Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but reader Robbie has done everything short of hire someone to wait for his package, and still FedEx will not deliver it. Instead, despite Robbie’s best efforts, they keep leaving “Sorry you weren’t here” notes outside his door.
Robbie says:
1) I get a door tag on the door to my apartment with the box checked for “sign here for us to leave your package”.
2) The next day there’s another door tag for the same package, left right above the old signed door tag! I sign both door tags. On day 3, there’s yet a door tag, this time in the entrance hall of the apartment (this time he didn’t come up to my room to see the notes).
3) I call and ask about it, they say a signature isn’t even required (it’s a pair of shoes) and that the guy should have left it, that they will request another delivery, but “they can’t guarantee anything.” They take my phone number and say the guy will call me if he has any trouble.
4) I call back 3 additional times, getting the same response with a “we can ask the station to redeliver, but can’t guarantee anything” each time, and with them encouraging me to call back to ask again (?!)–They take no ownership of the issue or even acknowledge that there’s something wrong.
5) Finally I escalate and ask to talk to a “customer advocate”, who eventually calls the station (the other operators said they could only send electronic notices) and specifically orders re-delivery, and for them to leave it no matter what. Again, I provide them with my phone number (and the apartment door system is linked to my cell phone, so if he’d have buzzed, I would have known). I leave a signed door tag and a post it note with a request for them to leave the package, both on my front door *and* in the apartment entryway.
6) I return Saturday night to find another door tag, on the outside door to the entryway. My signed door tag and note is clearly visible from the outside door. Another door tag for another resident is on another mailbox!
7) The guy littered! The paper that covers the sticky part of the door tag is discarded on the pavement.
As a frequent online shopper, I’ve been at this place for a year and have had FedEx, DHL, UPS, and USPS deliver at least 2 dozen packages without incident. They all seem to have the keys to the building, and our door intercom is fully functional.
At this point I’m pretty sick of talking to FedEx. I’m tempted to email this to a senior executive (or one of their competitors). Any ideas?
If you ask me, delivery people who keep neglecting to ring the doorbell and instead leave those horrific notes are the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man.
That’s why we were pleased when Robbie sent us an update and said that he’s been getting a positive response so far after emailing FedEx’s executives. Good luck, Robbie.
If any of you are having similar issues, here is some contact information for you. And, of course, if you’ve ever had any success dealing with one of these evil, evil, note leaving delivery people, please do share your secret in the comments.
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My fedex guy is a ninja. I can be sitting on the other side of my front door reading a book, and still miss that guy. Ive tried taping a 3″ tall “DOORBELL —>” sign on the door. it never seems to work.
I just cant believe its a conspiracy. I mean, wouldnt the guy rather /not/ have to haul the box to my door tomorrow?
Ironically, I can’t get Fedex to actually honor the signature required line. I had stuff left at my old apt that required signatures all the time. Usually left in the mailroom, I constantly complained because we had about 75 apartments in my building. The answer I always received was that “signature ‘required’ can be waived at the drivers discretion.”
Where I live, FexEx and UPS are perfect, especially UPS since the driver knows who I am and even goes out of his way to deliver later on certain days when he knows i’m not home.
The big problem for me is DHL. They regularly don’t attempt to deliver and say I wasn’t home (even though I am) and the big kicker is when they do attempt, sometimes they quietly knock on the door, which can’t be heard unless i’m standing next to it.
Of course the gigantic doorbell on the door is completely ignored. I think my local DHL people have never seen a doorbell before.
I waited for a package on a tuesday. I took the day off work and kept my door propped open, and worked on the laptop until I saw him coming up.
I went outside and told him in no uncertain terms to leave any and all packages, ever, that came for me, under a chair that I keep propped out by my door. And that I’d remember him around the holidays and leave him some “milk and cookies” since he was like my version of “a little uniformed santa”. Then I offered him a cup of coffee (he declined) and wasted some of his time by chatting him up. I could tell he wanted to get away but I made sure that I was friendly (overly so) and very insistent on having a nice neighborly chat.
