Carrier Vetting Moves to the Point of Booking as Liability Pressure Builds Across Freight Networks

For freight brokers, the operational risk is no longer limited to finding capacity at the right price. Increasingly, the challenge is proving that the carrier moving the load was properly vetted before the freight ever left the dock.

That pressure has intensified following recent legal and regulatory developments in the U.S. trucking market. The Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II ruling, combined with heightened scrutiny of commercial driver licensing and carrier compliance, has increased focus on how brokers verify the identity and legitimacy of carriers operating within their networks.

At the same time, freight fraud continues to grow. Cargo theft incidents in North America increased 27% in 2024, reaching a record 3,625 reported events, according to Verisk CargoNet. The organization has also warned that carrier impersonation and identity-based freight fraud remain among the industry's fastest-growing threats.

Against that backdrop, transportation technology providers are beginning to move carrier verification closer to the actual booking process rather than treating it as a separate compliance exercise.

From Compliance Task to Operational Requirement

This week, Transfix, a transportation management platform for freight brokers and shippers, announced a partnership with Highway that integrates Highway's carrier identity verification capabilities directly into the Transfix TMS.

The objective is straightforward: verify carrier authority, insurance status, and identity at the moment a load is covered rather than through separate manual workflows.

According to information provided by the company, the move reflects a broader shift in broker priorities as fraud prevention becomes increasingly tied to operational execution and liability management.

The timing is notable. Highway reported blocking nearly 2 million fraudulent email attempts and 8.5 million spoofed phone numbers during the past year, illustrating the scale of identity-related threats facing freight intermediaries.

Fraud Prevention Becomes Part of Load Execution

"Before integrating Highway, carrier vetting required cross-referencing multiple sources and often left gaps in visibility. With Highway, we can now identify issues like uninsured units or suspicious carrier affiliations in real-time," said Chris Bahr, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at TA Services.

The experience reflects a broader shift across the brokerage sector, where fraud prevention is increasingly viewed as a core operational requirement rather than a compliance exercise.

"Fraud is an issue that will never get solved unless we all come together as an industry," said Jonathan Salama, CEO and Co-Founder of Transfix, in comments previously reported by TruckingInfo.

Jonathan Salama, CEO and Co-Founder, Transfix: “Fraud is an issue that will never get solved unless we all come together as an industry”

The statement reflects a growing recognition that freight fraud is no longer isolated to high-profile theft incidents. Instead, it affects day-to-day carrier sourcing, onboarding, dispatching, and load coverage decisions.

For brokers managing thousands of transactions across fragmented carrier networks, the challenge is not simply identifying fraudulent actors. It is doing so quickly enough to avoid disrupting freight movement while maintaining a documented audit trail of vetting decisions.

The Next Battleground in Freight Technology

The industry's response mirrors a broader trend across supply chain software.

Over the past several years, visibility platforms became standard tools for tracking freight movement. More recently, attention has shifted toward execution layers that help operators make decisions and enforce controls inside daily workflows.

That evolution is becoming visible in carrier management. "Criminals bounce from commodity to commodity. If the demand is higher, they are going to steal it because they know they can sell it," said Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet, in comments reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The implication for brokers is clear. Fraud prevention can no longer depend solely on periodic audits or static carrier onboarding procedures. Verification increasingly needs to occur in real time, at the point where freight decisions are made.

As regulatory scrutiny rises and liability expectations continue to evolve, carrier vetting is moving from a compliance checklist to an operational control layer embedded directly into the booking process. For many brokers, that shift may soon become the minimum standard for doing business.