
A Fedex package stuck in the system for over two months - lisper
http://blog.rongarret.info/2019/07/fedex-when-it-absolutely-positively-has.html
======
fatnoah
FWIW, I had a similar kakfaesque Fedex experience a few years ago. I
eventually tweeted my frustration and @mentioned FedEx. The entire situation
was resolved within 60 minutes.

------
simmons
I had a similar experience once, years ago, except it was probably my fault.
It was the first time I tried using a FedEx account, printing out the form,
putting in the clear sleeve, attaching it to the box, etc. I suspect I didn't
get the sleeve attached correctly, but it eventually (somehow) made its way
back to me a month or so later. I sympathize with the poster's frustration
with the bureaucracy and confusing account situations. While I know people who
are FedEx experts and have no problem jumping through their hoops, since my
issue I've stuck to paying the extra few bucks to have someone at a FedEx (or
UPS) retail store handle the shipping, in the hopes that this improves my
chances of success.

I'm guessing that the package ended up in Mississippi because FedEx's main hub
is in Memphis, TN very close to the MS state line. There are several big
warehouses just over the state line, and maybe FedEx uses such a facility for
packages that are in limbo.

------
reaperducer
About three years ago my wife sent a package from the west coast to the
Midwest that somehow got stuck in some kind of USPS package loop.

The online tracking showed it bouncing back and forth between Arizona and New
Jersey for several months. No amount of phone calls, emails, or visiting the
local post office could help. She was not able to file an insurance claim
because the package was still in transit.

After a long time (three or four month) it finally disappeared from tracking,
my guess is because the tracking number was recycled. So she filed an
insurance claim. Every few weeks an e-mail arrived stating that the
investigation was underway and she'd be contacted when it was done. Finally,
several more months later, a message from USPS arrived stating the
investigation was closed and no refund would be issued because it had been too
long since the package was mailed to file a claim. There is no appeals
process.

I don't remember what it was that she sent, but it couldn't have been anything
important because all she wanted was the Priority Mail fees refunded.

------
JoeAltmaier
Shippers have problems, and anecdotes abound. Doesn't mean they don't ship
billions of packages successfully each year. So keep some perspective.

My anecdote: shipped a prototype computer box weighing 300 lbs 'overnight
freight' from Iowa to San Jose. It disappeared for 12 days. Finally turned up
on a truck in San Antonio. To their credit they called every day to update
(which was 'no new info'), probably to measure my level of consternation. I
was unconcerned at the time - the box was going back to be updated and we had
new ones already.

Twice (!) I received computers that appeared to have been dropped from a great
height onto a solid bar - they were nearly broken in half. Both continued to
work! But dang.

------
one2zero
Do any of you remember this shennanigans?? [https://jalopnik.com/how-ups-
screwed-a-popular-youtube-car-g...](https://jalopnik.com/how-ups-screwed-a-
popular-youtube-car-guy-out-of-10-00-1738255686)

------
grandpoobah
Par for the course with shipping companies in my experience.

They're pretty damn good when everything goes according to plan, but when
something unexpected happens it turns into a nightmare.

------
Nowyouknow
FedEx is indeed frustrating and I'd like to share my experience.

My current home is an area that became incorporated about 4 years ago
resulting in new addresses for all residents. When looking up my home, almost
all map apps leave off the house number. FedEx can't process this, freaks out
and ships my packages to my old address. The shipping notification email I
receive from FedEx always says "your shipping address has been changed" with
absolutely no prompting from me. This has resulted in me trying many things in
order to correct with no resolution. Most times, I receive my package by
jumping through one or more hoops with no resolution to the core issue.

The hoops:

    
    
      1.) drive to the old address to pick up packages (an hour drive) 
    
      2.) Call FedEx and waste a minimum of 35 minutes each time
     
      3.) Re-route packages to a nearby FedEx store 
    
      4.) Call the merchant, some have helped, some have directed me to the shipper 
    
      5.) I've created a FedEx account, deleted all shipping addresses except for the current
    
      6.) Written a script I copy and paste to Twitter support with all information they will need. They typically respond with "the ticket has been submitted, we don't have any further information"it's sort of a spray and pray approach. Either I'll get an updated shipping notification or nada. If I receive nada day-of delivery, I'm calling or rerouting.
    
