Comcheck and EFS Money-Code Fees

A money code is an advance, not free money

A Comchek or an EFS code is a way to pay a lumper, a vendor, or a driver before the freight bill is paid. The issuer loads an amount and charges a fee for creating that instrument. The person at the dock receives the loaded amount. Someone in the settlement chain pays the loaded amount plus the fee. Calling it a code makes it sound like a password. It is an advance of the broker's or the carrier's money, and it comes back off a check.

Split the numbers out loud. The lumper's price. The fee. The total that will be deducted if you are the one holding the bag. Drivers add the first number and forget the second until the settlement. Brokers add the first number into the rate con as a lumper reimbursement and leave the fee unmentioned. The unmentioned fee is the surprise this page is about. There is no federal schedule for it. The issuer's agreement and the rate confirmation are the only prices.

How to use Comcheck explains the mechanics of the instrument. Do not look here for the screen at the truck stop. Fuel advances is the same idea applied to fuel. The fee logic is the same. The commodity is different.

Percent fees versus a flat fee

Some codes charge a percent of the amount loaded. Some charge a flat fee. Some charge both a small flat fee and a percent above an amount. None of those structures is published here as the going rate, because a going rate invented in an article becomes a fake tariff. Read the fee disclosure before the code is issued. If the only number you know is the lumper's number, you do not yet know the cost of paying the lumper this way.

A percent fee hurts more as the lumper bill grows. A flat fee hurts more on a small lumper, as a share of the advance. You can see that without a national average. Write the actual fee next to the actual lumper on the receipt envelope. If the fee is unacceptable, do not generate the code. Paying cash you will not get back, or waiting to put the lumper on the freight bill, may be cheaper. Those are the comparisons in a later section. They require the real fee, not a rumor.

Who eats it: broker, carrier, or both

The rate confirmation or the advance agreement has to name the payer. "Lumper reimbursed" might mean the principal only. "Lumper and fees reimbursed" includes the code fee. Silence means you should assume the fee is yours and ask before the code exists. A broker who says "we'll take care of it" on the phone has not named the payer. Ask for the sentence on the revised rate con: amount authorized, fee paid by broker or by carrier, receipt required.

Sometimes the broker pays the principal and the carrier pays the fee, which is a split. Write the split down. A settlement that deducts both, after a sentence that said the broker pays both, is a short-pay you can dispute. A settlement that deducts the fee after a silent rate con is the assumption you failed to challenge in time. The setoff page is how a lumper code becomes a deduction from the freight bill. Keep the fee labeled as a code fee so it is not relabeled as cargo damage.

The receipt you need to get it back

The reimbursement file is the lumper receipt with the company, the date, the amount, and a total that matches the code's principal. A photo of a hand-written number that does not match is a dispute. No receipt is a gift. Brokers deny the accessorial when the receipt is missing, and they are often following their own rule. A factor that purchased the invoice will charge back the deduction. The factor did not stand at the dock. The receipt is the document that makes the advance into a reimbursable charge.

Get the receipt before you leave the door. Do not drive off on a promise that the office will email it. If the crew will not write a receipt, do not fund them with a code you cannot bill. Tell the broker in writing that the lumper will not receipt the payment, and wait for an instruction. An instruction to pay anyway, without a receipt, should say the broker will reimburse without one. Save that instruction. It is the substitute for the paper the dock refused to give you.

When a factor advance or quick pay is cheaper

The code fee is not the only way to fund a lumper. The broker might add the lumper to the freight bill and pay it on the normal term, if the lumper will wait or if you can pay the lumper from your own cash. The broker might offer quick pay on the whole invoice for a percent. A factor might already be advancing the invoice, so using a code on top is a second advance with a second fee. The quick-pay break-even page compares percents when you have real percents. This page will not supply them.

Lay the choices on one line. Code fee, if you know it, to get the lumper paid now. Your own cash, reimbursed later, with no code fee if the broker agrees. Quick pay, if the offer is real. Do not generate a code because it is the habit at that warehouse. Habit is how the fee stays invisible.

Scams that start with "I'll send a code"

A code is also a way to move stolen value. Someone who is not the broker on your rate confirmation texts a code and asks you to cash it, keep a portion, and send the rest, or asks you to pay a "lumper" who is their friend. That is the pattern on the fuel-advance scam page. Do not cash it. Do not split it. Call the broker using the number on the rate confirmation you already trusted, not the number in the text. A real broker can issue a code through the channel you already use. A new sender with a helpful code is not a new vendor. They are a reason to stop.

Do not publish, and do not follow, a recipe for turning a code into cash at a specific counter. The mechanics guide exists for legitimate use. This page's last rule is the refusal.

The truck-stop buttons are the other article. The fee is this one.

If the code is for more than the lumper receipt, the extra is not a tip the settlement will understand. A $200 code for a $180 lumper leaves $20 that looks like a fee, a shortage, or an undocumented advance. Match the principal to the receipt exactly, and let the code fee sit on its own line. Overloading the code "just in case" is how the reimbursement gets denied for the whole amount instead of paid for the lumper.

Store the code number, the fee, and the receipt in the load folder the same day. A code number you cannot find cannot be reconciled when the broker's remittance uses a different description. The folder is what keeps the fee from being argued as something it was not.

Frequently Asked Questions