Advertising Paid Services in Posts

Wardner wrote:Greg L,

I offered to back haul coal into New England on the "Need Coal, Post it here" thread and Richard S deleted it a week ago..

I don't get it. I thought this forum was about helping people.

As I explained in the PM your post was clearly an advertisement for profit. A more accurate statement would be "I offered to haul coal into New England for a profit". If you want to advertise a service here I'll gladly quote you a price on it.

I already give a tremendous amount of leeway for free advertisement to many companies but that comes with the territory, I don't suppose you thought about putting your services in your signature have you? Shows how many people read the rules... however posting prices and rates for your own company or only posting into topics offering services like another poster did is where I'm going to draw the line. If i let one person do it the next thing i have is hundreds doing it, after that they'll be butting into every thread that even mentions the possibility of a delivery and I don't want that.

Profit ???

You have to be kidding. I offered $70-$100 per ton not knowing what breaker I would be sent to. Nor did I know where the delivery was located. It could have been RI, NH, or ME. Not exactly on my route. My truck can handle 3 tons bulk or 4 tons bagged. But 4 tons is an illegal overload.

When I made the original post, I was thinking I might need to go to Scranton. Most breakers are south or west of there. The distance from Scranton to most breakers is a double dead head for me. In addition to that, I didn't know how many tons I would be hauling. If somebody wanted one or two pallets, the numbers just don't work in my situation.

So I spend 20-30 minutes at the breaker. If I were hauling bags, who knows how much time it would take to unload. Not many homeowners own a forklift.

I am looking to offset expenses. Period. The Diamond T from CA was quoted by professionals at $2800.

Are you aware that Diesel is over $4.50 per gallon? I would use approximately 60 gallons. That comes to $270 for just the fuel. A lot more if I haul a loaded trailer. Using a price range on the shipping means it is negotiable.

Bulk coal in my area cost around $300 per ton delivered. If a buyer spends $140 for the coal and $100/ton for the shipping, he is saving $60 per ton. If he buys now instead of Sept, he will likely save $100 per ton. It's gonna get bad soon.

As for the signature, I am not a trucker. I do look for back hauls when I need to go somewhere in my truck. And by the way, I did not butt into this thread. There were half a dozen posts about shipping before i posted.

Wardner its not up for discussion and I'm not going to argue about it. If you're going to be offering paid services i don't care if you are making $0 or $20,000. When you list rates and how much you can haul that's an advertisement for services. I don't want posts like that, period.

If you had posted I'm heading to coal country and coming back empty and if someone wants to pay for my expense it would have been fine by me as long as its not a constant thing such as the other poster I mentioned that did nothing but that.

See what I'm driving at? If I allow people to do that it will turn into spam fest and that's not going to happen.

Wardner wrote:. And by the way, I did not butt into this thread. There were half a dozen posts about shipping before i posted.

I didn't say you did but if i allow people to make posts like yours that's what will happen. I'm not saying particularly you but anyone in general.