      7.) Update my address in Google Maps, but I don't think it took
    

My wife's solution has been to have all of her (mostly Target) packages be
delivered to her parents' house which is equally frustrating. This address
issues also affects my ability to order Jimmy John's online, their system just
won't let me, I have to call it in. DoorDash requires I spell out how to find
my house in the notes (I've noticed most delivery drivers don't read the notes
until they can't find my house).

To one-up OP, I have a World Cup ball from Adidas stuck in some delivery delay
hell. It's actually funny now, _I 'm coming up on my 1st anniversary of
placing an order for an item that I haven't received yet._ Ordered the ball on
8/16/18, and just received the latest email update notifying me of a delay
only 2 days ago. I called support last November and they said that the ball is
stuck in the warehouse and they apologize for the delay. I could have opted
for a refund then but decided to let it ride. I really want that ball. Photo
for proof: [http://tinyurl.com/y2st8lt4](http://tinyurl.com/y2st8lt4)

------
js2
The original FedEx, now called FedEx Express is a fine service. This sounds
like FedEx Ground/Home Delivery which was originally Roadway Package Systems
and acquired by FedEx in the nineties. I’ve had more trouble (as a recipient)
with that service than any other shipper. Last mile delivery is contractors.
It really tarnishes the FedEx brand.

UPS and USPS have yet to lose or significantly delay one of my packages.

UPS can tell me what home delivery truck my package is on and where it is on
the road. With FedEx Ground, I count myself lucky if they even know what zip
code my package is in.

~~~
wil421
It appears this was FedEx Next Day Air which is usually FedEx delivery
drivers. Not sure who they use in Ireland. FedEx ground is about as good as
Amazon’s various couriers.

------
rkachowski
> It turns out that there is more than one kind of Fedex account, and we had
> opened the wrong kind. So we opened another Fedex account.

oof. I've had this exact same problem with DHL. There's DHL, DHL International
and DHL Express, each with country specific branches. I once had a package of
business cards "destroyed" because DHL Express will not deliver to a DHL
Packstation.

I can only assume it's a natural artifact of organisations getting so big and
inefficient, which seems to be a common factor in the mail industry, and
packages literally falling between the cracks of the organisation.

~~~
pnutjam
Maybe offtopic, but I had a similar issue with comcast years ago when I used
to manage multiple accounts for a business with satellite offices. TV,
Internet, and phone could be any collection of local account or "national"
account; both with different access methods.

------
moltar
DHL FTW. Has been the most on point for personal, low bandwidth use.

Fun fact. DHL has a location in every country, including North Korea!

------
nabla9
This is the devils bargain that the society has accepted.

Small number of customers getting horrible service or getting stuck into
Kafkaesque situations is the negative externality from high productivity and
low prices. Just because you talk to 10 people does not mean that humans make
decisions. Those people just reading decisions from computer screen that
computerized domain logic (aka business logic) has decided.

Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed
out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in
individual cases.

~~~
ryanlol
>Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed
out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in
individual cases.

I'm not even a big customer (just shipping for personal purposes), but still I
constantly work with the same support rep. I've dealt with way smaller
companies that wouldn't give me a personal rep, with Fedex I always deal with
the same guy for support and customs handling. I only ship a few packages a
year, and receive a few hundred.

~~~
nabla9
That's nice but your customer rep is still just user interface to the same
underlying system.

------
DoubleGlazing
Ah FedEx and their weird accounts.

My wife, a US citizen living in Ireland, needed a US background check as she
works with children. The police department in Texas did the work needed and
said they could only ship the documents internationally via FedEx. So she
asked how much? They said "Oh no, you need to arrange collection and pay FedEx
directly"

So off to FedEx she goes thinking she could arrange this as a one off. Nope,
you need an account and it has to be set up online. Their account opening
forms are really complicated. To be fair, they are probably for people who
know about shipping and not for someone who just wants a one-off collection.
It took three attempts to get the correct account and to be fair the documents
arrived in less than 24hrs which coming from Texas was very impressive.

