Thanks Fed-Ex

[Denverdave]

Early last week we ordered a rug along with a rug pad for my step-daughters room. The rug arrived on Friday, and the pad (which was shipped from a different distributor) was at the shipping facility near Denver on Friday night. When I checked on the pad Sunday afternoon (still had not delivered) it was on a Fed-Ex truck bound for Santa Fe NM. Lovely. Yesterday I checked and the pad had left Santa Fe. Good.

Then I checked this morning. The pad is in Scotts Bluff NE. That's over 200 miles NE of here. The Fed-Ex truck literally had to pass through Colorado Springs to get to Scotts Bluff.

 

[mongooz]

Early last week we ordered a rug along with a rug pad for my step-daughters room. The rug arrived on Friday, and the pad (which was shipped from a different distributor) was at the shipping facility near Denver on Friday night. When I checked on the pad Sunday afternoon (still had not delivered) it was on a Fed-Ex truck bound for Santa Fe NM. Lovely. Yesterday I checked and the pad had left Santa Fe. Good.

Then I checked this morning. The pad is in Scotts Bluff NE. That's over 200 miles NE of here. The Fed-Ex truck literally had to pass through Colorado Springs to get to Scotts Bluff.

i see that happening with the UPS/USPS hand off thingy. they'll go right up I-75, 2 miles from here, to near Detroit, then it goes on a different truck and comes right back down I-75 to here the next day.

 

[sleewell]

at some point they are going to tack on a fuel surcharge for all that extra running around lol

 

[jp_nyc]

Sometimes these things work out for the best. Back in January Apple shipped my new laptop from Shenzhen to me in Colorado. For some reason they routed it through a distribution center in Ohio where it disappeared. After two weeks I complained and they sent a new one. The new one turned up in three days, so I assumed that they had just rushed the shipping. But three weeks later a second laptop arrived. I asked their online chat support to send me a return shipping label so I could send back the extra laptop and they never did. I guess that at some point I’ll just give it to one of the kids.

 

[Chad]

Fed Ex blows. My Ric finally arrived today on the third attempt and after I called and lost my shit on them. Guy said he tried to deliver yesterday, while I was home, with my front door wide open while a contractor was doing some work. The text I got said tried to deliver, nobody was home. Now the guitar required a sig, but the other package did not, so if he really showed up, he would have left the other package.

 

[sleewell]

got a digitech trio + today delivered by fedex. no issues. i think they sent it on sat or sun so that is not that bad.

 

[Denverdave]

Sometimes these things work out for the best. Back in January shipped my new laptop from Shenzhen to me in Colorado. For some reason they routed it through a distribution center in Ohio where it disappeared after two weeks I complained and they sent a new one. The new one turned up in three days, so I assumed that they had just rushed the shipping. But three weeks later a second laptop arrived. I asked their online chat support to send me a return shipping label so I could send back the extra laptop and they never did. I guess that at some point I’ll just give it to one of the kids.

That is quite nice.

However, an extra carpet pad is not really needed.

 

[ColourofFire]

FedEx is so hilariously bad here I don't even know why they bothered entering the market...

Last time I had the misfortune of dealing with them, they sent me A FRIKKIN' LETTER with a phone number I needed to call to schedule a delivery. My phone number and email address were clearly listed on the package and in the tracking info, but no, I had to wait for a stupid letter to arrive. Then they of course "couldn't find it" or decided I "wasn't home" 3 times before I finally got a hold of my package. The whole thing took 8 days from them having my package ready for delivery and me getting it. Useless imbeciles.

 

[DdBob]

For a long time Fed Ex at my place was really good. they were always consistent and delivered at the same time and on time but I think I just lucked out and had a good driver. From what I understand they are kind of owner/operators that contract with Fed EX or at least they have the option verses say UPS. I know the buisness across the street from my work gets daily deliveries because they are a biotech research company and they actually have two different Fed Ex guys delivering in the area. One guy has been delivering in the area for like a decade and he has the full on Fed Ex truck. The other guy has a Sprinter Van with no markings and it's been that way for a couple years, the only reason I know he's Fed EX is because he has the uniform.
At my house Fed EX has been delayed a couple times over the last year and they are never consistent on times anymore. Once around Christmas they didn't deliver until like 5 pm which has never happened in the 17 years I've been here and it was an unmarked Sprinter Van.
TLDR ...yes Fed EX sucks.

 

[Denverdave]

The package finally got back into Colorado and is out for delivery today.

 

[MonkeyZero]

My father ran the Jacksonville UPS center for many years and has said multiple times that since he left in like 1996 all carriers have just gone to shit.
I had the same experience @jp_nyc had one time. Can't remember what the item was but it was a high dollar item I got 2 of and no one seemed to care. I think I sold the second one so I got the first one for free essentially.

 

[ColourofFire]

My father ran the Jacksonville UPS center for many years and has said multiple times that since he left in like 1996 all carriers have just gone to shit.
I had the same experience @jp_nyc had one time. Can't remember what the item was but it was a high dollar item I got 2 of and no one seemed to care. I think I sold the second one so I got the first one for free essentially.

Considering the effort involved in retrieving an item, most bigger places just don't give a shit anymore. It's literally more work and money lost for them to deal with the shipping company, figure out where the item is and then check its state, possibly having to sell it as B-stock, than just mark it as "lost" and write it off.

I've had it several times, always wrote to the company whether they wanted their double shipment back, most engaged reply I got was a "Thank you for your honesty, as a token of our gratitude, you can keep both". I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was one of those what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-two kinda things

In another case, I never received a tracking number, just randomly got the item. Then a day later got a shipping code, saying it was on its way, and I merrily received another external harddrive 2 days later

It's just a whole chain of companies involved where nobody really gives much of a fuck as long as the loss remains within bounds. I also dealt with the other side at some point when I worked at a snowboarding/skateboarding shop, we had a few very limited edition shoes, post managed to lose a pair that we shipped to a customer. Customer obviously unhappy. We call the postal company, their reaction "just send them another pair, we'll reimburse". Cool story, good luck finding another pair of the same size from a run of which only 300 per size exist worldwide . Under no condition could they be arsed to figure out what happened... Every time the lost something they'd just open a "case" that was followed up a week later with "irretrievable" and a reimbursement. For big companies that's perfectly fine. For us it very often meant a disappointed customer, cause as a small shop, we didn't have 50 of the same thing laying around... We also had plenty of occasions where shoes of big companies *kuch VANS* would come in and one or two pairs would just have clearly been worn for like a week when we checked the boxes. Good times...

 

[MonkeyZero]

I saw a video the other day where an Amazon driver set the package down, took the picture to show it delivered, and then stole the package himself.

 

[ColourofFire]

I saw a video the other day where an Amazon driver set the package down, took the picture to show it delivered, and then stole the package himself.

I think the most likely cause of "lost" packages is that kind of shit. During my studies I worked in sorting at the Dutch national post. In the sorting process shit gets stuck/falls between stuff every once in a while, but it always shows up during the weekly machine shut-down. If it doesn't, it's super easy to check when it was put into the machine and who was on shift then and keep a closer eye if it tends to correlate. Since most people there are on decent union contracts it's really not worth risking your job and a criminal record to swipe something. The drivers however involve a lot of shitty "self-employed" bullshit contracts that get paid an absolutely laughable sum per delivery and random subcontracting, they get paid way too little to care and it's incredibly hard to prove enough to actually get them in trouble for it beyond losing their shitty underpaid bullshit job. Shipping companies are fully aware of this and just decide that as long as it doesn't cost them too much, they'll just throw out some drivers that are obviously taking it too far rather than paying these people decent wages.