The Feds just charged a massive fuel-card company with fleecing truckers out of hundreds of millions of dollars

Annie Wells/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Truckers who used FleetCor saw extra fees, according to the FTC.

• One of the trucking industry's largest companies just got slammed with a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission.
• FleetCor, which provides fuel cards to truck drivers and trucking companies, charged its customers at least hundreds of millions of dollars in additional fees, according to the FTC suit.
• The FTC says the $2.4 billion company also didn't provide the fuel savings it advertised.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One of the trucking industry's largest companies just got slammed with a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission.

Atlanta, Georgia-based FleetCor counts tens of thousands of small businesses and individual truck drivers among its customer base. And, according to an FTC suit filed on Dec. 20, it's fleeced those truckers out of "at least hundreds of millions" in extra fees.

One key way the FTC alleges FleetCor leveraged extra cash out of its customers include waiting to charge extra fees until several billing cycles have passed. That makes it more challenging for truck drivers to see that those extra dings have appeared, because it could appear to be a normal fluctuation in one's monthly bill.

Read more: Another 1,000 truck drivers lost their jobs in November, and it's a chilling sign for the economy

Invoices also did not disclose that FleetCor charged these additional fees, the FTC says. Even more nitty-gritty account management reports did not clarify that extra fees were charged, according to the lawsuit.

The FTC cited internal emails that called this practice "the most egregious customer impact we do as it takes customers by surprise (unless they're really large) based on their experience with consumer cards."

The company also did not provide its customers with the per-gallon savings it advertised, the FTC alleges. "(C)ustomers have saved a fraction of a cent per gallon-far less than the 5-10 cents per gallon frequently touted by the defendants," the FTC said in a press release.

The suit comes less than a year after a Bloomberg report on FleetCor alleging truck drivers who use FleetCor, which brought in $2.4 billion in revenue in 2018, were getting slammed with extra fees. Meanwhile, CEO Ronald Clarke's salary equaled the take-home pay of the CEOs of Visa and Mastercard combined, Bloomberg reported.

"Many companies try to nickel-and-dime you, but this can't even compare,'' Maria Kirk, the owner of an ice-delivery firm in Orlando, Florida, told Bloomberg in Jan.

A spokesperson for FleetCor was not immediately available to comment.

Are you a truck driver who use FleetCor? Email the reporter at rpremack@businessinsider.com.

NOW WATCH: Here's how the million-mile battery could lead to Teslas lasting a lifetime