What happened next is where it gets annoying. She needed to close the accounts
as she wouldn't be using them. FedEx said that had to be done offline in
writing and she needed to supply a company registration certificate, she had
written "Personal account" in the company field on all the account set up
forms as it could not be left blank. While she was trying to get this
resolved, she got a letter from Revenue asking her to fill in a load of
documents relating to customs matters.

Eventually she just went to FedEx's Irish HQ in person to get it all sorted.

I'm not sure who is more to blame, the Texas PD for refusing to arrange the
delivery or FedEx for completely ignoring that individuals may be forced to
use their service. Either way it was a pain.

~~~
nurettin
It's funny, when we get a situation like that during an abroad visit, we find
a turkish guy who puts in the right numbers and calls in the right people to
get things done. Otherwise you get the average European apathetic office
worker mentality who only cares about getting out of work at 1630 and going to
a cafe.

~~~
Bjartr
Sounds like an average human office worker.

------
GEBBL
I live in Ireland. I regularly get amazon packages delivered without any
issues. I have ordered items from China via China post and they have arrived
too. I don’t think I’ve had a missing package in years.

This is just my situation, but I wonder if those who have had a single
negative experience shout the loudest sometimes.

~~~
anm89
It hasn't happened to me yet. Must not be matter!

------
jjeaff
I used to sell textbooks online. Lots of them. And for a time, USPS had a
monthly auction where they would auction off undeliverable items (they do it
online now).

You would not believe how much stuff they are unable to deliver each month. An
entire warehouse full. Of just textbooks, 2 to 3 semi truck loads. Another 5
to 10 semi truck loads of regular books.

These included items where the packaging was damaged, or label torn off or
illegible address, etc.

We would go to the auctions and purchase tons of textbooks and started
noticing that in some cases we were buying back books that we had shipped to
customers and had been lost.

They always made claims that they made every effort to return the lost items
but as a last resort, they would end up at the auction.

They would usually cost us several thousand dollars a month in lost shipments
so I had a distinct rubber stamp with bright red ink made up that said
"Attention USPS: if this book is lost in shipping, please return to the
following address..."

We stamped the inside cover (which is usually a blank white page) of every
single book we shipped for a year. We never once had a lost book returned to
us. But every month, we would buy up tons of lost books and when opening them
to grade and stamp, we would frequently find our big stamp and it was always
blacked out with magic marker.

So instead of having their "investigators" trying to find where to return
books, they were spending time destroying evidence to cover their butts so
they could continue to profit off their own incompetence.

~~~
TheRealWatson
Once I bought something from SparkFun and when I entered the mailing address
my zip code went missing the last digit (my fault.) Instead of being routed to
Illinois it was sent to Connecticut. Even though the wrong zip code looked
like a CT one, it didn't actually match any valid zip code.

For a few weeks I watched this package go from the warehouse (somewhere in the
South, I think) and get stuck in an endless loop in the East Coast.

Anyhow, I told Sparkfun and they sent me a replacement order hoping they'd
eventually get that package back and put it back in stock. I don't know if
that actually happened.

~~~
jjeaff
Yes, we would see that occasionally. Once tracking got better with USPS, we
would track packages that would loop back and forth between two hubs at least
a dozen times before disappearing.

------
jchw
So far USPS has been the least bad for me as a receiver and occasional sender
of packages. That doesn’t really mean they’re good.

Something I’ve noticed is that when USPS packages get delivered to my complex,
they show up as “Delivery attempted; nobody was available to accept package”
at around 9 AM, then show up at my door at around 3 PM. I had my suspicions
but when I finally asked the mail man confirmed that they simply aren’t
allowed enough time to actually make the deliveries. In the online shopping
era doing a complex like mine can take four hours or more, when they only
allot 2 hours.

This last Saturday I had a package bounce like that as well, only it never
showed up at my door. Instead, I found the door tag in the mailroom and had to
go pick it up today.

At my previous residence I rented a townhouse with its own address in a less
populous area and did not really have this issue. However, I did have a
different problem, which was that the address on my driver’s license did not
match my address (its complicated.) I frequently import stuff from Japan, and
EMS always requires a signature. So I often found myself at the post office
with my leasing documents trying to prove that yes, I live here. I had a USPS
account with Informed Delivery that I confirmed with a physical mailpiece,
which is good enough proof for the DMV, but not good enough for USPS.

It’s really, really saying something that this is the experience I consider to
be the best I’ve had. Though I’ll give UPS credit for having somewhat
accurate, if coarse grained, delivery windows to tell me when to expect
something, instead of “Oh, it’ll come by 8 PM” and then it comes literally at
any time including after 8.

