Dumpster Brokers: The Truth You Should Know

This piece is especially timely right now, because there are always outsiders looking to “make a buck” off of local tragedy. When natural disaster strikes, as it has in Southeast Texas recently with Imelda, predatory businesses sometimes try to use the circumstances to their advantage, mostly at the expense of true locals.

“What is a dumpster broker anyway?”

In short, they are middlemen. Brokers often act as if they are a local dumpster service, when in fact they don’t own any dumpsters and are definitely not locally based or owned. If you are the average person looking for quotes or pricing info for local dumpsters, rolloffs, storage containers, etc. and you have ever done a simple search through Google, Bing, or another search engine, then you have likely seen a broker advertising as if they were local.

Dumpster brokers are sometimes hard to spot because they typically don’t announce the fact that they are a broker. They actively seek unused local addresses and phone numbers to advertise on their websites. But when you call them and ask for a return phone number, they will often give you a direct line that is out of State or toll-free. These guys answering the phone often want to make a commission, can be pushy about securing terms soon, and will insist on theirs being “the best deal locally”. The broker businesses they represent want to charge you more for using the same products and services you could find locally with a phone book directory or simple word of mouth referral.

You can avoid these companies (and extra fees!) by calling known dumpster providers in your area!

One quick way to check if the company is truly local is to edit your search terms for another city. For example, if you searched for “local rolloff Beaumont Texas” and have come across a company that might be a broker, change your search. Have it read “local rolloff San Antonio Texas”, or Houston, Austin, etc. instead. If the very same company comes up as local and has a different phone number for each area code, that is a red flag that this is not a locally-owned company. It’s a broker.

Besides the increased cost of using brokers, communication pitfalls are another inevitable result if you aren’t choosing truly local companies.

“Information on getting what you want, where you want it, when you want it now travels through a third party. Details and advice on sizes, placement, payment, loading and more all get short-changed. Broker’s information is usually somewhat vague because they advertise the same services and roll-off containers to every city in the country with one website.”

From Sam Stankie of Sam’s Hauling Inc. in Denver, CO.
Source.

If you need to make last minute adjustments and update your delivery driver directly, going through a third-party can cause delays and confusion. If you are not sure about the size of rolloff you need for your specific projects, a local company’s best interest is to customize your work order to your needs. However, a broker’s main concern is making money as the middleman and may not give the best advice on which size container to use.

|REMEMBER| A reputable, local dumpster/rolloff rental company will be licensed, insured, and upfront about its pricing structure. Avoid broker websites that have vague, outdated information, or very generalized details but no pricing information anywhere.

Do you have any experiences with brokers like this? We would love to know your thoughts about them and any tips on how to look out for their tricks.