By now, you’ve all probably seen the video of the FedEx delivery driver caught on camera tossing a box containing a new computer monitor over a customer’s fence, rather than just walk the few feet to the front door. The people at the delivery service have realized this is probably not good publicity, so they’ve come out with a public apology.
“I am upset and embarrassed for our customer’s poor experience. This goes directly against all FedEx values. It’s just not who we are,” says FedEx senior VP Matthew Thornton in the below YouTube video.
While Thornton would not go into specifics on the employee in the video, he did say that this staffer is “not working with customers” while FedEx goes through its disciplinary process (which we assume involves making the drivers dress up like UPS carriers).
He also stated that the company has made contact and “resolved the situation” with the customer whose monitor was given the old up-and-over.
Here is the apology video, followed by the original monitor tossing clip, which now has more than 4 million views on YouTube.
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he did say that this staffer is “not working with customers”
So he is in the warehouse, practicing his aim?
I could be wrong… but aren’t non-mgmt employees of FedEx and UPS union? That means there are a lot of hoops to jump through and they can’t just fire him for one incident.
He will probably be given probation and if he doesn’t do anything stupid in the future there will be no long term damage to his career.
I know UPS is union, Teamsters at that, but I don’t believe FedEx is union.
My brother-in-law used to work for FedEx. IIRC, for the non-management, the Express guys are union, the Ground guys are not.
Wrong. As I mentioned before, most are not union…except for maybe the pilots.
Most Fedex employees are NOT union employees. The pilots might be, but that’s about it.
Union or not, if you don’t do the job you get fired. I don’t care who backs you, you can take me to court and I will tell the judge that you damaged a customers goods and that is grounds for being fired. Unions are bullshit, all they do is raise costs because people don’t have the competency to work together as a team (manager and subordinate) to discuss and solve issues.
Amen!
FedEx is non-union, and the company is very anti-union. There’s also this legal twist, where UPS is covered by one set of laws for rail, and FedEx is not (or something like that).
New recruit #3: He wasn’t disguised as one of our competitors?
Thank the unions for that.
He is probably just being beaten until his morale improves to the point he won’t feel like throwing fragile parcels over fences.
why don’t they just fire his ass?
I saw this apology video last night, and I was (perhaps naively) expecting something comedic in it. However, it was still pretty commendable of the guy to make the video.
He did say “expurience”, so that was somewhat amusing.
Unfortunately this is probably not an isolated incident, the driver just happened to get caught this time. The biggest issue I have with FedEx, and it has happened to me multiple times over the years, is when they state they tried to make deliver, but no one is home when in fact I was home all day.
Ditto. That happened to me two weeks ago, two days in a row. Wound up having them take it to their office and picking it up there.
UPS used to do this to me all the time at my former address. I would be home, no truck would even go down my street and I would have a “delivery attempt” logged online. I was none too pleased!
I finally got a UPS Supervisor to level with me. The drivers are timed and if they are behind schedule they will skip deliveries, log them as attempted knowing most people arn’t home and wouldn’t know the difference and because they are/were part of the Teamsters union, there was very little UPS could do to them. Nice!
UPS should imbed a camera in the truck’s terminal, and rig it to take a timestamped picture of the house at the time the package is marked delivery attempted. (Or delivered, for that matter) Would clarify the matter of whether the truck actually went to the address. Of course it would cost quite a bit to actually be doing things as they’re supposed to be done. As a customer I think I’d be more receptive to a package being marked ‘Delivery attempt not possible’ than being told someone came to the door to try and delivery, when I know 100% that they didn’t.
Of course UPS can do something. They (and Fed Ex) can quit having unreasonable delivery statistics and requirements or “timing” their drivers.
This happens frequently at my office, I can see the FedEx guy from my window and he’ll buzz the doorbell. But it seems like he counts to three, puts the sign up on the door, and then drives off before I can reach the doorbell.
Between that and the hour window for pickup which can mean he’ll show up anywhere between 3:59 or 4:59 with no consistency whatsoever drives me insane.
That’s what I’m thinking. This guy got caught but how many didn’t.
Not to justify the driver’s actions but it was probably an effort to get a completed delivery and add to his ‘delivered’ statistics.
Then he said they are using the video for training purposes-good. But for many the video will tell them one thing-lookout for pesky cameras.
