19% of Your Trucking Budget is Going to Fraud… How?

For every five dollars you’ll earn this year, one will go to fraudsters. It feels unbelievable that such a massive portion of your trucking budget will be lost to fraud… but the numbers don’t lie: 19% of current fleet spending is lost to fraud or theft. For small carriers, a loss of one-fifth of their budget can be financially fatal.

You might be wondering: How does so much of your own money get stolen?

There are three tactics criminals are using in 2026 to drain the budgets of nearly all carriers.

Here’s how they do it, and what you can do to get your money back.

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1. Cargo Theft

According to CargoNet, theft surged 60% in 2025. That’s an enormous increase in one year.

Experts estimate the average theft value of a load at ~$275,000. For even one theft, that’s already 20% of the budget for most medium-sized fleets.

You may be tempted to think that these thefts look like a quick smash and grab, but that’s what makes them so dangerous: Most freight theft is now digitally managed, carefully coordinated, and virtually silent.

Criminals have become so proficient at professional theft that only one in ten cases ever result in an arrest. So, if your load is stolen, you probably aren’t getting your money back, leaving enormous holes in your trucking budget.

2. Double Brokering

Double brokering refers to a criminal impersonating a carrier, accepting a load from a load board, reposting it to be hauled by an authentic carrier, and then vanishing with the payment. The aftermath for the carrier is a stolen load and a tarnished reputation.

Double brokering has increased by more than 400% over the last few years, partially buoyed by the rise of deepfakes and other malicious AI.

For example, the FBI recently arrested several bad actors in a national scheme involving hacking carrier email accounts, booking freight, and running off with the load. One of the loads that tipped off the feds? $325,000 worth of snow crabs. One theft like that can be crushing for your trucking budget.

3. Fuel Card Fraud

The average carrier allocates 35% of its budget to fuel. In 2025, the average carrier also spends 5% of that fuel budget on fraud.

Card skimming has become a recent favorite tool for criminals, rising more than 700%, more than 7x, in recent years. Now, with AI skimming making fuel fraud more seamless than ever, carriers should be vigilant.

Even aside from bad actors skimming and shimming, fleet owners also need to be wary of their own drivers filling up personal vehicles with a company fuel card.

A Complicated Cocktail

These three factors, theft, double brokering, and fuel fraud, only comprise a small portion of the ocean of strategies criminals employ to steal from carriers, as we haven’t even mentioned anything of identity theft, phishing, etc.

With the overwhelming bombardment of criminal strategies, what can a trucker do to protect their trucking budget?

How to Protect Your Budget from Fraud

You probably know all the standard safety protocols: inspect email addresses, verify identity with security questions, remain alert to industry-wide scams… and the list goes on.

Though these strategies are invaluable, there is one service that dispels fraud and increases profits simultaneously.

Freight factoring through England Carrier Services fights fraud in three critical ways:

1. Factoring enables healthy cash flow, eliminating desperation.

Tragically, many carriers fall victim to fraud when they are most financially vulnerable. When payment doesn’t come for another 60 days, that load that seems to be too good to be true, and one that you might typically ignore, becomes even more enticing.

Factoring services allow for much faster payments, placing carriers in a healthier, more secure position where they don’t need to rely on sketchy lanes to get by.

2. Free credit checks allow for an additional layer of security.

England Carrier Services’ factoring program provides free credit checks on brokers and shippers. This is a critical tool for avoiding fraud.

Rather than gamble a single load on a potential sextuple-digit hit to your budget, credit checks can verify the credibility of shippers, reducing risk.

3. Dedicated account managers allow for better, faster communication.

Because England Carrier Services assigns each factoring client an account manager, communication is much faster. Rather than wait a few days for a team to respond to your concerns, assigned account managers function more like partners.

This system ensures that communication regarding fraud is as efficient as possible.

Carriers are losing 19% of their budgets to fraud. With an assortment of horrible tactics, including cargo theft, double brokering, and fuel card fraud, criminals are aggressively targeting carriers.

With factoring services, you can get paid faster and deter fraudsters.

Looking for a way to offset costs caused by freight theft? You can claim massive discounts on drive tires through the England Carrier Services drive tire sales event.

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The England Carrier Services (ECS) division offers various services for carriers ranging from maintenance to support. As ECS members, carriers have access to nationwide discounts on fuel and tires from dedicated team members committed to finding the best price. ECS also provides factoring services with benefits such as same-day funding to a bank account or fuel card. These options allow carriers the freedom to focus on growing their business while saving time and money.