FedEx What an amazing pain in the proverbial........

Two shipments from RockAuto "arrived" at the front door this past Friday 15 November 2019.

Except they did not. We were here the whole day. I probably looked a few times, just in case.

So I clicked on the tracking numbers provided by RockAuto and found myself in a FedEx web-site with the announcement that my package had been delivered.

I contacted the company by chat. I eventually closed the first chat session after the agent would simply ignore me for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. In the second chat session was not much better. After informing that agent 3 times that I was not in the US, he gave me telephone numbers for FedEx Canada.

Then the US agent set me up with a chat with a Canadian FedEx agent. But that took 15 minutes to show so in the meantime I telephoned. Now an agent based in Montreal has said that he would telephone back before the end of the day (Monday 18 November 2019).

That ate up about 1 1/2 hours.


What on earth is wrong with FedEx?

Are these frustrations common with FedEx?

I have had multiple issues with FedEx. I hate dealing with them

The day is almost over, FedEx Canada has not called back but I received an automated 'customer satisfaction' call from FedEx Canada. So blessed.

In the meantime, my wife picked up a package of components at the post office from PartSouq in Dubai. I ordered those parts AFTER I ordered the parts from RockAuto that FedEx was supposed to deliver.

I took the initiative of calling FedEx Canada and was told that FedEx Canada could not find the packages and I should contact the shipper (RockAuto) and let them know that the packages have been lost.

Arrgh.

How do I contact RockAuto to inform them that the package has been "lost"? The website is impossible to navigate.

Ok, I think I figured out RockAuto's weird method for reporting lost packages. It looks like RockAuto wants me to wait until 25 November 2019 and then report the package missing.


RockAuto wants me to report the missing packages 10 days after they were listed on the FedEx website as having arrived.


Before Christmas? Crossing my fingers!

westslope said:

How do I contact RockAuto to inform them that the package has been "lost"? The website is impossible to navigate.

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Try this email, it's the one I finally got through with when they kept sending me Titan inner tie rods: service@rockauto.com

Yeah, I've had similar issues as well..

General_Tarfun said:

Try this email, it's the one I finally got through with when they kept sending me Titan inner tie rods: service@rockauto.com

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Thanks very kindly G_T. I just sent RockAuto.com an email with the two FedEx tracking records attached and a request to report the packages as lost to FedEx Canada.

I seem to recall using PayPal to pay for the items. Should I request that PayPal stop or reverse the payment for this particular order?

Let RA do their thing. Another user reported they're 'vengeful' about charge backs.

westslope said:

Thanks very kindly G_T. I just sent RockAuto.com an email with the two FedEx tracking records attached and a request to report the packages as lost to FedEx Canada.

I seem to recall using PayPal to pay for the items. Should I request that PayPal stop or reverse the payment for this particular order?

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For now I'd wait and see what the RA response is since PP is going to make you go through a slow dispute process that requires it anyway if you start a claim with them.

Good to know Muadeeb and G_T. I will wait.

Any idea how many months I should wait before I give up and order the same parts from another supplier?

UPDATE:

Customer service for and based in British Columbia telephoned just now and said that the driver believes he delivered the packages by error to a similar numbered house on another street in the neighbourhood. The two street names share the word 'Vista'.

The driver will attempt to retrieve the packages and if unsuccessful, the same agent from customer service BC will call me back to give me an update.

westslope said:

Good to know Muadeeb and G_T. I will wait.

Any how idea how many months I should wait before I give up and order the same parts from another supplier?

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Oh I definitely wouldn't wait months. It really depends on RA's response, without knowing specifics they might need to wait until the latest delivery window passes to escalate it. Did the tracking # not just stop updating or something? If it's a part you really need I'd order elsewhere by Monday, if it can wait I'd let it go for a bit.

I had a problem 3 weeks ago with Fedex where I printed a label online for a return and dropped the package in a dropbox. Checked the tracking # the next day online and it returns invalid. After a week I reached out to Fedex and they basically shrugged. I'd given up on getting the package or my money back and then randomly last Friday I got an email saying it had been delivered, I checked the tracking and it marked as being picked up 2 1/2 weeks after I dropped it off. Who knows where it was during that time but there's a chance yours got accidentally rerouted, damaged label or something similar.

All that said worst case RA refuses to do anything + Fedex refuses to do anything I'd give another week maybe and then open a claim on it. Keep all your documentation together and write a clear written explanation of the problem and try to leave emotion out of it. Just the facts of I bought this on this date, here's proof, here's tracking info screenshots, today is this date, here's screenshots of RA/Fedex refusals to help and I want my money back.

westslope said:

UPDATE:

Customer service for and based in British Columbia telephoned just now and said that the driver believes he delivered the packages by error to a similar numbered house on another street in the neighbourhood. The two street names share the word 'Vista'.

The driver will attempt to retrieve the packages and if unsuccessful, the same agent from customer service BC will call me back to give me an update.

