Was waiting eagerly for the dies for my new 25 x 30-30 Imp. barrel from MGM. I ordered the dies first, and they were shipped first. The next day came the barrel; then I ordered a few bullets, etc. Well, the barrel has been here for 2 days now; the bullets are here; but the Fed Ex package with the dies has fallen off the radar and can't be located at the moment. The last-known scan was Monday in Fort Worth (where it should not have been, according to at least 1 customer service rep).

The barrel and bullets both came on the brown truck.

One of my distributors used to use FedEx, and we had numerous problems. I asked for them to use UPS or USPS, and they listened for a while before going back to FedEx. I no longer use that supplier even though the prices were good -- it's just not worth the headache.

I don't know if it's this part of the country or what, but I'd saddle up a pony before using FedEx for my own business purposes...

That's a pi**er! I guess I've gotten used to things taking awhile to arrive since moving up North. I generally use the USPS, packages make it pretty much anywhere in the lower 48 in 3-5 days, and shipping is much cheaper.

Update: after spending 3 days somewhere in or around Fort Worth, where it could not be located, the package mysteriously surfaced -- and now it's in Kentucky and apparently on the way back to the sender in Ohio.

Do FedEx and FEMA use the same employees???

Bobby,
I had the same problem with fedex a short while ago. I ordered a scope through midsouth and had my encore set and waiting.Tracking showed the package to arrive on a friday and I planned my weekend at the range. The package was in Syracuse NY on thursday (2 hours from me) and then didn't arrive on friday. On the following monday, an updated tracking report showed it in Miami Fl. Midsouth was very helpful during this experience and refunded my shipping costs.
From here opn out it will be UPS and USPS for my shipping needs.
Rick

My experiences with Fedex...if the shipper makes any error on the shipping address, regardless if they get the phone on the label. The package will sit some place 'on hold' until such time as the person it was addressed to tracks it down. I once ordered a custom barrel that was supposed to ship from So. UTah to Denver...it sat in a cart in Cinncinnati til I located it via several down calls.

They have the address correct, and it's a commercial location. I never got a call from FedEx and decided to call again, and a guy in cust. service he said it probably got put onto the wrong conveyer and that's how it wound up in Fort Worth. But once they located it last night, why would it start back up north instead of then coming to me in south central TX? That makes no sense.

Bobby, next time you need to tell them you will give them a few pounds of some of that Patek's (sp?) sausage you guys make down there.

They may ship for free!

HL

Bobby, They all screw up!! The Big Brown Truck, The Big White Truck, The Big Yellow Truck!! With the exception of one small oversight somewhere, the USPS has done the best job overall for me for awhile now!! And tomorrow,(actually today since it's past midnite here in the east!) I'll put another rifle on it's way to Wisconsin in their hands!! Bet it get's there by Wednesday!!! Mor than likely Tuesday!! And there will be a shotgun headed here that will ship on Monday....bet it's here on Wednesday!!! We'll see!! GHD

I still remember an order I had that was shipped Fed ex. It was going along fine cross country each day I checked from the east coast to AZ. It was scanned in at Phoenix and never delivered. I check the tracking the next day and it was in Maine!!!

They told me they scanned the package to get the tracking at each location but that was not possible.

Funny Huh?

They found the package 2 weeks later

UPS for me!

I worked for FedEx for several years at their world hub in Memphis. You would not believe the amount of stuff that was destroyed. A side note to you guys giving the USPS a great review. If you send most anything priority mail, FedEx is shipping it.

Well fedup may be shipping it, but at least the USPS can find the same place every week unlike fedup who found the place one week and lost it the next three weeks in a row. Bad enough that they sen the package on to another town the second week!

That's great. Lost and found towns. Maybe the USPS can keep up with em since they set the zip codes.

I started using Fedex Ground a couple of years ago when UPS was being threatened with a strike by its employees. I think it was over the negotiation of their contract. UPS' tracking seems more accurate and sophisticated. However, I've had no problems with Fedex and it's a lot less expensive than UPS for my shipments. I'm pleased.

