FedEx is terrible

Wow. I have had no really negative experiences with any shipper until today.
I have a package that is already a day or so behind due to the company I ordered it from putzing around for a day or two until they shipped it out. They "upgraded" me from UPS to FedEx home delivery in order to make it up to me. We are waiting to leave town with this Christmas present.

FedEx showed it in the local delivery center this morning. "Good," I say, "We'll just pack the car and be ready when it gets here". We sleep in, have a late breakfast, chill out till ~3pm.
"Dang, I hope it gets here soon, or we'll be making the drive in the dark", I say. That's ok, because the car is packed, we just ate the last of our food so nothing is gonna go bad, completely ready for when the FedEx man gets here.
4pm rolls around
5pm rolls around
6pm rolls around
7pm rolls around
8pm rolls around
at 8:30 it shows that the driver decided he had worked enough today TWO HOURS AGO, despite not finishing his job of delivering packages, and would delay the delivery of the package until tomorrow. TOMORROW!

I call the 800#. I talk to a rep. "Can I pick up the package at the center?", I ask. "Sure," she says, "let me call the center and see how late they are open." I wait on hold. It's 9pm now.
She comes back, "Uh, you can't pick up the package because nobody is there to give it to you."
"HORSECRAP!," I say. "I know there is somebody at the center 24-7 who can pull my package and scan it out for me".
"Oh, there is someone there, but they are FedEx ground employees", she says.
"And?", I ask wondering if that means that ground employees do not have hands to pick up my package or something.
"Oh, they're not authorized to handle Home Delivery packages"
"So you're telling me that there are people at that center, and my package is at that center, and other people can get their packages that are at that center, but I cannot?"
"Yes. [long pause] I'm sorry for the inconvenience"
"Ok, so what time will it be delivered tomorrow?"
"Oh, we don't guarantee commit times for Home Delivery packages, just the day"
"So what day is it going to be delivered? Or does that just mean it will be delivered in the day, someday?"
"[effectively, yes]"
"Ok, well I'd like to pick up the package tomorrow," I say, since I've already waited for 12 hours today for the package, whats another 12?

So right now I have to call them around 6am to see if they did their job and pulled my package (at this point, not likely).

Lazy Action Count:
1) Driver chose to stop delivering packages and call it a day.
2) Center workers will pull packages for Ground customers, but not Home Delivery.
3) They may or may not deliver the package. Ever. This is perfectly acceptable according to the CSR.

This has NEVER happened at the UPS centers that I know of and have worked at. Drivers ALWAYS deliver everything on the truck, or else. If packages are left on the truck, some other driver is sent out with them, ESPECIALLY around Christmas time. Center workers will pull any package, Air, air saver, 2 day, three day, freight, overweight, hazmat, whatever. I really thought that UPS was the more lazy and inefficient of the shipping companies, but in all of UPS's laziness, this situation would NEVER happen with this resolution. Ever. To add salt to the would, UPS delivered a package three days early (standard ground in 2 days out of state) around 2pm today. Thanks for the free "upgrade" in shipping....

Sounds like something id hear from UPS. Never have had ANY problems with fedex.

Seeing how this is coming from a UPS employee i am not suprised

I'm on disability right now till march-ish (tore my ACL in the sort aisle), but I've sorted volume and/or loaded package cars since 06-02-03 here at 3260.

Recognize that coleman?

Well, he is an an employee of UPS. So do the math.

dammmn
that bites

Fedex home is just a bastardized version of their ground service. basically, you'd get faster service sending stuff via USPS. LOL...that being said, ALWAYS pay for Fedex Standard...will save you the headache...I ship all my international stuff via fedex and it's just fine and dandy.

dave

I always thought it was general agreement that Fedex is the best shipping company?

Never had problems with FedEx. Always had packages on time or early. UPS or USPS always took days up to a week longer than I like.

martinjon666 said:

Seeing how this is coming from a UPS employee i am not suprised

I'm on disability right now till march-ish (tore my ACL in the sort aisle), but I've sorted volume and/or loaded package cars since 06-02-03 here at 3260.