~~~
sneak
When I pay a seller for shipping, I am paying for delivery to my destination.
I never go pick it up. It is the seller’s responsibility to get the package to
me, once I have paid shipping.

I do a fair number of chargebacks.

~~~
jimktrains2
You sound like a terrible person.

There are many reasons outside the seller's control that you'd have to, god
forbid, pickup the package at your local post office or branch. Doubly true
when it comes to international shipments or shipments requiring a signature.

~~~
sneak
The seller chooses the method of shipment. It is absolutely not out of their
control. They have been paid for a service, and if the package does not arrive
at the destination (the post office near the destination is not the
destination), they did not render that service.

It is no different than if you paid a GC to redo your bathroom, and his sink
guy fucked up and didn’t install the drain pipe. It’s the GC’s fault, because
they were paid for the job, and they chose and supervised the subcontractor.

~~~
jimktrains2
Again, you sound as if you have no concept of the "real world". Not everything
will always work exactly the way you want it to.

There are a variety of reasons that a package may not be delivered to your
door, among other things some of the more common are signature requirements,
requiring customs payments, and the post office just not delivering to your
house. The sender has no control over when you're going to be home, how your
local postal system handles customs, or what the policies of your local post
office are.

It's more like a contractor not fulfilling your ever wish because it would be
against the building code and then you getting upset about it.

~~~
sneak
They don’t have to use the post office. They can prepay customs. They can send
it signature not required, or they can ship with a shipper that makes a
delivery appointment.

It’s still the seller’s fault if the goods you paid for don’t arrive at the
agreed delivery location, regardless of shipping circumstances.

------
tazjin
My experience with shipping companies (no matter which one, and in 4 different
countries) is that they generally don't manage to deliver a large fraction of
packages. The failure rate must be above 20%, which would be unacceptable for
most other kinds of systems.

Every now and then someone convinces me to try Amazon - my most recent
experiment with it involved 3 orders, of which they managed to deliver 1. This
is to an address in Central London.

I guess you might have a different experience with shipping services in the
very grid-like, regular, easily adressable American suburbs - but IME in
Europe the most reliable way to get some goods is still to buy them in a
physical shop.

~~~
VBprogrammer
I feel like this might be getting awful close to victim blaming but I can't
help wonder if there is something wrong with your address / delivery situation
if you are losing that many parcels.

I'm in the outskirts of London (previously Greater London). If I purchase
something from Amazon I expect it to drop through my door the next day. They
do this almost without fail. More often I'm surprised when things arrive
earlier than I expected.

~~~
polymatter
Actually at that rate I think its probably more likely a simple error an the
address database somewhere. Something simple like the postcode is in the
address4 field rather than the postcode field. 20% of the time the employee
rejects it as they are highly incentivised to process them quickly.

------
acollins1331
The biggest downside to large corporations is the feeling of powerlessness you
have. Good thing this guy was only shipping some paper. I've been screwed by
corporations before and there will literally be no possible recourse for
someone like us to fix the scenario if the corporation decides not to help.
The amount is always too little to sue, but enough to make us homeless or
unable to pay our bills. It's fucking disgusting. It's sad we rely and enjoy
so many services that would be difficult to do without these large unmoving
and immoral beuracracies, but this is the world our overlords have chosen for
us.

~~~
vortico
What is your proposal for an alternative to FedEx, UPS, USPS, Royal Post, etc?
Thousands of small independently-owned shipping companies? How would that work
when you need to ship a package from/to arbitrary locations in the entire
US/world?

~~~
AliAdams
What is your proposal for an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, etc? Thousands
of small independently-owned networks? How would that work when you need to
send data from/to arbitrary locations in the entire US/world?

~~~
vortico
No idea what you mean other than that you just want to mock someone.
acollins1331 is the person looking for alternatives, not me.