Which is exactly why he made the video so generic and didn’t mention any details of the issue – They get to post the same video for every PR issue!
This happened to me *last night* on a package I absolutely needed by this morning. I was actually on the phone with FedEx saying, “it’s 7:40pm, is this package really coming today?” (answer: of course it is!) when they logged that I wasn’t home so couldn’t deliver. I called them within minutes of seeing it online, utterly furious, but of course they wouldn’t come back. I’m still seething.
You have a shitty driver then. The ones that come to my house (when it’s necessary) always knock if my car is in the driveway. ALWAYS.
The one that’s supposed to deliver to mine doesn’t even bother to show up. Never has. They either mark a delivery exception and drop it off at the local FedEx Kinkos, or just skip that step and drop it off at the local FedEx Kinkos. They do this in spite of the fact that someone is always home who would assuredly answer the door if FedEx bothered to come by. And it’s not like I live in a crappy neighborhood or anything like that, so there’s really no reason for it besides simple laziness.
What a butthole. *kicks driver*
Ah, the power of video and the internet. I wonder- if more and more people record things like this, if the companies involved will care less and less.
Video is even better with snowflakes
indeed. its like a winter wonderland of monitor tossing.
As someone who has worked in the warehouse and in the loading dock in my younger years, I’ve seen far worse things done to packages.
When I worked in an Andersen Window and Door Wholesaler which included hundreds of other types of products including internal/exterior doors and assembled windows for new houses we never threw anything onto a truck regardless of the size. There is no excuse for this guy’s behavior. He doesn’t care and it’s that simple.
who wants to bet that cutting costs is the source of the problem. they cut cost and expect drivers to do more work in the same amount of time
So, is the deliver driver’s punishment to spend 4 years on a deserted tropical island with only a volleyball as a companion?
Nice.
Why would the disciplinary process involve them dressing like UPS drivers? UPS Drivers must start at the bottom, as a loader, working the grave shift. There’s an internal waiting list to become a driver. They do not hire drivers from outside.
FedEx has much lower standards.
False. When I started at UPS, day 1, I was a driver.
In other words, make the problematic FedEx drivers look like UPS drivers to fool people into complaining about UPS instead.
I hate explaining jokes.
An apology, for what seems to be standard practice from my experience is an insult.
Apology not accepted FedEX, you screwed me just last week.
I’ll still use FedEx sometimes though as UPS is much, much worse in my area.
Hay, at least the FedEx guy tossed it on the inside of the gate. The UPS/FedEx drivers to my complex leave it on the outside sidewalk …..so the package can walk away. Or they tell you to drive 15 miles to get your package. I hate both companies.
I’m okay driving to pick it up if there wasn’t anywhere safe to drop it off.
Not isolated to FedEx, UPS is just as bad, is the “Sneaky” delivery. That’s a knock on the door – sometimes – and then the sticky “Delivery” attempt note on the door. I can only imagine the driver as he’s leaving your house laughing like a maniac.
I live in an apartment building where it’s standard practice for the delivery driver to get buzzed in and then leave packages (for any tenant) in the lobby or take the package up to the apartment, knock, and run off. This works perfectly well if the driver actually attempts to get buzzed in. Several times I’ve found sticky notes outside indicating they attempted delivery for items that required signature, but couldn’t reach me. In reality I was home the entire time and was never called. It’s as if they expected me to not be home so they didn’t even bother using the callbox to reach me. (I work from home, so during the days I am almost always home.)
Similar situation. We have been waiting for a shipment from FedEx. My wife was in the living room this morning. No knocks, no anything. When she opened the door of our apartment this afternoon, the box was against the door, with a little “Attempted Delivery” sign.. I know it was just a cable modem, but damn…
Yeah. I’m a stay at home mom, and we almost always have our living room blinds open, if the windows themselves aren’t opened as well. I’ve actually seen the delivery guy stop, slap up a notice on the door, and walk away (the package having been left on the truck). After I opened the door and asked if I could help him, he stopped doing that.
I love the information-free UPS “infonotices” that drivers stick to your door without filling in any of the blanks. Those things are great.
No worries. Union has his back.
Wrong. Most Fedex employees aren’t union employees. You’re thinking about UPS.
