This may seem weird to some, but did you know there’s such a thing as a dumpster broker? Chances are, if you’ve stumbled across our website looking for dumpster rental prices and services, there’s a very good chance you’ve been on a dumpster broker’s website and may not have even realized it! These middle-men/brokers could be good or bad depending on your perspective. If you’re shopping for a dumpster company, even if it’s not us, read on for some great information!
When we first started our roll-off business, we had never heard of such a thing as a dumpster broker. It seemed so simple like our snow plowing and lawn care business, the customer contacts our business, we make an agreement, and the service is provided. But when we started advertising on Google, we quickly realized it wasn’t just other local dumpster businesses advertising, we were getting beat out by a bunch of “companies” we’d never even heard of! Once we started getting calls from those “companies” to rent our dumpsters, we knew there was an issue.
What’s happening, is these companies are creating fancy websites, ads, and call centers, that look like local businesses, and they’re very good at convincing the customer to rent “their dumpster”. Often times this is achieved by offering a price substantially lower than other local companies. The only problem, is they don’t own any trucks or dumpsters, so the service they’re promising you, has to be provided by someone else. So once they’ve given you the hard sell and take your payment, they start calling local dumpster businesses like ours to provide the promised service to the customer. The problem for the customer, is that businesses like ours already offer the best price we can, so we refuse to lower our price any further for these middle-men. As a result, what they’re charging the customer, is usually at least $100 higher than our price, as they need to pay for their fancy websites, ads, and call centers. As you can tell, this doesn’t benefit the customer’s checkbook!
These brokers, when they get between the company providing the actual service, and the customer, also create a lot of customer service nightmares due to mis-communications. When we provide a dumpster to our customer, we make sure to clearly understand when the customer needs the dumpster delivered, when it needs to be picked up, where on the customer’s property they would like the dumpster placed, etc. We also communicate with our customers regarding prohibited items, and extra charge items, as the last thing the customer wants is any surprise charges after the rental is complete. With a middle-man interested only in making a profitable sale, these communications don’t happen, and the customers usually end up frustrated!
So, is there such a thing as a “good” dumpster broker? Yes, there can be in some limited scenarios. We’ve provided dumpsters for large events, such as marathons and bike races, where the end customer simply doesn’t have the staff or time to call around to local dumpster businesses to rent the multiple dumpsters in multiple different cities for their event. In this case, the customer knowingly pays more to have the broker handle the booking of the dumpsters for them. We’ve also rented dumpsters for emergency needs such as a cooler breakdown at a Walmart, remodeling project at an Arby’s, missed trash pickup at a Chipotle, etc. These dumpster needs are almost always handled by a 3rd party broker, hired by the corporations that own these stores, as these transactions rarely happen at the store level. These are scenarios where brokers can be beneficial to the customer, but for the average homeowner or small contractor, having a broker in the midst of this simple transaction is not in their best interest.
How can you prevent being snookered by these middle-men profit machines? First, pay attention to the number you’re calling. Most local companies aren’t using an 800 number, it should be a local area code. While this will eliminate a good share of brokers, there are a few snatching up local numbers using VOIP lines to trick the customer, but this is still pretty rare due to the added cost. Second, find out where the company you’re hiring is located. If there’s even a second of hesitation on the part of the pleasant-sounding customer service person you’re speaking with, you’re talking to a broker. Local companies have no need to hide their location, it will be proudly displayed on their website or by the person you’ve called if booking over the phone. Lastly, if the price seems to good to be true, it probably is. There are no $250 dumpsters any more, these sweet low prices are always nothing more than a hook, and the customer will likely pay 3 times that by the time they add on their fees, weight charges, etc. Booking a dumpster through a broker is never cheaper than hiring a local business, no matter what promises they make, there is simply no cost savings to be had in the transporting of dumpsters or disposal of trash by hiring them; and these brokers certainly aren’t building fancy websites, paying for fancy advertisements, or staffing call centers with friendly people so they can work at a loss after hiring the local dumpster business to provide the service.
We hope that this article sheds a little light on what is becoming all too common (and frustrating for us and the customer) in this industry. Even if you don’t end up renting from us, we believe knowledge is power, and educated consumers benefit everybody.