Since then all my packages are left where I directed. I think he dreads ever seeing me again. Mission accomplished.
Unless I’m standing at the door when they ring it, they’re in their truck and pulling out of the driveway by the time I get to the door (5-10 seconds). So sometimes they’ll just leave it on the doorstep, and sometimes I have to drive to their distribution center. The system isn’t entirely to my liking, but I do ultimately get my packages.
I had a similar experience to those of the person from this article. Except I live in an easily accesible single-family, detached private residence. Even after calling the impotent Fedex customer service to complain, many times over the delivery person leaving the sticky-tag on the door WHILE I WAS AT HOME ALL ALONG, EACH AND EVERY TIME, VISIBLE FROM THE STREET VIA MY LIVING ROOM WINDOW WITH MY VAN IN THE DRIVEWAY, I had to actually watch for them and intercept them as they drove up in order for me to receive the package. I despise having to use FEDEX as a carrier. I don’t understand why using FEDEX is such a headache when it doesn’t need to be. They didn’t use to be so bad, but in recent years…yuck. UPS has never been a problem, and FEDEX is a problem some 4 out of 5 times these days.
FedEx has always done well by me, but UPS has provided consistently awful experiences starting with the time their customer ‘service’ rep told me that the reason a perishable package had been delayed in delivery (and ruined) was because ‘the driver couldn’t find building zero’.
Apparently, the fact that our apartment buildings were lettered and not numbered did not clue him in to why he was having trouble finding ‘building zero’.
They followed up this shining example of smart by delivering a package of expensive sterling silver sheet metal to an address that didn’t even resemble ours and when questioned, said that since someone had signed for the package it was no longer their responsibility and that I should go find the person who signed for it. But they couldn’t tell me where it was delivered.
I called my distributor, they had a few words with UPS and surprise! My package arrived the next day. Not once in four years have UPS managed to deliver a package to us without hassle, not to our former apartment nor to our current house.
It’s really sad to see how far FedEx has fallen, both their air and ground services.
There was a time years ago when, if FedEx dropped the ball on an overnight package and you asked nicely, they would re-route the package through a same-day courier service and still get it to you that day. I’m sure that’s long gone now.
We kept track and honestly less than 40% of my “guaranteed overnight” packages arrived on time in the last year we used FedEx. Everything from early pickups at drop boxes to failure to load packages at the Oakland air hub to “Sorry, the plane broke so we’re just not going to send any of the freight that’s on that plane till tomorrow” to dozens of other bogus excuses that would NEVER have flown with the “old” FedEx.
We even tried working through our sales rep… we were prepared to negotiate to ship 100% of our packages via FedEx, a volume of some 20 to 50 packages a day, many of which went via air… we asked her to find an actual FedEx VP (not some flunky in the “executive services” call center) to discuss our problems and help figure out how we could resolve them…and she couldn’t find anyone willing to talk to us, in spite of the fact that they were going to lose all of our business.
As for FedEx ground… it’s a joke. I used to live way up in the east bay (CA) hills, about 2 miles up very steep and narrow roads, and the FedEx ground driver would routinely delay delivery of packages to me for sometimes 4 or 5 days because he was too lazy to drive up the hill for my one package. (This told to me by the Oakland center manager.) I’ve lived in other places where the tracking would show the driver had the package on his van 3 days running… but no delivery attempt.
The whole system is completely flawed. When you pay drivers on a per-package-delivered basis, of course they are going to deliver the easy ones first and put up delivering the ones that require effort as long as possible.
The real shame is that FedEx set the standard for exceptional service back in the late 1970s, and their quality standards forced UPS to step up to the plate and start providing topnotch service in order to compete… but somewhere along the line, FedEx adopted a “we don’t give a rat’s ass” attitude and their service has gone continually downhill ever since.
I’ve had the same problem with FedEx.
I usually go straight to the problem: the particular delivery person (because some are good and some are bad, and you can totally tell when you’ve got someone who’s bad at their job and does not care).
