DE–PL rates: EUR 1.65/km and a wave of fraud

The TSL industry has been focused for several days on exactly what today's article covers: rising costs on west–east routes and increasingly sophisticated transport fraud. Below, we have collected what freight forwarders, carriers and drivers have been saying about the subject on LinkedIn, Facebook and Reddit in recent days.

DE-PL rates: cost pressure confirmed by hard data

The Germany–Poland corridor is not a random choice for a rate analysis. As shown by an analysis based on Eurostat data, it is the second-largest freight flow in the entire EU: Malte Karstan states plainly that "Germany to Poland follows with 68.4 million tonnes, ahead of Belgium to France at 55.9 million" — Germany–Poland is surpassed only by the Germany–Netherlands route. This shows why rate fluctuations on this route affect the entire industry, not just the local market.

As for the costs themselves, an industry benchmark cited by AAI Freight Solutions attributes the increases in spot and contract rates not to demand, but to fuel: "European diesel averaged €1.94/litre during Q2, 27% higher year-on-year, while road trade volumes between Europe's major economies were actually slightly down compared with last year and the pressure hasn't disappeared going into Q3." In other words: volumes are down, rates are up because diesel is becoming more expensive faster than anything else.

An older but still relevant thread was raised by CargoON (a post from March 2026, cited as context): "Fuel was supposed to stabilize. Instead, it's back to uncertainty - reminding us it still makes up 30-40% of total costs." A recent video, "ETS2 covers road transport in 2026" by the Piotr Susz channel (published on 18 August), confirms the same cost picture, estimating a 5–10% increase in vehicle operating costs due to the new emissions trading system.

In the Polish part of the discussion, a news item from 40ton.net appeared in mid-August on Wykop under the #spedycja tag, reporting a year-on-year 278% increase in offers for PL-PL loads. The editorial team asked directly whether this was a genuine increase in demand or mainly loads that were difficult to price. The thread has not yet attracted any community comments, but the direction is consistent with what is being heard on LinkedIn.

Wave of fraud: impersonating carriers is now commonplace

This is the hottest topic of recent days. On 21 August, Trans.eu Group published data explaining why the industry is talking about a "wave": "Identity fraud cases in European transport and logistics tripled between 2022 and 2024, going from 80 to 266. About 75% of those involved impersonating a real company."

On 27 August, the day before today's publication, the same company published excerpts from a conversation with its CCO about the mechanics of fraud. In the context of the wave seen in recent days, they sound disturbingly familiar: Trans.eu Group writes that "organized crime is buying legitimate transport companies from retiring owners and running them for fraud", adding that "60% of carriers who apply to register on Trans.eu are rejected during vetting" — meaning that more than half of applications fail verification.

Michał Turek breaks down the mechanics of the fraud itself, writing about the growing phenomenon on freight exchanges: "Email addresses differ by only one letter from the real domain" — precisely the trick that allows a freight forwarder to make arrangements with a fake "carrier" before the load has even left the warehouse.

This also has a legal dimension. Trans.eu Group points out that, with the growing number of fraud cases and subcontractor insolvencies, the freight forwarder may end up paying the highest price: "In the event of a carrier's insolvency, penalties for errors in the SENT system, problems with entering data into the IMI system, breaches of tachograph regulations or illegal cabotage land directly on the freight forwarder's desk." The Mobility Package and enforcement of regulations by BALM, ITD and KAS mean that the old principle — "the freight forwarder organizes, the carrier is responsible" — no longer offers the protection it once did.

Drivers comment: parking, pay and market consolidation

Under a trans.info Poland news item about more than 1,700 new truck parking spaces in Germany (news from 27 August, 25 comments), drivers were highly critical of the pace of investment. Michał Popenda, however, puts things into comparative perspective: "Overcrowded parking areas are in the Czech Republic and on the A 22 from Brennero to Verona in both directions, so stop complaining that it's hard to park in Germany. I'd rather park at 8:00 p.m. in Germany than in the Czech Republic or on the aforementioned A 22 from Brennero to Verona, whichever direction you're going." Sergiusz Serek comments ironically on the scale of the investment: "More than 1,700 new spaces for trucks. And all of that by 2040 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Of course, considering the pace at which they improve infrastructure in DE."

Under another news item from the same page, about Ewals Cargo Care's acquisition of Vos Transport Group (27 August, 9 comments), the discussion quickly shifted to the workforce implications of market consolidation. Bogusław Kucharski writes: "Two third-rate transport companies have turned into one mega third-rate outfit... Bulgarians, Romanians and Ukrainians, the heroes...", while Mariusz Dudek adds briefly: "Now all that's left is to bring drivers to Poland from third-world countries." Although these comments are expressed in language far removed from corporate terminology, they show drivers' real concern about wage pressure as major players merge.

Echoes from across the Atlantic: the same fraud pattern on Reddit

The issue is not limited to Europe. On the English-language r/FreightBrokers forum (a mainly US market, but with a mechanism identical to those described in Europe), the thread "Cheated by fraud carrier and need some insight" received 35 comments. User wpaine4 asks directly: "Did you verify that 707-724-1237 was valid to book loads? And are you one of the 2 brokers who freight guarded them in the last week? These guys are getting crazy good."

In a related thread, "How to get after this fraud?" user bwlsecurity advises reporting every case to build a shared knowledge base: "File the FreightGuard so the next broker sees it, report it to IC3 so the pattern is on record, and move on." Asleep0Wave adds a practical verification tip that applies exactly to the European descriptions of fake PODs: "the fake pod part is the bit worth fixing. signature on a pdf means nothing, call the receiving dock and ask if the trailer actually showed. takes 2 minutes and its the only check a scammer cant fake for you." This confirms that the wave of fraud described in today's article is a global phenomenon, not just a problem affecting the DE-PL corridor.

Sentiment of the day

Industry sentiment is mixed but surprisingly consistent across platforms: freight forwarders and platforms such as Trans.eu are using hard data to describe the escalation in fraud (a tripling in identity theft cases and 60% of carrier verifications rejected), while drivers on Facebook are commenting on the same market phenomenon from the perspective of their wallets and conditions on the road, often ironically and bluntly. LinkedIn is dominated by a cautionary, educational tone ("verify before you trust"), while Facebook and Reddit reflect fatigue and realism about problems that do not disappear from one year to the next. The common denominator: no one in this discussion regards either cost pressure or the wave of fraud as a temporary anomaly.

Sources unavailable today: EU driver forums (trucker-forum.at, forotransportistas.es, foros24h.com, forum.soferdetir.ro, planet-truck.fr) — no content was available via WebSearch/WebFetch during this research.