Ring three yards with the same description and you will get three numbers. That is normal, and understanding why helps you tell a fair quote from a bad one.
The legitimate reasons
- Timing. Metal is a traded commodity. Two quotes a week apart can genuinely differ because the market moved.
- Grading. One yard may be grading your copper as clean and another as the lower grade. Same metal, different call, and it is worth asking which they have assumed.
- Volume. A yard that can move large quantities may pay more for a big load and less for a small one.
- What they specialise in. A yard set up for non-ferrous will usually pay better on copper and brass than a general yard, and the reverse for bulk steel.
- Whether pickup is included. A yard quoting a higher rate that expects you to deliver is not necessarily better once you count fuel and your time.
The ones that should worry you
- A number well above everyone else. Metal has a market price and nobody is buying above it for long. A quote that beats the field by a wide margin usually changes at the scale.
- A refusal to break the docket down by metal. One combined weight means you cannot check anything.
- Not wanting you present at the weigh.
- A price that moves after it is unloaded. The oldest tactic there is.
- Scales with no trade marking. Scales used for buying by weight have to be approved for trade.
How to compare properly
- Describe the same load to each, in the same words, on the same day.
- Ask what grade they are assuming.
- Ask whether the quote includes pickup.
- Ask whether the docket breaks down by metal.
- Ask whether the quoted rate holds at the scale.
That last question sorts most of it. A yard that says yes and means it is the one to use.
What we would rather you do
Ask us those questions. If someone else is genuinely paying more on the day for the same grade, that is useful for us to know and we would rather hear it than lose the load quietly.
What we will not do is quote a number on the phone that we have no intention of honouring once your trailer is empty. Repeat trade is the whole business and in a city this size that gets around fast.