Making sure you are paid for what you bring in...

I had this happen to me in Spring of 2010, and thought I would pass it along so others can be aware.

I had a lot of commercial mailboxes, 30 some boxes and each box had between 15 and 35 mailboxes.

Anyways they were mostly aluminum, with rivets and steel rods, springs, etc holding them and the doors together. So to get top dollar I spent a week tearing them all apart.

Separated the steel which I think maybe amounted to 50 lbs, into a box. Then I separated the heavier aluminum bars/doors into a few other boxes, and then the remainder of the trailer load was all alum sheet. I mean this was a 7x14 dump trailer with 6 foot sides and I had it 80% full of sheet, so how this got past the operator, I don't know...so anyways I take it all in. The guys start sifting through what I had sorted. They get that all done, weigh it, then have me drive onto the scale for the trailer load. I dump the alum sheet and go in to get paid.

Came in around $600 bucks which I thought was low/disappointing, and I left. Got to looking at the receipt, and they had the scale weight as steel.

I go back in and he said "I just assumed it was steel. It nearly always is if it comes across the scale".

So another $450 or something came my way.

Just a heads up to keep an eye on what's happening. I assumed they knew what I brought in and they assumed otherwise.





Speaking of keeping an eye on guys. At another yard they tried to stiff me on a few pounds of copper. (It wasn't on the ticket). Not much, but you really have to keep your eye on some of these yards.

haha. I didn't bring up the topic so much for dishonesty, (though it does happen). More so to keep an eye on these yards. Regarding the alum sheet, the least the yard guys could have done is radioed up to the office "hey, this guy coming across the scale has sheet alum".

I'd not had a problem until then, so I figured they knew what they were doing.


On the copper stiff, he was some idiot that clearly did the least amount of work possible to keep a paycheck.

My scrap yard is pretty good... One of the owners is the fellow who runs the counter...... He always tells me to look over the receipt and tell me if anything is missing.... I am turning 37 this year and in about 20 years of scraping, I have only had to go back once to get something fixed... He's a good guy

Back when I was cleaning up tornado damage in my yard, we had a lot of metal gathered that blew up into our yard plus the items of metal that we had getting torn apart. I was taking in load after load for a few weekends straight. At the time, I was only taking loads around 200 pounds a trip. Didn't have the time to cut it up to get more per load. Stopped in 1 time with a smaller than normal load and got twice the money I had been getting on the 200 pound loads. I started looking at it and it said we had 460 pounds. I went in and told him there was no way that I had that much. He pretty much said " Having problems with the scales today, have a good one" So he sorta helped me out I guess.

Called the scrap yard before I went in. Operator said $3.70/Lb for 50lbs + of #1 copper
took in 86lbs, got paid @ 3.60.
Lost 9 Dollars, didn't say anything because it was my first time there.
Thinking i will next time if the same mistake happens.
I don't know if it was a honest mistake or not.

my yard is pretty good and honest, especially if you get to know the guys pretty good. I always make sure to spend a few extra minutes in the parking lot before i leave, and havnt caught anything yet. sometimes they will even tell you how to get top dollar out of your metal. one steel metal in bangor maine by the way.

My yard is honest, but I had allot of HVAC and good steel and I had one crappy piece of I beam, not their fault by anymeans all mine. But make sure you get the top dollar. At my yard we use these blue containers and they get picked up by forklifts so they said to me when i disputed the ticket that they understood I busted my ass for that stuff and they will give me as many containers as I want just tell them So make sure you get paid right because you work hard, they can work too.

If I don't bring it my stuff comopletly sorted to get the most money the guys at my scrapyard do it for me cause I got their every day nd I got to know them