subject: Am I Going To Have To Pay For A Fuel Surcharge? [print this page] Whenever you ship something with a courier, it just comes as part of the process that you are going to have to pay for a variety of surcharges and fees when it comes to the bill that you're going to get. Houston courier service companies assess these fees in a variety of ways. The good news is that they're legally obligated to explain all these fees to you if you request an explanation. One of the trickiest of these fees is something called the fuel surcharge, because it seems like sometimes it will be there, and other times it will not.
The fuel surcharge is a direct financial response to when fuel prices jump in your area. If gas prices go up sharply in Chicago all of a sudden, you can expect to see fuel surcharges start appearing on the bills issues by couriers in that city.
What usually happens is because of the volatility of gas prices. When prices spike sharply, the couriers are forced to add a fuel surcharge. If the prices go back down, they may reduce or remove that charge in the future. However, if gas prices stay high long enough that it appears that they may not go back down, the courier company may simply adjust their overall base rates rather than leaving the fuel surcharge. So you'll pay a higher base courier rate but the surcharge will be gone. At least until the next price increase on fuel in your area.
The reason that the courier companies do this at all is because of how they pay their drivers. One thing that is a courier driver's responsibility out of the money he makes is the fuel that goes in their vehicles. This represents their single largest expense. So if fuel costs go up sharply, they are in effect faced with a much reduced profit margin for their time.
Good courier companies, like any other good company, value the work of their best employees. They don't want to lose those employees, which is definitely a possibility if they don't take action when those employees find their salaries suddenly slashed due to external economics. The fuel surcharge is in essence just an employee retention policy. This is clearly not a bid for increased profit, and so is actually one of the surcharges of fees that you should worry about the least among those your courier may add to your invoice.
by: Henry Davis
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