I leave a big note that’s easy to read exactly where they’ve been leaving my notices. It says “I guarantee you I am home (or “You can leave this package”). If you fail to deliver, I promise you that I will have you fired.”
Yes, I’m a mean bitch. But I don’t care. All I want is the service I paid for.
Does anyone keep a close eye on their tracking? Want to know why UPS charges too much? I monitored a package that was coming in from Great Britain to Canada. On its voyage, it arrived into Canada, went to the Mississauga sorting plant, went to another sorting plant which was way far from me. Then the package somehow ended up somewhere in the US. It went through another city and finally came back to Canada. But it dosnt stop there, it goes around some cities again finally ending up back to Mississauga!
I regret not print screening the event because once I checked back a few months later, all the “mistakes” were omitted.
Whenever I get a notice for attempted delivery, I just call them and tell them I’ll pick it up personally. This isn’t a possibility for many people though.
I don’t know why they don’t do this but they should call the people they are delivering to prior to delivery to ensure that they will be home. This would save on gas considerably I’m sure (phone bill may rise though).
The shipper makes the decision on whether a signature is required or not. The person receiving the package can not change that. Your best bet is to ask them to “hold” the package and go pick it up. I would also point out that FEDEX deals with stolen, undelivered, or claims of this sort regularly. They are protecting themselves from claims on “undelivered” products. The driver has no reason to want to take the package back to the delivery center and take it back out the next day. It basically is asking somebody to do the work twice.
If given the option, I use USPS. I have no problem with going to the post office to pickup a package if I miss the delivery. Another solution is to have a post office box of any size. Anything too large to fit is held in back awaiting your arrival. You can have anything delivered to a P.O. Box by any company and the post office will sign for it and hold it pending pickup. However, there is a time limit on pickup. I think you get a month.
I have found that Fedex (the original guys) is usually OK. Fedex Ground (formerly known as RPS – Roadway Package Express) is marginal. Fedex/Home drives the short trucks – forget them.
I have several vendors (Green Mountain Coffee is one of them) that insist on using Fedex/Home. They’ve been told if they ever again try to ship to me using Fedex Home, they’ll be one less customer.
FYI – Fedex home delivers Tuesday through Saturday 9AM to 8PM – real convenient for deliveries to my office (not a home/office).
FedEx has a form you can fill out which gives them permission to leave a package at your door. Once I found out about it it save me the hassle of calling or picking it up at FedEx. It’s a godsend for any at home business. Don’t think I’d do it if I lived in an apartment building or a townhouse in the city.
As to the drivers, its the luck of the draw. When my house was in the area of major telecom companies I always had great service. In reference to their abrupt manner, the drivers are docked pay (or once were) if they got behind in their route. UPS at one time was the worst at cracking the whip on their employees. UPS’s turnover rate at one time was unimaginable.
We chronically get notes instead of packages from both UPS and FedEx. I almost always force FedEx to refund the express fees, since they refuse to deliver it in the first place. I’m always home, and often am sitting right on the other side of the door all day, there’s no excuse for no knocking, buzzing, or trying to let me know there’s a delivery. I called UPS a number of times, and now the regular UPS delivery guy gives me a super hard time – he bangs on the door hard enough to startle anyone in neighboring apartments, and leans on the buzzer, and is always gruff with me. I don’t care how it felt for him to get yelled at, I paid for the delivery, I should be able to actually get the packages instead of notes. I caught his replacement in the act one, I hear a faint scratching in the hall, and opened the door to a startled UPS man writing me a note. I made sure to chew him out – I was right there waiting for a package, and he didn’t even try to let me know he was there! It’s so crazy!
Yet any packages that come to my by USPO are either brought to my door (I recall once the postman actually stopping to make sure the resident list was correct, and that he was getting things to me as quickly and cleanly as possible), or left with one of the building employees. (I miss our old building manager though, he would hand deliver packages so you didn’t even have to go to the office after being at work all day, and he would make sure stuff left at the door wasn’t stolen.)