I don`t think anyone is going to believe this or not but I order a part from Uberti [E. Coast USA] and it was sent out FedEX. Well!! After not showing for a long time, about a week and a half, I tried to find it. It had vanished off the radar too. I got an email from a guy in S. Africa who got it. Name wasn`t even close. He was kind enough to send it back here. He got a good laugh out of it and , surprisingly, has even become a customer!! Needless to say we do not ship FedEx anymore. BTW!!! Uberti was no help at all!
Aloha, Mark

Neither UPS nor FEDEX will honor damage claims from "occasional shippers" (non-business). They will respond by telling you that the item had been inadequately packaged. USPS will always be honorable about that. A UPS employee warned me that the company "discourages" honoring claims, unless the shipper is a big customer of theirs.

I work for the big blue and white. Priority stuff is only shipped on Fed-ex's planes it's handled from origin to airport and airport to destination by USPS employee's.

I'm curious, are all of these bad FedEx experiences with Ground or Express shipments?

I' a FedEx Ground contractor here in Washington. With that said, I am not an employee of FedEx, I'm just contracted to deliver their packages. The first thing to consider is that FedEx is a very young company compared to UPS or USPS. Also, UPS is openly anti-gun while FedEx is a pro-gun company.

As for packages "disapearing" in the system, yes it does happen. Many times is really is the shipper's fault. Our packages are sorted and handled based on Zip Codes, not the address. I get packages on my truck every day with the wrong zip. Sometimes it's only off by one zip code and I can just give the box to the truck next to me. Other times I have had packages with a 98409 zip which is here in Tacoma, WA that are addressed to Alabama. All it takes is one bad number for a box to end up on the wrong side of the country. Throw into this shippers who don't cooperate and recipients who don't know their own address (I get those every day) and it can take weeks to redirect a package.

Also, companies do improperly package their stuff. If you throw a case of handgun ammo (I see them all the time) with no packaging on a conveyor belt with a 130lb Total Gym, it doesn't take a genius to figure out which box will win that fight. It is cheaper for a company to skimp on shipping and pay out on the damage claims than to just package the stuff right the first time. The box may make it all the way accross country, a six business day trip, before it breaks open. When it does, it has to take a six day trip back to the shipper to start all over again.

Now I'm not saying that the FedEx and the rest of the shipping companies don't screw up. When you handle millions of packages a day, mistakes are made. But if you consistently have problems with shipment for one company that uses FedEx, maybe it's the shipper not the courier who is the problem.

Andrew

Andrew-The package I posted about was precisely and clearly addressed. The fault could only lie with FedEx.

The others I referred to were just fine also. ANd when the vendor in question used UPS or USPS, there were zero problems.

Most of these were ground shipments, by the way.

In my neck of the woods Big Brown is the one that creates most of the problems. I have recovered many items from "down the road" where they were set off without being sure of the delivery address, or left out at the street to eliminate the trip to the door. That is largely a drivers fault though not the company on whole. With enough complaints it has began to clear up. (Having to reimburse for a 900 dollar shipment of electronics that were left out in the rain and than stolen seems to have cleared the delivery problem right up.)
If You ship enough stuff though a mistake or claim is inevitable. Machines do not discriminate when they sort, or destroy. The higher the number of processed pieces per hour the more likely you are to have a package or letter "eaten" by a belt or diverted to the wrong destination.

USPS works for me. That's one of the nice things about having a local post office so small that it has only one employee, who spends part of each day reading. They are easy to get to know, and when I have a problem, they have always gotten on their computer and come up with some results. Not perfect, but it works.
(I say "they" because every year or three the employee gets promoted to some larger post office and a new one comes on board locally.)

As for the bigger ecxpress shipping companies, I long ago learned to NOT start at the bottom when I have a complaint with the big private outfits. There are a variety of ways to get the names and home phone numbers of senior company officials. I have found that a series of late-night/early-morning phone calls to the homes of folks from the Vice-President rank up to Chairman of the Board seems to marvelously improve the problem-solving abilities of the rank and file.

At our veterinary clinic, express fedex has been great, but we will not use fedex ground for any reason. The problems we have had are due to the non-fedex employee. Packages would be left on the truck for more than a week just because he chose to appear outside of office hours. Several shipments were scanned as delivered but the signature could not be read. They would show up 2-3 days later.

MFH

quote:

Do FedEx and FEMA use the same employees???

Naw, FedEx only hires former DMV employees.