Maverick Transportation’s $4 million driver training center.
Finding quality truck drivers is a tough gig, as a slew of lawsuits filed by Maverick Transportation in North Little Rock showed.
Maverick, which operates its own specialized truck driving school, offers candidates $6,000 loans to pay for their training. The company has filed lawsuits in Pulaski County Circuit Court against 21 candidates who withdrew or were dismissed from the training program.
When you add in the $500 per student the loan agreement charges for fees and interest in collecting unpaid loans, Maverick is asking for more than $120,000 back from the failed candidates. The candidates were from a variety of states and entered Maverick’s school in 2019.
Maverick attorney Samuel Mundy, who filed the lawsuits, did not respond to a message asking for comment.
The reasons for the students dropping out or being dismissed ranged from family matters to just plain ol’ “dislike of the business segment.”
Some of the students withdrew before “spending” any of the money loaned to them. The loan agreement states that Maverick would pay $6,000 directly to the driving school and consider it having been loaned to the student; $4,500 was for tuition and $1,500 was for fees and equipment.
Students who passed Maverick’s training program would have their loans forgiven after working two years for the company and having $3,000 taken out of their pay at a rate of $30 per week.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 83,000 truck drivers lost their jobs during April because of the economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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