Holiday Freight Fraud: How to Spot Fake Loads and Fake Pickups

Cargo theft does not always look like a stranger backing a truck up to a dock. Increasingly it looks like a normal email, a normal load offer and a normal pickup, with one detail quietly changed. If you haul, dispatch or broker freight heading into the holiday rush, the practical question is: which checks take a few minutes and catch most of these schemes? This guide pulls together the latest theft data from Verisk CargoNet with the verification steps FMCSA itself publishes, so you can turn them into a routine.

What the Latest Data Shows

Verisk CargoNet’s second-quarter 2026 report, released August 6, counted 677 supply chain theft incidents across the U.S. and Canada. That is 26% fewer than in the second quarter of 2025 and 14% fewer than in the first quarter of 2026. Yet estimated losses reached $304.6 million, more than double the $135.7 million a year earlier, which the release attributes to several multimillion-dollar thefts. The average reported value was $564,009, but a few extreme losses skew that figure, so it says little about a typical load. CargoNet’s Keith Lewis put the point this way: “Lower incident volume should not be mistaken for lower risk.”

A separate CargoNet analysis published September 4 looked at five Labor Day periods from 2021 to 2025. It recorded 273 incidents, climbing from 33 incidents in the 2021 window to 56 in the 2025 window, with 70 in 2024 as the peak. Most fell on the days around the holiday rather than the weekend itself: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday together made up 71% of incidents, and three states (California, Texas and Illinois) held 48%. The release also cites more than $359 million in cargo theft losses for January through June 2026. These are CargoNet’s own reported figures, not a complete count of all theft.

Why Email and Identity Matter More Than Locks

Both CargoNet releases point to the same shift: criminals increasingly use identity-based methods. The Q2 report says business email compromise remained a primary access point, letting thieves spot high-value shipments and change shipment details. The Labor Day release names hijacked carrier accounts, phones, email and compliance platforms as routes for diverting shipments. In a December 2025 FleetOwner interview, Travelers’ Scott Cornell estimated that deception-based “strategic” theft is roughly 30% of all thefts and is growing fastest, while straight theft still accounts for most losses. That is his estimate, not an official statistic.

FMCSA describes the underlying problem plainly: fraud and identity theft happen when someone uses a carrier’s USDOT number without permission, or operates as a broker with no FMCSA registration. The agency treats both as criminal acts, and says USDOT numbers cannot be sold, transferred, rented or leased.

Fake Emails Aimed at Carriers Right Now

FMCSA’s Fraud Alerts page, last updated October 20, 2026, lists phishing campaigns that imitate the agency, including fake audit requests, “incomplete carrier profile” notices and a fake “New MOTUS Portal.” According to FreightWaves on September 15, the Motus emails use the subject line “Notice of Required Off-Cycle Update- Motus email” and point to look-alike .com sites; the only legitimate portal is motus.dot.gov. FMCSA also says it does not call applicants after registration, use robocalls, ask for credit card numbers or charge for its downloadable forms. The agency has not disclosed how many carriers received the Motus emails or whether anyone lost money.

The practical rule: never act on a registration or compliance email by clicking its link. Type the official address yourself, or call FMCSA at 1-800-832-5660.

A Short Verification Routine for Every New Load

FMCSA’s guidance on broker and carrier fraud translates into steps that fit into minutes:

1. Confirm the phone number. Look up the broker or carrier in SAFER and compare its number with the one you were given. If they differ, call the SAFER number. Be cautious when SAFER shows no phone number at all.
2. Do not trust a search result alone for phone numbers, emails or websites. Check them across more than one source.
3. Inspect documents. Insurance certificates can be fraudulent, so verify them rather than assuming they are real.
4. Match the truck to the paperwork. FMCSA suggests recording tractor and trailer plate numbers and comparing truck photos and carrier packet details with what actually shows up to load.
5. Slow down at the dock. Cornell’s advice in the FleetOwner piece was to slow down at pickup and double-check anything that looks off.

Stop the Deal If You See These Signs

FMCSA lists four situations in which a carrier should stop the transaction: the broker wants you to haul under another carrier’s name or wants your driver to misstate their employer; the destination is described as a “blind load”; the broker quickly agrees to pay more than you asked; or the rate is far above the current market. A high rate is not proof of fraud, but when it arrives with urgency and little detail it deserves a second look. For the other side of the table, our guide to how brokers vet carriers explains what they check, which is also a useful self-audit of your own authority and paperwork.

If You Think You Were Targeted

FMCSA recommends not clicking suspicious links, reporting scams to the FTC, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and your state attorney general, and contacting the FMCSA Contact Center. It also suggests reporting to the USDOT Inspector General hotline at (800) 424-9071, filing in the National Consumer Complaint Database, checking that your company phone numbers in SAFER are correct, and notifying your insurer, load boards and factoring company. If you hauled a fraudulently brokered load, FMCSA says the real broker may be a victim too, and that holding freight hostage until you are paid is illegal.

The Bottom Line

Theft counts can fall while losses climb, and the methods are moving from physical theft toward impersonation and email. None of the defenses here are expensive: verify phone numbers through SAFER, check every document and domain, match the truck to the paperwork, and treat urgency or an unusually generous rate as a reason to pause. The busiest theft days in CargoNet’s Labor Day data were the weekdays around the holiday, so build the routine before the Thanksgiving and December rush, not during it.

Neal’s Take

The data suggests that fewer reported thefts do not mean a safer market, because a small number of large losses can outweigh many small ones. What stands out to me is that the checks FMCSA recommends are ordinary and cheap, which makes consistency the real challenge rather than cost. I would watch the next CargoNet quarterly figures to see whether the shift toward identity-based schemes shows up in the numbers. For a small fleet or dispatch desk, a written routine that every person follows on every load is likely worth more than any single new tool.

— Neal Cvetkovski, Founder of LOAD TIDE. Personal opinion, not legal or financial advice.

Stay with LOAD TIDE for daily updates on the freight and trucking market.

Sources: FMCSA, fraud and identity theft guidance (updated April 7, 2025); FMCSA, Fraud Alerts (updated October 20, 2026); Verisk CargoNet, Q2 2026 report (August 6, 2026); Verisk CargoNet, Labor Day analysis (September 4, 2026); FreightWaves, fake Motus sites (September 15, 2026); FleetOwner, holiday cargo theft (December 4, 2025).