I once had a UPS driver leave a note on my door telling me he couldn’t find my address. No kidding! I never did get that package, despite repeated attempts to have it delivered. It wasn’t something I really needed, so I didn’t sweat it too much. It was a setup package/welcome kit from my ISP, which I didn’t need to get my service going, and since it didn’t contait any equipment I just let it go back to my ISP. I live in a small apartment complex and the building number is plainly visible on my building, and there are only 2 apartments in that building!
I noticed that the slip is green, so its FedEx ground. FedEx bought their ground company from Roadway, and it used to be called RPS. They do not use company drivers (yes ALL of the green logo Fedex truck are NOT owned by Fedex) There is a major lawsuit over it and its half of the reason why they probably are not helping you much. They painted themselves into a corner as they tried to have it both ways… they want these people to look like they are FedEx employees when they are not. Yet, because of the lawsuits, they are probably afraid to tell them what to do. Best advice, use UPS.
I just avoid all of that and call FedEx and ask them to hold my package at the local hub. They’re open until 9PM and I go and pickup at my own leisure.
A UPS driver recently decided that the apartment number was missing on my address. Just a few days earlier I got a UPS package no problem. Just a lazy sub who thought he could get away with something, causes way too much headaches for us.
The USPS isn’t getting any better either.
Not only have they stopped second attempts on delivering packages that require signatures, but they often don’t even ring the bell.
Yes, it’s official. The only make 1 “attempt” now to deliver. After that, it’s kept at the post office until you pick it up or it gets returned.
What’s even more frustrating is that you have to have the addressee sign the slip if you are picking it up, even if you could sign for it on delivery.
Add in the limited USPS hours, and it’s a big “screw you very much, and please don’t come again.” to the customers.
@sodden: btw, forgot to mention, I don’t even live in an apartment. This is a house!
I used to have this problem, but I found that shaming them publicly works pretty well.
Make a large note, with BIG writing that can be read from as far away as possible without being too outrageous. Have it say something like ‘ I SIGNED FOR THIS PACKAGE TWICE. LEAVE IT OR I’M CALLING YOUR BOSS, AND I WILL HAVE YOU FIRED.’
Tends to work pretty well. And then you follow through by not calling 1-800-go-fedex or the UPS 1800 number,….you look up the local dispatch office and call them. Bosses dont like packages cluttering up the place forever, they want them delivered.
We had a somewhat similar problem with UPS. We would call in to the local dispatch when we had a package that needed to be picked up and the truck would never come by. We eventually caught the driver and talked to him about it and he said that dispatch never told him. Thus, he gave us his cell number and now we call him directly and have no more problems. It seems that sometimes it isn’t the driver, it’s the station that isn’t telling them what to do because they don’t care.
We finally got fed up (pun intended) and just got a UPS box. They do all signing/acceptance, etc., and we haven’t had a problem since.
Yeah, its an added expense, but well worth the price in aggravation avoidance. (We got the cheapest one, just a slot actually, but they hold the packages, call when a delivery is made, provide discounts for payment in advance, and lots of other services.) There are lots of non-UPS mailbox type places, so if you get lots of packages delivered, its something you might want to check into.)
One day last year my sister left work early and arrived out front of her non-doorman apartment building to find an empty-handed FedEx courier affixing two “Sorry…” notes to the front door. When my sister said, “I can sign for those,” the FedEx guy hemmed and hawed and replied, “They’re on the truck. I can’t run back and forth right now. Just leave those up and I’ll come back tomorrow.” Then the courier moseyed off, whistling presumably? To my sister’s way of thinking, did the FedEx guy arrive at the building with parcels in hand, ring the recipients’ apartments, receive no answer, then return to his truck, then return to the front door to stick the notices up?
Add me to the list of people who HATE both UPS and FedEx. Lazy drivers who dropped out of middle school never do it right the first time. It almost makes me want to buy stuff locally and pay sales tax.
I completely gave up on having FedEX deliver me anything. Instead, I would ask the distribution center to hold the package so I could pick it up there myself.
