Ann and her family are going through a series of moves–first an international one, from England to the United States, and then a domestic one, from Florida to Vermont. Though precisely why she needs FedEx to come pick up a bunch of large boxes from her house is almost irrelevant. The problem is that they won’t. She sent this plea for help to a few executive addresses, but has heard nothing back yet.

I am nearing the end of a long relocation, moving from the UK to Florida, and now Florida to Vermont. There have been the expected delays and problems, but nothing out of the ordinary (delayed flights, etc). But as I now close in on the final stage, Fedex is driving me close to the edge of sanity.

I created a new fedex account on Monday and booked a shipment of 9 boxes to be collected today, Thursday.

I then entered a bizarre carnival of contradicting phone calls, cancellations, and suspensions.
First my account was suspended as they had my phone number noted incorrectly. This took 5 phone calls and over an hour to sort out.

I then needed to add an additional box to the shipment. I was unable to do this online as my account was recently suspended, only on the phone. Then I was told I could only drop this off at a pickup location, not home delivery. So first thing this morning I carried box 9 of 9 to a dropoff location, not an easy task.

And then I waited… waited… waited… I phoned 3 times to Fedex. First I was told to be patient, they had 1 hour left in the ‘window’ for collection. Secondly I was told the driver was late but on the way, confirmed with a dispatch office. Thirdly I was told my account was suspended and no one was ever scheduled to come.

I asked Fedex how they were going to sort this for me. I was put on hold for 25 minutes while customer service supervisor chatted with the dispatcher again. The best they could do is come tomorrow sometime before 10 am. I fly out at 7 am.

I might actually lose my mind at this point. These boxes are all my daughter’s toys, backups of my husbands medical supplies (diabetic needles, blood test strips), and our winter clothes. I have no
trust in them showing up tomorrow, or in them actually delivering them to me.

Somehow we managed to move internationally, but going 3,000 miles to New England is impossible!

Ann should be on a plane now, and we’re hoping that the reason why we haven’t heard from her is that the boxes have been safely picked up and are on their way. From the sound of things, though, that’s probably not the case.

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