Recognize that coleman?

Click to expand...

Uh, yeah. Also, where I mention in the top post that I work for UPS. It's not like I was trying to hide it.

dave_graham said:

Fedex home is just a bastardized version of their ground service. basically, you'd get faster service sending stuff via USPS. LOL...that being said, ALWAYS pay for Fedex Standard...will save you the headache...I ship all my international stuff via fedex and it's just fine and dandy.

dave

Click to expand...

The thing is, I paid for UPS, but since the company I ordered it from fubared my order for 2 days, they gave me a free "upgrade" to fedex so I would get it in time. That actually made me get it later. That's the frustrating part.

ghettocomp said:

Never had problems with FedEx. Always had packages on time or early. UPS or USPS always took days up to a week longer than I like.

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I've never really had a problem with any other shipper until now. I don't suppose I can make global attributions from this one instance, but it did require several people in the system to simultaneously be lazy to get to this end.

Yeah, so it's 5am, and I'm heading to the center now in hopes of getting my package before the driver does or does not pull the package off the car, or does or does not deliver my package (all acceptable and normal options according to the CSR).

tom10167 said:

I always thought it was general agreement that Fedex is the best shipping company?

Click to expand...

me too. Apparently they're not perfect as they are sometimes painted here on this forum.

The quality of service may depend a lot on which centre it is coming from. Take a store in a given chain - it may be absolutely crap but another store in the same chain can be brilliant. It all depends on the staff.

Consideration must be given for the time of year as well, The Christmas Season nearly triples the number of packages being handled. (it may be a lot more) Things are bound to happen, and surely not everyone will be pleased.

ehh.. laziness. not cool.
Yeah, i was about to say, the amount of packages is a lot, but UPS is good.
I still gotta thank UPS for the ontime arrivals. They were nice, smooth, and ontime. I could even track the package status from school. How convenient!

Well as i said in a diff thread, UPS can get the stuff here but in one piece? My 27" LCD came last week, on time, with the stand busted in half. As if you couldn't look at the box and see what it is and say to yourself "might want to be careful with that one" But no, busted in HALF!

I ended up having to drive 50 miles to a FedEx center in another city, and sneak in the employee entrance at 6am and talk someone into giving me my package. I didn't mention I was a UPS employee, but I just acted like I was supposed to be there and they didn't give me any heat really. They were pretty nice overall, though the people on the 800# were useless (though nice).

David Coleman said:

I ended up having to drive 50 miles to a FedEx center in another city, and sneak in the employee entrance at 6am and talk someone into giving me my package. I didn't mention I was a UPS employee, but I just acted like I was supposed to be there and they didn't give me any heat really. They were pretty nice overall, though the people on the 800# were useless (though nice).

Click to expand...

Nice is still useless if you're in my way.

Generally I avoid UPS because of consistent delivery issues when I didn't own a vehicle years ago. Fedex on a few occassions redispatched my package after a delivery attempt failed (because I was at work, not at home) and left the package with a neighbor.

Overall the fastest delivery has been Airbourne Express (now DHL I believe). In some cases next day from the midwest (Dell). And that was for standard service. Not ALL packages came that far ahead of schedule, but several have. I don't think a single UPS package headed for my doorstep slated for X day came XX days earlier.

On the down side, I had one package stolen and/or delivered to the wrong address by fedex. More recently, UPS delivered a package to the wrong zip (caught this when speaking to the CSR and she said it went to 12345 instead of 15432). The next day it was left at the door, destroyed. Fortunately it was only a pack of stylus for my palm pilot. Even then the plastic tips had to be bent back into place because the VERY oversized Compussr box was damaged so badly.

i've had bad experiences with dhl, fedex, ups, usps. mostly it depends on your local hub and delivery people. i will give ups cudos for messing up the most often though.

here's my latest ups horror story:
link to tracking
that was a 7800gtx