Central Dispatch accused of data mining! | General Auto Transport Discussions | Forum

Is this still happening, or are they behaving now?

A while back I complained that Central Dispatch would not allow a connection from the assignment page on Central to the carrier's EZDispatch progam. Now that very feature is at the center of an allegation that Central Dispatch is mining Carrier/Broker data to use as sales leads. Now I am glad I didn't get involved in that one! I will just wait and see how this one shakes out. These are some really serious allegations but unfortunately almost impossible to prove. Here is a partial quote from the Autohauler Shopper forums:

by TonyUFN on Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:43 pm

If you are using Central Dispatch for your loads, this is something that you might not be aware of. There have been several conversations with brokers & carriers that suggest that there is a little more than dispatching going on here.

When speaking with a broker, it has become a suspicion that Central Dispatch it soliciting the customers. Maybe this has happened on one of your loads and you noticed something fishy about it.

When you ask a broker on CD to dispatch the load to you on Central, the information on the dispatch gets filled in by the broker, with Origination and Destination information. It is obvious that the information is sitting within Centrals database. Now realize that Central now has direct access to the customer information. Here is the suspicion…

Central now solicits the customer(typically a dealership) for an account on CD thereby bypassing the broker completely.

Back on October 7th I reported on Central Dispatch's new focus to go after dealers directly and Tony's post seems to simply lay out what looks like a very easy path to get there!

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