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With fraud on the rise across the transportation industry, it’s more important than ever to protect yourself at every step of the process. Read these guidelines to make sure you’re staying safe from dispatch to delivery.

Secure Your Account*

Verify Your Carrier Partners

Communicate In-Platform

View Real-Time Tracking

Confirm ID At Pick-Up

Trust Our Team

Learn more about staying safe while transporting vehicles at centraldispatch.com/secure


*While Central Dispatch is here to support you with best practices to keep your account secure, you are responsible for any conduct that occurs on your account.

See how Real-Time Tracking sends live location and delivery updates to your device for more visibility and confidence for every shipment.

The Central Dispatch dashboard is getting even better. You can now customize to show whichever widgets you’d like that are most relevant to your business. Showcase what’s most important to you while hiding anything you don’t need to see in order to save time and streamline your view. 

Sign in to begin customizing your dashboard today! 

Dispatching vehicles through phone calls or texts can expose you to fraud. See how our platform’s dispatch experience helps protect you.

See how we can help shippers find reputable carrier partners with FMCSA details, insurance information, and Transactional Ratings.

For carrier best practices, access our carrier security guide here.

Together, we can make the logistics industry safer

With fraud on the rise in our industry, shipping vehicles safely has never been more important. To help our shippers meet this challenging moment, we’ve taken major steps to make secure and confident shipping easier. But everyone has a role to play – while we’ve strengthened our tools and processes, it’s important that you also take steps to protect yourself.  

So be sure to read our best practices for staying safe and secure from listing to delivery, so you can use Central Dispatch with maximum confidence and security.

Secure Your Account

Sharing your sign-in details with others, even people who work for you, can expose you to fraud and unauthorized access. So, we highly recommend setting up User Management as soon as you activate your account with us.

This gives contractors, employees, or people outside your organization their own Central Dispatch login credentials and minimizes the risks of identity theft when sharing your own account credentials. You can also set guardrails on what business information they can view, helping you avoid potential account security risks.

Plus, with reinforced multi-factor authentication, every Central Dispatch account has an extra layer of protection from unauthorized access. Your mobile phone number is the preferred verification method, and the most secure.

Be sure to be cautious about who you add as a user, and always vet any third party companies or contractors before giving them an account under User Management. Account owners and admins should regularly review the user activity history to monitor for unexpected changes.

While Central Dispatch is here to support you with best practices to keep your account secure, you are responsible for any conduct that occurs on your account.

Verify Your Carrier Before Dispatching 

Many cases of fraud can be avoided with a few important security checks before dispatching, and all of them can be done easily from the carrier’s Central Dispatch profile.  

Check their FMCSA details with our FMCSA checklist, which displays a carrier’s current USDOT#, MC# (if applicable), verification of address, and more. Authorized and reputable carriers will have this information up-to-date.  

You can also view any available insurance documents they’ve uploaded to Central Dispatch. Consider contacting the provider and asking to be added as a certificate holder (COI), and conducting your own validation of their insurance outside the Central Dispatch platform.

Finally, view the carrier’s Transactional Ratings. There you’ll find detailed reviews for transactions they’ve completed on Central Dispatch, and get a clear idea of their behavior and reliability. If any suspicious business practices are called out in ratings, we highly recommend not partnering with them.

Secure Communications During Transit

It’s best to keep as much communication as possible within our platform. Dispatching and communicating through private phone calls, emails, and texts exposes you to fraud. 

So, be sure to always dispatch vehicles using our fully electronic dispatch system. Assigning vehicles to carriers allows you to easily see carrier data on the dispatch page in order to review key details before assigning to a carrier, and greatly reduces the risk of falling victim to fake texts and phone calls. Additionally, you may encourage your carrier partner to assign each load to a specific driver. This lets you verify the driver’s identity at pickup and gives you better visibility into your shipments. 

You can also request your carriers to use the Central Dispatch carrier mobile app and enable real-time tracking. This allows for maximum visibility and transparency into shipment location and status.

Get Documentation at Pickup

Before a carrier releases a vehicle to you, it’s important to confirm the delivery truck has an MC number that matches the dispatch sheet, and check their driver’s license against the assigned driver on the dispatch sheet (if assigned). 

After the delivery is complete, always rate and review your carrier partner honestly. It’s a great way for the Central Dispatch community to help each other avoid bad actors, reward honest carriers who do good work, and create a more transparent marketplace for everyone. You can also choose to publish your review later at a later date, so you can more confidently and honestly rate your partners.  

In the Event of Fraud

If you do fall victim to fraud, it’s critical to immediately contact the authorities and file a police report in the jurisdiction of the incident. Provide any information you can to local law enforcement, and also report the incident to the USDOT’s Inspector General, file a complaint with the FMCSA National Consumer Complaint Database, or contact the Federal Trade Commission.

We also encourage you to report the incident to our dedicated Marketplace Integrity Team. These are dedicated transportation experts who are here to take feedback from our customers and address security issues.

Steps We’re Taking To Help You Ship Safely 

Central Dispatch is making significant strides in addressing this challenge in our industry, and meaningfully reducing the level of fraud.  

