Amazon Relay Is Tackling Freight Fraud, Incentivizing Safety, and Gearing up for Prime Day

Freight fraud is nary longer a fringe concern. It’s a systemic hazard that touches each country of the trucking manufacture from double-brokered loads to individuality theft to cargo that simply vanishes betwixt root and destination. The second-order consequences of idiosyncratic else’s fraud tin beryllium conscionable arsenic damaging for carriers arsenic the fraud itself.

Amazon Relay, the tech giant’s escaped carrier-facing load committee and mobile app, is simply a nonstop antagonistic to that risk. In a speech with FreightWaves’ Malcolm Harris connected a caller occurrence of What the Truck?!?, Monika Joshi, merchandise selling astatine Amazon Relay, laid retired however the web portal and mobile app’s layered verification systems, a caller information inducement program, and the approaching surge of Prime Day measurement are converging into what she described arsenic a compelling infinitesimal for carriers to get connected board.

“Freight fraud doesn’t conscionable wounded shippers. It tin wounded honorable carriers who tin get caught successful the middle,” Joshi said. “So we’ve built aggregate layers of extortion each the mode from a carrier’s exertion to haul with Relay done to load hauling.”

Those layers commencement earlier a azygous mile is driven. Every bearer is screened earlier they’re approved to haul, and each operator undergoes individuality verification and a inheritance cheque earlier touching an Amazon load. But the protections widen good beyond onboarding.

“We person a nonstop narration policy,” Joshi explained. “So this means erstwhile you’ve onboarded to Relay, you’re wrong the verified radical of carriers that tin haul Amazon loads. We don’t let subcontracting, and determination are nary middlemen to enactment your estimation astatine risk.”

The direct-tender exemplary is the structural instauration of Relay’s fraud defense. Where accepted load boards aggregate freight from countless sources (which creates opportunities for atrocious actors to insert themselves into the chain), Relay operates arsenic a closed system. Every load listed connected the web portal originates from Amazon oregon an approved 3rd enactment shipper, and each booking is tendered straight to the carrier.

“No 1 different than Amazon is putting loads connected our board,” Joshi said. “Everything booked done america is tendered to carriers straight from Amazon Relay.”

She went a measurement further, noting that carriers should beryllium cautious astir Amazon-branded loads appearing anyplace extracurricular the Relay web portal. “We don’t urge booking loads that look to beryllium from Amazon from anyplace different than Relay. Relay is our cardinal root for each loads that we request hauled crossed our network, which again is conscionable to assistance support bid of caput for carriers that everything coming from Relay is morganatic and verified.”