FedEx shipping quality down the toilet? - FaunaClassifieds
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SOUND OFF!!! Ever have something REALLY bugging you and nowhere to vent about it? Well, this is the place. It does not have to be fauna oriented at all! Get it off your chest right here.

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Old 08-20-2020, 12:32 AM   #1
WebSlave
FedEx shipping quality down the toilet?

I know I am not using their overnight express service, but if the headaches I am going through with their Ground and Home delivery service (and I use that word lightly) are any indication, I sure as heck am REAL glad I am not having to ship live animals through them any longer.

I had to file multiple Better Business Bureau complaints against them just to get the driver to stop believing it was perfectly OK to just drop off packages at the end of my driveway instead of delivering to the house. Now the end of my driveway is not visible from my house, but IS visible to passerbys on the road. All it would take is someone walking by or riding by to pick up the package and be gone in an instant. Then I have to go through all the headaches trying to get that problem resolved. Their tracking would show it as being "delivered", and that would likely put me behind the eightball. Thanks, but NO thanks. Oh, I had to even put a sign out at the end of the driveway requesting FedEx to please deliver all packages to the house. It is still out there now. For all the good it is doing. See below.

Now for the past two weeks I have been trying to get an order from Sam's Club delivered, and a package containing strawberry jam that Connie wants is apparently too much for them. The first shipment eventually showed "Pending" for a delivery date, and then a couple of days later claimed that the product was damaged and undeliverable. As best I can tell it is still somewhere in Tallahassee, and has been there since 08-10. So I contacted Sam's Club, and they sent out a replacement. OK, so now this second package claimed a delivery date at first of 08-18, then that changed to 08-19 ON 08-19. Tracking says it showed up at the local depot at 5:20 am on 08-19, which usually means that the next status is going to show "Out for delivery". Nope, not this time. Up until just a little while ago, is was still showing nothing beyond being delivered to Tallahassee on 05:20 am, with the delivery date showing as 08-19. Well now, guess what? Yeah, the tracking status is showing as "Pending".

Maybe everyone at FedEx who could find their own butt with both hands got the CCP Virus and is laid up in quarantine. Because whoever they have working there now really can't figure out the job, apparently. I am going to try to get Sam's Club to ship to me via UPS the next time. FedEx just isn't cutting the mustard lately.
 
Old 08-20-2020, 08:26 AM   #2
bcr229
All three of the shipping companies (UPS, USPS, FedEx) are having issues. Thanks to COVID enough people are shopping online regularly that they've basically been dealing with Christmas-rush level demand for months.

We haven't had to sign for packages in months, the drivers just drop them, ring the doorbell, and run. Nothing like coming home to a stack of guns on your front porch.
 
Old 08-20-2020, 12:55 PM   #3
AbsoluteApril
Lots of ongoing issues due to the virus with shipping companies. Lots of delays, the drivers don't even ring or knock like they usually do, just drop and run. Also noticed some new drivers, one which left my package at the back door of my neighbor for some reason. It was there a week before neighbor found it and brought it over, I had already ordered a replacement. Lots of shipments show delayed or pending and then they suddenly show up. Wish the drivers would at least knock. (edit to add, most of the stuff I've been getting has been through UPS)

Definitely not going to be doing any shipping of reptiles until this settles down.
 
Old 08-20-2020, 01:38 PM   #4
WebSlave
I haven't been having any problems with UPS or USPS lately. Just FedEx.

FedEx has also disabled email contact with their customer service representatives, first foisting a lame brained virtual assistant that is virtually useless. Then it tells you to call them on the phone, but expect long delays. Their way of discouraging you from bothering them with your problems, I guess.

The latest shipment is still showing that it is stuck at the Tallahassee depot with "PENDING". I guess the employees there just enjoy the hell out of strawberry jam sandwiches.

I contacted Sam's Club via email and requested that if they have to send yet another replacement package, to PLEASE use UPS instead of FedEx. Heck, UPS has even been delivering packages here ahead of schedule. I always suspected they had programmed-in delays to try to encourage people to use their higher priced express services. FedEx does this a LOT. There is a depot up in Georgia that seems to always have a 24 hour delay from the time it is received there to the time it leaves that facility. Before they implemented that, orders I would place with Summit Racing in Georgia would get here overnight using standard ground service.

One interesting note about FedEx I have noticed lately is that often when I placed an order with some place like Home Depot, the tracking info would show some ridiculously optimistic delivery date such as the following day, even though the package hadn't even been picked up at the origination point yet. Then year day the delivery day would get pushed back a day. Not sure what is up with that, but I would think it would piss off someone if they were counting on the delivery date because of a project that needed that part they were waiting on. Heck, first time FedEx did that to me I was working on something and actually stupidly counted on that original delivery date to schedule things accordingly.

I wonder if people are having problems with their live animal shipments lately? Could be some sorely disappointed people if that is the case. Waiting on strawberry jelly stuck in limbo is no real big deal, but a box full of live reptiles is another matter entirely.
 