And yet despite the public perception that unions are evil, UPS has always done a far, far better job than FedEx in my experience.
Also, don’t confuse Fedex Express with Fedex Ground. Yes, they are both “Fedex”…but totally ‘different’ companies…and levels of service.
Thing is, that is a FedEx Express van in the video.
Correct. Most of the other horror stories on Consumerist seem to concern Fedex Ground but this one is actually Fedex Express for a change.
I consider you a very lucky person. My husband and I don’t order stuff if UPS is the only option. Every fricken time, they manage to foobar the delivery.
I actually prefer USPS. Cheaper and relatively few problems (one bad delivery out of around 200 so far, and this was media mail, the crappiest delivery option). UPS is the second choice, and FedEx (ground) third.
Oh, bummer dude! Your inane political potshot failed due to ignorance of the facts of the situation. I would say that sucks for you, but I’m betting that you are the kind of person who doesn’t allow facts to change his opinions.
That rep is a jackass. Where he says “I am embarrassed for the customer poor experience,” he should say “I am embarrassed of this driver’s completely unacceptable behavior.” Where he says “We are working to resolve the matter within our system” and “This employee is no longer working with customers,” he should be saying “This employee is no longer an employee of FedEx.” He cannot validate the claim that this individual’s behavior is “not representative of FedEx’s values” if the individual is still employed by FedEx. Period.
Agreed. Well said. There are two options:
1. Denounce the behavior by firing AND naming the driver.
2. Admit that this is, in fact, standard FedEx service.
So far, I see #2.
The ultimate fix would involve customer-centric reporting systems that directly affect the processes.
People should be encouraged to report exceptions to it being delivered with an online form.
Enter the package tracking id and if they get a not home slip, a code off of it. They were home and they never knocked. They didn’t bother to try the office. They didn’t ring the buzzer. They dropped the package. They skipped the porch and left the package in the rain. They put a package with obvious electronics in plain view of the street when there was a fence to put it behind. They delivered to the wrong address. They skipped a package that was out for delivery as a part of a set. Stuff like that. One complaint wouldn’t do much but a bad driver could get a lot of them and things can change.
Make customer feedback central to the job.
Because they’re a service industry and answer to their customers.
The flaw in your plan is you, as the recipient, are not the customer. The shipper is. “But, I pay for shipping!” Yes you do, but you pay your shipper, not the carrier. Provide the feedback to who you bought the item from. Enough complaints and they will change shippers.
“not working with customers”. There’s a comforting thought. He should be fired, plain and simple, and FedEx should take the cost of the destroyed monitor out of his last paycheck.
Legally… making public comments about a employee discipline situation could get them sued by this guy for defamation of character.. Hence, the vague answer.
But what if it is true? He fucked up. People should know about it. His next employer should know about it.
He could say it in a neutral way. Something along the lines of “The individual in the video is no longer employed by FedEx.” That leaves plenty of wiggle room. For all anyone knows, he could have quit for shame. To imply that he is still under the employ of FedEx completely undermines the claims that this is not indicative of their services and policies.
Hello. I am Michael Scott, Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton.
By now you’re probably sick of hearing about Dunder Mifflin and our embarrassing watermark boner.
I have literally apologized an infinite number of times over this, and still there are calls for me to resign – calls from an annoying woman, and possibly from the media alike.
Well, let me tell you something, something from the heart. I will not resign.
I am not leaving this office.
It will take a SWAT team to remove me from this office, and maybe not even that.
There is no way I will resign. It wouldn’t be fair. Not to the good workers I work with, not to my clients, and especially not to me.
Let’s not forget who this resigning business is really all about.
I need this job. My mortgage is hundreds of dollars a month. With this job I can barely cover that. I have a company car, but I still have to pay for the gas. Gas prices are high, and I have no savings whatsoever.
And it wasn’t even me.
It’s so not fair that they want me to resign. If I could leave you with one thought, remember: It wasn’t me.
They are trying to make me an escape goat.
If I am fired, I swear to God that every single piece of copier paper in this town is going to have the f-word on it.
The f-word.
You have one day.
Man, if I saw someone tossing my stuff in the bushes like that, I’d have to haul ass down there and have a word with him.
That’s what she said.
Watched the video. Typical corporate shill non-apology.