The center was open until 6p or later, making it much more convenient than worrying about daytime deliveries.
@mxjohnson:
I know where our Ground hub is. It’s in the industrial park where I work. I can go down there and bitch/pick up/ if there are any problems.
Yurei said: >>I have noticed over time that businesses seem to get better shipping treatment than residential addresses.<<
Not true with FedEx, at least not here! Every multi-carton shipment delivered to my business via FedEx comes in installments. We never get “Box 1 of 2″ and “Box 2 of 2″ on the same day, even though the boxes were shipped together. Invariably, the box that doesn’t come on time contains the products we need the most desperately. We get MUCH better service from UPS.
Chumia40 — FedEx Home DOES delivery on Saturday, as someone noted above. It’s a regular delivery day for home service, not a premium service.
Our worst delivery experiences have been with the Postal “Service,” and I put quotes because the word really does NOT apply. It would take too long for me to list all my grievances with USPS, but here’s one example: We’re in a one-story building in an office park. We put our pre-paid Priority Mail packages at our mailbox, and unless we have INCOMING mail that day, the postman walks right by our packages to deliver mail to our next-door neighbor whose door is (I measured!) 3 yards away. Today is Sept. 25th and we are waiting for Priority Mail boxes we ordered from USPS on Sept. 9th. Four phone calls have not gotten us anywhere. One USPS customer “service” rep said yesterday “Well, it TAKES 7 to 10 days.” I said “It has been 16 days now.” No apology, no help, no boxes. We’d stop shipping via USPS altogether if it weren’t for the 1- and 2-pound boxes we ship. Prices are lower on those, and customers choose the P.O. option because of price.
Just yesterday they didn’t even leave the note. I had to walk a few blocks down because some nice kid had the respect to give me a call. Screw FedEx.
That’s FedEx Ground for you. They’re like the retarded cousin FedEx keeps in the basement but comes out for parties so everyone thinks he’s a regular part of the family.
FedEx Ground = Contracted Drivers. They are sometimes able to hire other people to do their routes. This probably happened here.
Since Customer service and corporate seem to be working with you on this issue, it seems like the Driver is the one tanking it for the company. Just remember that for the one retard you deal with during the day doesn’t represent the entire corporation.
Obviously, you can tell I work for FedEx. As a Driver, too, so please believe me when I say the company does take the customers needs very seriously.
That’s nothing, Fedex never came to my mom’s house, drove right by my old apartment complex, and didn’t even come into my driveway a couple weeks ago with my wedding band! From now on I ensure I’m going to be off the day of “delivery”, then go to the Fedex warehouse at 4:30pm to pick the damn thing up myself, and complain each time… never does any good.
Heh. I have the opposite problem – they leave “signature required” items on my doorstep (which is in a neighborhood where someone would certainly steal the package) without even ringing the doorbell. Can we switch FedEx drivers?
that unfortunately is not how a fedex experience is supposed to be remembered by. unfortunately, fedex ground contractors (those are their doortags pictured) will at times not adhere to fedex policies and quality control standards, resulting in situations like the one mentioned here in this post.
When I ordered a new videocard for my computer, it came by fedex,
I got 2 notices even though I spent the entire dat pretty much waiting in the living room which the main door leads to, since it was summer, i could stay home all day.
Well this is what happened, My door has no doorbell because the stock one that was built into the house was destroyed, and when I have the electronic wireless door bell out there, someone keeps stealing the small 12v battery thats inside of the doorbell, so I removed it so theres no doorbell at all.
the fedex people were too lazy to even knock on the door, they just walk up and see no doorbell and just stick a delivery notice on the door and walk away, no knocks at all (fedex is the only company that does this, ups and usps and dhl all knock)
so the 3rd day, I basically stood by the living room window, and after a few hours (i also had a small chair to use also) the fedex person came up to the door with a premade delivery note that he just walked up to the door, and stuck it there and began to walk away. so I rushed to the door and stopped him and finally got my package. I hate with some online stores use fedex.