Old 08-20-2020, 02:40 PM   #5
WebSlave
Well, I called FedEx on the phone, and after wading through their virtual phone assistant and asking for "REPRESENTATIVE" several times, I finally got to talk to a real person. She checked on the package and told me it was showing as being damaged in transit and therefore undeliverable. I'm thinking that perhaps the driver caught some hell from corporate about my BBB complaints about his dropping my packages off at the end of the driveway and may be purposely damaging these incoming packages. The jam is probably in glass jars and I doubt Sam's Club is packing them well enough to be bomb proof. Anyway, just seems very odd that in both instances the packages come through Memphis, TN, and then Ellenwood, GA before showing up as being damaged in Tallahassee. Or maybe the Tallahassee, FL FedEx depot is just having some employee issues with their entire team. Heck, I'm not going to be shy about filing yet another BBB complaint about them. Honestly, that is the ONLY way I can get any sort of response out of them these days.

I suppose the prudent thing to do is to request any carrier other than FedEx where ever that is an option for me. Unfortunately many places do not give you the option and they seem to select carriers in what seems like a random fashion.
 
Old 08-20-2020, 05:06 PM   #6
nickolasanastasiou
The volume thing has already been mentioned.

Express (with such options as Priority Overnight which we use for animal shipment) and Ground/other operate as independent business units or did the last time I had to deal with a BU interoperability snafu (someone sent me an animal using non-Express, which is quite bad, to a local Express facility that I use for live animal receipt...during hot weather in 2018).

I have seen some delays with some (fewer than 10%) Express packages lately, but this was dependent on the destination and whether or not a hold-at-facility option is taken (which I recommend if feasible for live packages). I am still shipping live packages safely using Priority Overnight, but with the overall plan and the endpoint being considered strongly before doing so.

This does not help at all with the Ground/other situation, but I wanted to mention the independence of the two business units so that it is understood that the failings of one BU are not necessarily interlaced with the operations of the other BU, depending upon where the point of failure is occurring.
 
Old 08-24-2020, 08:44 PM   #7
WebSlave
Well, three times wasn't the charm. I requested a refund from Sam's Club, since obviously FedEx cannot deliver the package to me. The latest one is showing as being stuck in Jacksonville, FL since early AM this past Saturday. Even with it showing as being last scanned in Jacksonville, they claimed it would be delivered on Saturday, and then when that day passed with no sign of it, again claimed today that I could expect it by COB. Which, of course, never happened. Right now, it is showing as "PENDING". Again. So they seem to be in complete chaos, in my opinion.

And now I have another order stuck up in Pennsylvania for some reason. Can't imagine that FedEx broke this item because it is a pair of air filters for my DeWalt battery powered vacuum. Well, I guess they could have crushed it. Ask me if I would be surprised?

Today I ordered some hedge trimmer blades and when I talked to the guy about shipping I specifically requested that he NOT use FedEx. He just chuckled and told me not to worry, they have been having their own problems with FedEx and only ship UPS now.

I guess FedEx is just not coping well with the current situation. YMMV, of course, but I sure as heck won't knowingly be shipping anything through them. I do hope their overnight service is better than how the rest of the company seems to be coping.
 
Old 08-25-2020, 01:42 PM   #8
Herpin Man
I've had problems with FedEx as well. I had a couple of outgoing animal shipments delayed- one overnight shipment took three days. Fortunately, the animal survived.
FedEx also lost some UVB bulbs that I ordered. I called FedEx to let them know the package had not arrived, and they said they'd find it. A few hours later, a neighbor brought it over. My neighbor saw the "Reptisun" labeling on the package, quickly realized what it was for, and was naturally curious about my collection. As I prefer to keep my hobby private locally, I was not thrilled with being "outed" by FedEx in this way. I guess that cat is out of the bag now.
The funny thing is though, that I am still waiting, after several weeks, for FedEx to follow up with me on the missing package.
 
Old 09-01-2020, 02:49 PM   #9
nickolasanastasiou
All of my inbound Ground/other shipments in the last couple of weeks appear to have been on time if not ahead of time. I am getting stuff early, yes.
 
Old 06-08-2021, 05:03 PM   #10
WebSlave
Well, things seemed to get better, but suddenly took a turn for the worst, it seems.

Saturday I had a delivery, which did get completed on time, but when the driver left, he backed the truck over some of Connie's ornamental plants and bent up some metal stakes she had there to hold the plants up. I decided to just let it slide as I could likely bend them back into shape (more or less).

But today I had an order from Sam's Club with some food stuff in it that was supposed to be delivered. Shipped via FedEx's Home Delivery service, just like the above mentioned delivery. Usually they show up here by 11:00 am, but that came and went and by the afternoon I decided to check the shipping status.

Damn... Showing a delivery exception. Driver claims he attempted delivery but was unsuccessful. Yeah, right. There was NOTHING to prevent him from getting here. Not a drop of rain to scare him off from our dirt road. And Connie and I were here all day long. Matter of fact, outside watering plants much of the day. My guess is that the driver was just feeling lazy and didn't want to deliver here, for whatever reason.

So great. That food stuff will be sitting in a hot truck for an additional 24 hours. Assuming, of course, that the driver will feel like making the delivery tomorrow. You would think that supervisors would be all over a driver who came back to the depot with undelivered packages still in the truck.

There is still no way to contact FedEx via email, and I am not going to sit ON HOLD on the phone all day, so lately what I have been doing is just filing Better Business Bureau complaints against them. At least I get some sort of response that way, and with the tendency for crap to run downhill, I hope it lands right on the driver's head. My demands are rather simple, I believe. I just expect people to do their job. If they can't, then go elsewhere and try to do something else more to their capabilities.

 

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