Fed EX = Major dumbA$$e$

[cruisin]

Well for the fifth time in two years Fed Ex has lost a package. I just don't understand how all the other services, UPS, DHL, etc find us easily but Fed Ex has their heads up their collective A$$e$. We have 6" tall numbers & letters over our garage door that is only about 30 feet from the road. Hell Mr. MaGoo could find us, but not Fed Ex!!

Thanks for letting me rant, :fight oh BTW avoid Fed EX like the plague unless you enjoy losing stuff.

[username]

i prolly get a fedex or UPS sent to the house once a week. never had an issue, except when someone sent me some wine, and i had to be here to sign for it.

this is one of those YMMV things.

[dlearl476]

With me, it's just the opposite. Wouldn't touch UPS. My favorite, by far, is
"click and ship" by USPS.

[PUDGYPAINTGUY]

Well for the fifth time in two years Fed Ex has lost a package. I just don't understand how all the other services, UPS, DHL, etc find us easily but Fed Ex has their heads up their collective A$$e$. We have 6" tall numbers & letters over our garage door that is only about 30 feet from the road. Hell Mr. MaGoo could find us, but not Fed Ex!!

Thanks for letting me rant, :fight oh BTW avoid Fed EX like the plague unless you enjoy losing stuff.


I get the Fed Ex deliveries with no problem at all....the packages all are addressed to you though Cruisin, wanna come and get them?...lol

[kbasa]

With me, it's just the opposite. Wouldn't touch UPS. My favorite, by far, is
"click and ship" by USPS.

Ugh. I ran a mailroom/print/fax/supply center for a law firm for a few years. I wouldn't use the USPS to send anything that had to be there on time. We had about a 50% hit rate on Express Mail actually getting delivered on time.

[The_Veg]

Definitely YMMV. The only problem I can recall is with FedEx Ground. They are not really prepared to help you if you can't be home at delivery time. I had to go to their warehouse in an obscure industrial park, and wait while somebody went in back and rummaged for twenty minutes to find my package. And to even get this far took several phone calls when FEG said they were gong to send it back to the sender.
Never had any problem with USPS, and my only gripe with UPS is how expensive they are getting.

[DarrylRi]

I'm with you, Cruisin, on Fed Ex.

But one reason why YMMV with Fed Ex is that it's actually about five separate divisions that don't talk to each other. So, Fed Ex express, cargo and a couple others may in fact provide excellent service. But in my area, Fed Ex Home is simply terrible.

First of all, it's nearly impossible to get ahold of them. They're not in the phone book (the cargo folks are, and they're damned tired of getting calls for Home, DAMHIK!) and the web site doesn't seem to have a phone contact, either.

Last year, we went through about 2 months when they consistently lied about delivering packages, in order to keep their on-time numbers up. I've had them post on the package tracking that a shipment was delivered, while I've been home the entire day, and nobody showed up.

In one particular case, when contacted (finally!) they claimed no one was home and the package was left by the "side door". We have no side door. Magically, the package was delivered... two days later.

Also, they have recently taken to outsourcing their deliveries to people in private vehicles (eg, cars). These folks get lost easily in the hills around here, and seem to have little experience actually doing the job.

I cringe everytime I buy something and they say they're shipping by Fed Ex.

While Ooops (er, UPS) has got a somewhat mixed rep, around here they're great. I have my driver's cell number, and if I don't want to wait into the afternoon for a package, I can meet him at a predetermined point at the start of his run.

[BradfordBenn]

I am lucky in that I can get stuff sent to the office. However what I do for critical personal stuff is have it FedEx'ed to the house. I have never had a problem. For super critical stuff I have the sender send it to be held at the local office and I go pick it up.

Also for UPS, I have no problem and they are across the parking lot from work... but not as many people use it.

[Motorman]

If you think Fed Ex and the brown shirts are bad you should try DHL. They took 12 days to complete an overnight delivery from 50 miles away. :banghead

[DarrylRi]

If you think Fed Ex and the brown shirts are bad you should try DHL. They took 12 days to complete an overnight delivery from 50 miles away. :banghead
My friend in Karlsruhe says that DHL -- which is now a subsidiary of Deutsche Post -- stands for "Dauert Halt Laenger", or the Hold Lasts Longer.

[GeneT]

My friend in Karlsruhe says that DHL -- which is now a subsidiary of Deutsche Post -- stands for "Dauert Halt Laenger", or the Hold Lasts Longer.


UPS........These guys have the highest prices of all, they seem to find it necessary to back the truck over the packages before they drop them at the door and run....... DHL, I tried that once and I don't believe these guys can find their way around the block........ Only problem with USPS they some how want to close the local branch at 5 PM and that sometimes is too early for my purpose. ....... FedEx only one problem with these boys in fiften years....So who you gona call???

:wave

[Voni]

The UPS guy just showed up at the door with a tire asking "Are you Paul Glaves?"

What you would expect EXCEPT that is it dark, we are in an 14 space RV park that is six miles up a mountain road south of Alpine, Texas, and we're only here for a month. The driver is a detective as you can see.

He stopped at the first RV and asked "Does anyone know Paul Glaves?" and they said "No."

So then he asked "Do you know anyone with a motorcycle?" Affirmative. And here it is.

Can't ask for better. He'll be back with the second tire, packaged separately tomorrow night.

We like UPS.

We don't like FedEX. Ask Paul.