That guy who tossed the computer monitor is hardly the only one who’s done something like that.
Poor, apathetic behavior like his is endemic in big corporations that treat their employees like mindless robots and customers like numbers.
Perhaps FedEx should discipline themselves while their disciplining their employee.
Yep. If I had the chance to make a one word reply to The Third’s apology I would pick the word BULLSHIT.
The driver should be fired on teh spot. There should be a ZERO tolerance policy for this. Any and every driver caught doing this should be fired on the spot. Plenty of people would love to have these jobs and if drivers are not willing to do them right they should be let go. I would love to see these companies really go after these drivers who do this and the ones who just walk up to your door with the notes never knocking or ringing.
I would not “love to have that job”. The hours are insane and for what? The pay is a disgrace. No thank you. I understand that dropouts and folks with liberal arts degrees need sustenance-level work to keep themselves fed but let’s not kid ourselves that any job with that kind of salary is a “good job”. It just isn’t.
You stick with it and you can do pretty well. My regular FedEx Express delivery guy has boatloads of vacation. He’s always off. I give him shit about it all the time. Of course, he’s pretty mellow. There’s enough bullcrap with a job like that I wouldn’t be able to take.
If you wouldnt want that job thats up to you. Insulting all the people who would want and could use that job is just mean. I have plenty of friends (know what those are?) who would love that job. and I have friends who do work for these companies and they HATE seeing stuff like this. And they do really like the jobs the jobs they have.
Thorton should personally deliver a new monitor to this woman’s house. That is the only solution. Back in the day, a manager would have done this. Modern day American management will only “do enough” such as an online apology and move on.
/claps
Damn right.
Hurray! They’re taking it really seriously.
I’m glad no consumerists here ever do anything they aren’t supposed to do at their job, including surfing the internet…..
My surfing the net doesn’t destroy other people’s property that I am entrusted with…
I’m glad that we have consumerists who are better than us to remind us of that.
I work for a company that trusts me enough to allow me to surf at work. Sorry you haven’t graduated to a grown-up job yet.
I really did lol at your post. Thanks. I needed a laugh today
Surfing the internet at work isn’t even remotely comparable to voluntarily destroying someone else’s property, which is your job to deliver intact, through negligence and laziness. Weak try there.
So, did this happen in the U.S? I saw a comment in one story about this being in the U.K.
I apologize if it is in the videos somewhere, haven’t been able to watch.
I think the driver threw the package from the UK and it landed in New Jersey.
Never mind. California.
Remember what they mean when they say they are “taking it seriously” and “…we are already using it as a learning opportunity.”
Team Leader: Ok New recruits, now that you’ve seen the video where did the driver go wrong?
New Recruit 1: He parked on the wrong side of the street?
Team Leader: Correct!
New Recruit 2: What about tossing the package?
Team Leader: Nope, the toss was executed just fine.
New recruit #2: He didn’t check for cameras before throwing the package!
OH please. If he meant it, he wouldn’t have to read it off the teleprompter.
This guy was probably thinking, “Rich snotty folks with a fence that ordered a big expensive monitor!” I will show them! He should be fired period. I cannot accept that bs apology if that what it was. I don’t use FEDX but now I never will.
That would be great if the apology video ended with this guy making a horrible high-pitched screaming noise and then suddenly tentacles burst out of his chest and fly at the camera.
When I started working at a ***** distribution center, I asked my trainer why he was so rough with some boxes.
“It’s their responsibility to make sure they package it so it arrives intact. We can’t baby every single package otherwise our speed of service wouldn’t be what it is.”
Regardless, I was extra careful with all the HDTVs and monitors I unloaded.
Frozen cookie dough and Omaha steaks? Not so much.
Does this guy know Herman?
“which we assume involves making the drivers dress up like UPS carriers”
Somehow I figure that is familiar to this guy already.
I have to admit, a video from the Senior VP acknowledging the issue and informing us of what has happened to resolve the issue and what will happen to prevent this from happening again is a nice sight.
I’m still eager to hear a follow up from UPS about the three delivery men who confronted the lady in the gated apartment complex. I still refuse to use UPS over that incident.
