telophase | (no subject)

HEY GUESS WHAT. FedEx claims that nobody was home at 10:30 AM when they tried to deliver our JapanRail passes! You know...nobody except MY HUSBAND WHO WORKS FROM HOME. And not only does the door tag say it's NOT going to be redelivered tomorrow, they say we have to go up to their facility at I20 and I35 to pick it up! That would be the NORTH intersection of them, not the south, which is far closer to where we actually live.

I phoned them and the person on the phone could only say "It shows here that delivery was attempted." And claimed that delivery would be reattempted tomorrow, but the door tag says we have to pick it up. I said I would like to register a very strong complaint that the driver didn't knock or ring the bell, and she said she'd let the station hub know. and then I sent a couple of very strong tweets at @FedEx and @FedExHelp on the off chance that someone was actually listening, but I am not optimistic.

I have no idea why people claim FedEx is better than UPS. I have had problems like this about 50% of the time I've had to use FedEx, and many, many, many times fewer with UPS. A FedEx driver even once left a signature-only package containing a credit card that was overnighted to me at my door without knocking--I was at home waiting for it.

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Our neighborhood has a lot of people who work at home---and a lot who don't, and so signs are sprouting everywhere telling UPS/FEDEX/USPS to RING THE BELL. Like, you know, they're supposed to.

Fedex is the worst for drive-bys here. A lot of the posties, at least the subs who we tend to get around the holidays, will just throw signature-required slips in the mailbox and not bother ringing the bell either. We have one jerk on duty this past week "delivering" packages by chucking them up onto the landing in plain sight of the street.

Maybe Fedex changes routes around more. I know by sight the three or so UPS drivers who are usually delivering around here, and also a lot of the regular postal carriers too.

My angry tweet worked! I got someone on the PR team who is willing to elevate it. :D :D :D Let's see if anything actually happens.

We've occasionally had UPS not knock, but it tends to happen more at the holidays, when we know they're swamped, and occasionally at other times, probably due to substitute drivers.

I've had UPS claim a package was actually delivered when they didn't even try to deliver it. I assume the driver intended to come back the next day or something, but sadly for them I checked and called.

How Joe the Customer Service Guy Won My Heart for DHL.

DHL is never an option when I order anything, bah.

I think DHL stopped their US domestic service.

Of course they did! I assume it was because they were too good!

I've had similar problems with UPS. I don't use either UPS or FedEx if I can help it.

My impression is that FedEx started going downhill after they bought Roadway Package Systems, which was an awful service (Steve Jackson Games used them for a while, but stopped due to complaints). I think FedEx Ground was originally a rebranding of RPS, but since Ground is now all contractors some RPS people might have been absorbed into regular FedEx, which can't do them any good.

Bah.

Twenty years go I worked for a small delivery company with a branch in San Antonio--we mostly picked packages up from one company and shuttled them to another that same day--and our service was way better than this! And the small size meant that when someone called in with a complaint about a driver missing a pickup or delivery, I could put them on hold while the dispatcher--sitting on the other side of the room--radioed the driver and asked them what the hell. So our drivers were WAY more conscientious! (Our drivers still envied UPS drivers because UPS drivers got to wear shorts while they had to wear pants even in the summer.)

But huge companies like FedEx are so big I was probably talking to someone on the phone several states away from me, and the PR guy who tweeted me back was probably in another state altogether, so contacting an individual driver is going to mean going through sixteen-umpty levels of people, any of which could simply not care about one person's delivery and not pass the message on, or not discipline the driver. (OR be the person who told the driver to improve their times, so the driver was taking shortcuts.)

In conclusion: bah.

With UPS you can sometimes talk to someone actually at your local depot, but that doesn't always work; when I lived near Chicago the manager at the local depot was extremely unhelpful.

I find USPS easier to deal with.

I had an annoying UPS delivery once, also, where we had to go find the local depot, tucked away in some almost-inaccessible location, then find the unmarked (iirc) door where we were to enter to get the package. But that was at a previous address, not the current one, and given how many UPS things we get I'm amazed at how good their service is.

USPS is SO MUCH CLOSER, though, and our local branch has a minimum of surly employees to deal with. (Unlike a previous branch I used to live near!)

As far as I can tell, it's even neighbourhood dependent. In the U. District, UPS was okay, FedEx was okay, USPS was terrible. Where I live now (eight miles away), USPS is _spectacular_, FedEx has never failed, UPS is actually pretty good but has done the drive-by thing to me once and also misdelivered (to neighbour's house) once.

(Misdelivering to the neighbour house is kind of hilarious because there are only two houses on the street, and you can only see ours from the corner, and ours is the only one with numbers on it. And their house is harder to get to, so it wasn't laziness. Just... how do you even?)

Anyway, good luck.

*Urgh*, FedEx. I rarely get anything from tnem, but when Canada Post was on strike I ordered some discounted parts from somewhere. Whoever mailed them put the full cost, despite me buying them for much less, and the FedEx driver wanted me to pay almost $100 in customs/fees for a $15 items. But he was so rude about it, threatening to send it back if I didn't pay right then, and asking if I'd bought sex toys :/ The website said they'd refund me if I sent it back & I could reorder and they'd put the right price on. But as 1 item was the last they had in stock, they couldn't guarantee it wouldn't be sold beforehand. So in the end I paid the customs, plus their own fees added-on for my parcel.

I also received a $8 cruise shirt from a peep, and they later sent me a letter requesting I pay them $40+ for it. I instead filled-out the bill dispute form and have never heard anything further from it.

Then again DHS dropped & broke (while walking to our steps) an expensive headset I ordered, and lied about doing so when I tried to do the insurance thing.

Purolator is so fantastic though.

Oh, ugh! I have to say, customs duties are one hassle I've never had to deal with, for whatever reason.

I think a huge and un-heralded factor is whether or not you have a consistent driver. Local drivers are the best. FedEx is great by me because the driver's one of my neighbors.

I expect that's quite a lot of it. Our UPS driver and our mail carrier* are excellent, and both usually knock--if they don't, we assume they're running late (Christmas, especially) or it's a substitute driver.

* almost said "mailman,' but that doesn't quite fit her!

I used to see our mail carrier at work almost every day and she was great; she only did one side of the street so I hardly see her now we've moved.

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I think it really depends upon where you are

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