Voni
sMiling

[riderR1150GSAdv]

I live on a dead end street hidden by trees and all major delivery co's are able to find our house and the neighbors homes :eek. I did notice that all the trucks have GPS installed :thumb . I guess it is a case of YMMV as I never, so far (knock on wood) have had issues with any of them.

[jdiaz]

Strange, I've had no problems with FedEx Ground. I bought a trailer hitch for the car and knobbies for the dirt bike in the last couple of weeks, and both were delivered on-time by smiling people. I think they are just happy to find I'm not username. :clap

[Burnszilla]

The UPS driver in our hood is a big blonde chick. When she drops of packages she flirts with me. There's something about that brown suit. :evil

[ian408]

Ugh. I ran a mailroom/print/fax/supply center for a law firm for a few years. I wouldn't use the USPS to send anything that had to be there on time. We had about a 50% hit rate on Express Mail actually getting delivered on time.

I am a cheap SOB. So I almost always chose UPS's 3-5 day. Now, I
always take the cheap FedEx option. Why? Because if the package is next
door, UPS won't deliver it for five (or more--cause that's bizzyness days)
whereas FedEx wants to get rid of it as soon as it's practical. Meaning the
package will almost always be within the quoted window where UPS could
be 3-9 days depending...

[boomyr]

I don't know if ALL of them are, but I ran into with a Fedex Ground Delivery driver who needed a tool to work on his truck. He told me he was an independent contractor, and was paid based on his deliveries. He owned his truck and was responsable for maintaining it.

I expect alot how reliable they are depends on who your driver is. The first few FedEx deliveries that I expected were delayed and the reason that was stated is that there was no such address. The address was correct, but because it was a new street, they didn't have it in their system yet. It was a pretty small town, and almost ANYBODY would have been able to give directions to where I lived, certainly the Village Office, or Post Office. Once the driver knew where I lived, there weren't any more problems, but my deliveries were fairly frequent.
I've used UPS alot.They have the most detailed tracking system, which is nice if there is a problem or question of the whereabouts. Plus your'e automatically insured up to $100. I've sent hundreds of UPS packages, and probably could count on one hand the problems I've had. BUT...they have gotten pretty expensive, especially if your shipping to a more remote address. Ive sent packages to a metro suburb for $5, and to ship to an address 20 miles outside it was $9 for a small package about 150 miles from me.

[PUDGYPAINTGUY]

The nav systems definitely figure into things. (Thread hijack) A couple of weeks ago my van quit while on I275 North in Detroit Suburbs. The GE Fleet lease company, while taking my details kept telling me that there was no such exit on I275 and that I must be wrong. I was broke down right next to the exit sign reading it to the guy. I finally asked him what the heck program they use that does not show an exit that pre-dated my 13 years in the state...he replied MapQuest on the internet.... :laugh

Some of these folks won't even invest in their own businesses to provide the service they promise. (hijack over regular programming is returned...lol)

[DarrylRi]

The nav systems definitely figure into things. (Thread hijack)Well, to continue the hijack...

I saw kind of the opposite problem. I live up in the hills, lots of one lane roads, some of them private. One day a Sears truck drove up past my house. The road ends behind me at my neighbor's driveway. The driver had a brand new GPS system that insisted that the road continued THROUGH my neighbor's house and on to another road where the house he wanted to go to was. The driver couldn't figure out that he had to go back down and up the next ridge to get to that house. I think if I hadn't been there to direct him, he'd be stuck there still. ;-)

[PUDGYPAINTGUY]

I think if I hadn't been there to direct him, he'd be stuck there still. ;-)


LMBO

[BradfordBenn]

The UPS driver in our hood is a big blonde chick. When she drops of packages she flirts with me. There's something about that brown suit. :evil

You might be losing the favor points with talk like that....

[Burnszilla]

You might be losing the favor points with talk like that....
Nah. You see the UPS girl was flirting with we, not the other way around and the wife is aware of it. It's all cool.

[RTRandy]

I rely on shipping and receiving packages a couple of times a week for years and have never had a problem with either UPS or Fedex. My one gripe are those shipping stores: Mail Boxes Etc. which became "UPS" stores and in reality they are not owned by UPS. Their prices for shipping are much higher than if you were to take your parcel directly to UPS, plus you can't ship anything third party collect since that cuts them out of the deal. Their packaging prices are through the roof as well.


On a side note: When the CEO of Fedex, Fred Smith, was in business school, he wrote a thesis about the idea of a company that could recieve packages from anywhere in the country in a given day and have them delivered anywhere in the country by the following day. His professor gave him a C for a grade because while he thought it was well written and interesting, the idea itself was too far fetched.

[The_Veg]

Randy, there used to be guy I dealt with at a local business about seven years ago who went to high school with Fred Smith and had an opportunity to get in on FedEx at the founding. He too thought it was a crazy idea. By the time I knew him he was pushing a hand-truck for crap wages.

[RTRandy]

Randy, there used to be guy I dealt with at a local business about seven years ago who went to high school with Fred Smith and had an opportunity to get in on FedEx at the founding. He too thought it was a crazy idea. By the time I knew him he was pushing a hand-truck for crap wages.
DOH ! :banghead

[mthelmet]

Just think if FED-EX and UPS merged.
Then the could change the name to fit the Service,
Call it [B]FED-UP!!!!!!!! :nyah