We are constantly evolving our vetting process alongside the changing market landscape to ensure only legitimate companies gain access to our marketplace, and shippers can more confidently find partners. 

We’ve also formed the Marketplace Integrity Team that is dedicated to combating fraud and helping you stay secure. This team collaborates directly with Cox Security and other enterprise teams to investigate issues, deactivate fraudulent accounts, and proactively protect our customers.

We’re partnering with other industry leaders to lobby Congress, advocating for stronger protections against automotive fraud and encouraging action and accountability from the FMCSA.

We all play a part in building a safer, more secure marketplace for shipping vehicles. Let’s keep working together to protect our industry from fraud and ensure Central Dispatch remains a trusted platform for everyone.

See how we help you protect your account data and sensitive business information from unauthorized logins.

Welcome to Central Dispatch! See how to post vehicles, choose a partner with confidence, and dispatch to carriers on the platform.

Transcript:

Welcome to Central Dispatch! 

This quick-start guide will get you on your way to shipping your first vehicle with us. 

To post a vehicle listing, first log into your Central Dispatch account. From the Account Dashboard, click “Ship Vehicles” and click “Create Load” in the drop down menu.  

Next, fill in all your listing information. Start with the vehicle’s pick up location, and then delivery location. 

Scroll down and enter the trailer type and vehicle type. From here, you can see what the current market rate is for vehicles of a similar type and distance using the Price Check tool. You’ll get a table of recent listings, the listed price, and if the job was dispatched.  

Central Dispatch Premium users have the option to use Price Check Plus, which shows you even more real-time market data for more informed decisions, and delivers AI predictive-pricing to ensure you get the most optimal rate possible. 

You can then enter your desired pickup and delivery date and the price you’re willing to pay.  

Now you’re ready to either post to the load board, or dispatch directly to a preferred carrier. No need to double enter! Our seamless data transfer means you can take either option from the same dashboard. 

If posting to the load board, you can expect a call within 15-30 minutes — our carriers are always looking for new jobs. 

You should always review a carrier’s Central Dispatch profile and ratings before doing business with them. Use the carrier scorecard for a quick snap shot of their ratings and authorization, or, get more details on their profile. 

To find a carrier’s profile, enter their name in the “Company Search” bar.  

There, you’ll see their complete FMCSA details. Review these closely to verify the carrier is active and authorized. Review insurance documents provided on their profile, and contact the agent to verify their insurance information is up-to-date. 

You’ll also see a carrier’s overall Central Dispatch rating, as well as ratings for different categories like Timeliness, Communication, and Documentation.  

Central Dispatch also provides ratings at the transactional level — so you can see how exactly they’ve performed on previous jobs and identify any suspicious activity to avoid unreliable partners. 

Once you’ve chosen a carrier, dispatching them is easy with fully electronic dispatch.  

From the Account Dashboard, click “Find Shipments,” then click “Manage Listings” in the drop down menu. 

Here, you can find the vehicle you want to dispatch, and click “assign.” No paperwork required.  

The Assigned Loads tab is also where you’ll keep track of all your listings and shipments. Whether they’re currently listed, dispatched, or have been delivered.  

All these important records are automatically updated, and can be accessed anytime, anywhere there’s an internet connection, as long as you maintain your Central Dispatch subscription. 

For shipments with real-time tracking enabled, you’ll see the “Location Tracking On” bullet on the dispatch card. Simply hit the “Track Shipment” button to view the vehicle’s live location on an interactive map, as well as the latest delivery status updates.  

If you ever want to view your account and subscription information, click “Billing.” Here you can get detailed information on your account billing, and make any changes to your plan.  

That’s all for now. Thanks for choosing Central Dispatch! 

Please contact us with any questions, and visit the resources section of our website for even more videos and guides. 

We look forward to getting you connected with the largest network of carriers in the industry! 

We are excited to share a recent Auto Remarketing Podcast featuring our very own, Lainey Sibble, Head of Business for Central Dispatch, and Eric Schwartz, Head of Product. In this special episode, they dive into the pressing issue of fraud in the vehicle transportation industry, the role we all play in combatting it, and how Central Dispatch is uniquely positioned to lead the way in developing the technology, operational controls and practical tools to help combat fraud.

Auto Remarketing Podcast · SPONSORED EPISODE: Combating Fraud in Transportation and Logistics

With cargo fraud experiencing a 1,500% increase since 2022, it remains one of the most critical issues within the logistics industry due to the high value of goods and vehicles in transport as well as the multiple players and touchpoints involved in the end-to-end process. Lainey and Eric discuss how Central Dispatch, as part of Cox Automotive, plays a vital role in addressing these challenges head on. As well as the important role we ALL play to help curb fraud in our industry.

They explore trends in fraud, including increasingly sophisticated tactics employed by bad actors and the role identity theft plays as a major root cause. And discuss the technological advancements, operational enhancements, practical tools and educational resources that help shippers and carriers stay vigilant and be better safeguarded against fraudulent activity at every step – from log-in through delivery.

For anyone interested in learning more about how to be better protected from fraud, this podcast offers valuable information, directly from industry leaders at the nation’s largest self-managed auto transportation marketplace, Central Dispatch.

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