Trans.eu, summed up the recommendations with the phrase “verify before release”.
We should not assume that someone else has completed the entire job for us. Companies are checked before they are admitted to the platform, but their future intentions cannot be verified, Sobala said.
A platform can check documents, licences and insurance. It cannot guarantee that a legitimate company’s account will not be taken over later. For that reason, a previous verification of the counterparty should never be treated as proof that all further risk has been eliminated.
Traditional document checks remain necessary, but companies must also respond when a familiar partner suddenly behaves differently — for example, by asking to move the conversation to another channel or making another unusual departure from the established way of working.
For high-value loads, the basic rule should be to use partners we already know and to recheck every significant or unusual change, Sobala said.
A few minutes of checks can prevent a lost load
The discussion came down to one central principle: a busy period must not lower security standards. During peak season, a freight forwarder may be particularly tempted to accept a carrier promising an immediately available truck. That is also the situation fraudsters may try to exploit.
So when someone says, “I have a truck available and will be there in 30 minutes,” the next step should not be to send the order faster. It should be to run the checklist: verify the documents, contact details, counterparty history and every unusual change.
As the webinar participants emphasised, security does not have to begin with an expensive system. It can start with a few straightforward rules that the company follows consistently every day.