I have found FedEx’s delivery and customer service to be pathetic. Even had to drive 150 mile round trip to get a couple of packages the driver “just didn’t have time to deliver.” FedEx basically told me, “Oh well.” SO, this idiot of a delivery man doesn’t surprise me at all.
.
While I’m glad the VP is offering the apology, he is the most wooden speaker I ever have heard. If he isn’t reading from a teleprompter or cue cards, I’d be shocked. I also suspect everything he is saying is carefully scripted by the legal department.
This article inspired me to write an email to UPS to tell them how nice my neighborhood delivery drivers are. Their bosses may never see it, but it made me feel good (all Christmasy) and I think it’s good to let companies know when their employees are doing something right.
It’s true, the people who are on your street doing the deliveries make all the difference. I have a great USPS mailman. He’s always polite, keeps a consistent schedule, and when he’s dropping a package off at our front porch he knocks on the door to let us know it’s been delivered. He also never mixes up our mail. (I can always tell when he’s on vacation and some strange mailperson is doing our route, they consistently mix up the mail and don’t deliver “on time”.)
I really think if UPS and Fedex and USPS focused on improving the quality care of their deliveries to homes they’d get a lot less complaints.
RE mail not getting delivered on time when your regular carrier is out — give the sub some slack. They’re working in place of someone who does the job 5-6 days a week and gets incredibly consistent at it. A sub will generally take longer because they’re not on that route every day and it’s not their routine.
(My dad was a rural mail carrier. He was so efficient that he would stop at our house and take naps before going back to the post office, and would still beat the other route carriers back. He was a good, conscientious carrier, lest anyone thing he cut corners doing his job. He could even stop and change his brakes mid-route in about 20 minutes.)
I had distrust for FedEx since long before this incident. Out of several FedEx deliveries I have had, I’ve only had one FedEx box make it to my doorstep, and even then the box looked like it had been tossed against a few walls. A package I ordered for my friend never arrived and I received a partial refund from the seller with no explanation. After a little digging, we find out that somebody at one of the FedEx offices wrote a different address across the street in pen, delivered it and then when the customer didn’t accept it, they opened it, destroyed the contents, and sent it back, billing the original shipper. Once FedEx found this out and fessed up, they reimbursed the seller who gave me the rest of the refund.
Also another friend ordered a phone, and they did the same damn thing, except this time we caught it as “undeliverable” status because they didn’t even write a valid address in. Got to pick that one up at their warehouse.
So whenever I’m given the choice between FedEx and another shipper, I’d rather have my shipment delivered by a pack of incontinent gorillas for twice the price.
I know were this is in Brentwood, CA, next to the golf course. This is a multi-million mansion and the douche owner & his locked driveway gate makes it pain-in-the-ass for deliveries having to be announced through the gate intercom. Which probably don’t get answered anyway.
There’s no reason homeowner couldn’t have the gate ajar as he’s expecting this delivery anyway.
Ya know, I’m thinking that even with the incidents of postal carriers not delivering mail, shooting up post offices, etc. that it might be a bad idea to throw the USPS into a pit with FedEx/UPS to compete since I could see them turning into the rural route carrier in that Chevy Chase movie Funny Farm and just tossing mail out of their vehicle’s windows. And the whole over the river and through the woods thing definitely wouldn’t be very profitable either so grandma would probably have to move to town to get her junk mail!
I don’t believe that FedEx is sincere in their apology with regards to their package tossing driver. There concerns are not about their customers, but their image only. I filed a customer complaint on 12/14 and have yet to hear back from them. The reason for the complaint was a FedEx driver flew up my driveway and plowed into my dogs standing in the driveway without stopping. They tried to get out of the way, but the front tire ran over one of the dogs tails and pulled him down and the tire ran over his hips, chest and head. The dog was rolling and screaming in the driveway bleeding from his mouth and nose when the driver got out. He did not acknowledge or apologize for what he did and simply said “Here is your package”. It was unbelievable! Fed Ex was notified and they promised to get back in touch with me, but it’s been over a week and I still have not heard from them. I guess if I had a video of it to post on You Tube I would have heard back from someone by now, but I am glad that I don’t as I could not bear to watch it again! I bet the people that had their computer monitor smashed on their front porch would have the same problem if they didn’t have it on video.
Is it just me, or does it appear as though that package could have fit through the bars on the fence?