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Think we posted at about the same time! That's good to hear at least now you have an address these things were delivered to in the case the recipient tries to keep them.

And this is why I hate named streets... I get it, you want to live in a fancy, 'upscale' neighborhood. But I can always find your house with a street number, names can be completely arbitrary.

I've got a friend that lives in the Ormsbury neighborhood here, and all of the streets are named after that. Which is really stupid, because the name is literally so long that it takes up most of the sign, which relegates the rest of it to a small abbreviation making it impossible to find anything. Street signs in the area are literally "Ormsbury Cr" for Crescent, "Ormsbury Cl" for Close, etc... Real obvious when you are driving through the area trying to find the house...

I'm a bit surprised the owner of the house didn't report the packages. I mean, tossing ad-mail is one thing, but keeping or ignoring a package with someone else's name? I would have at least tried to return it somehow. Although given the quality of some of these call centers for the delivery companies, maybe they tried for a while and just gave up.

Yes, we did post at the same time!

Good to hear the anecdotes though because it gives an idea of how things can go wrong and then go right. Helps explain why RockAuto requests a cooling off or buffer period before accepting a lost package claim.

meisanerd said:

And this is why I hate named streets...

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Haha don't even get me started, we have so many variants of 'Peachtree' here I don't know how anything gets where it's supposed to go.

meisanerd said:

.....
I've got a friend that lives in the Ormsbury neighborhood here, and all of the streets are named after that. Which is really stupid, because the name is literally so long that it takes up most of the sign, which relegates the rest of it to a small abbreviation making it impossible to find anything. Street signs in the area are literally "Ormsbury Cr" for Crescent, "Ormsbury Cl" for Close, etc... Real obvious when you are driving through the area trying to find the house...

I'm a bit surprised the owner of the house didn't report the packages. I mean, tossing ad-mail is one thing, but keeping or ignoring a package with someone else's name? I would have at least tried to return it somehow. Although given the quality of some of these call centers for the delivery companies, maybe they tried for a while and just gave up.

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Yes, the related street names do not exactly demonstrate forward thinking do they?

I am a bit surprised that the owner of the house did not drive or walk the packages up to our address. This village is about 200 souls bigger than the high school I attended (~1,500). It is a "tight community" but at the same time I observe a lot of very unneighbourly behaviour.

That said, BCers in general often exhibit 'elbows up' behaviour. You should listen to people in the Fraser River valley talk about their neighbours.... It ain't pretty. I have heard folks claim that if stuff is not tied down, close to 40% of the population will steal. Surely that is an exaggeration but it does hint at how well folks get along with each other or not.

I've been very upset with FedEx several times, but I will say somehow I got the local number to "the hub" or whatever, and those guys are better to talk to. They might not be able to fix it but they generally know what's going on better. I was nice to him but I let one know what I thought about them failing to deliver a package from Japan to me once.

On certain things I've made arrangements to pick it up from them at the hub. My RTT was such an item, I called and told them it was huge and I was in town and could get it from them there. They seemed happy I saved them from loading it on the truck and the driver having to wrangle it out himself. I was happy it didn't get thrown out in the rain.

For the Japan package, I tracked root cause back to the shipper not notifying me it was in route, with a tracking # so I could go on the site to print off and sign a form to leave it without me, which I regularly do when I know a signature required package is coming. I didn't know it was signature required (wasn't that valuable) and I didn't know it was on it's way so soon after I ordered, and I was advised it might take a while.)

But still they left a undated note saying they stopped and couldn't get a signature, and then claimed they tried for 3 days which I suspected they didn't. I don't use the front door so benefit of the doubt maybe, but I do check the porch about every day and think I would have noticed a note on my door.

I'm somehow in FedEx's system now with an account. I set it up once, I forget exactly how, but I get emails from FedEx when my address has a package in the system. So far that has seemed to save a lot of miscommunications and lets me react before they screw it up worse.

meisanerd said:

...which relegates the rest of it to a small abbreviation making it impossible to find anything. Street signs in the area are literally "Ormsbury Cr" for Crescent, "Ormsbury Cl" for Close, etc...

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That kind of thing irritate me too, too much ambiguity trying to find someplace without GPS. Not as much as gated communities though. HOAs have a special level reserved for them in hell.

As a counter-point to the frustration story I have a funny one. I sometimes get UPS or FedEx deliveries directly to my xterra. I pretty much never lock it unless we go 50 miles or so to the nearest "big" town. So the drivers out on this route get to know us, and they recognize my xterra as the only one with a funny ladder. I've had packages show up on the back seat while at the hardware store. Once my wife borrowed it to go to work and he delivered it there. A few times I see them parked at the grocery store taking their lunch break and walk over for a chat, saves them the drive out of town to the house. If it's raining out they will put it there to stay dry. Nice guys really. About as different as possible from when we lived in south FL.

westslope said:

Two shipments from RockAuto "arrived" at the front door this past Friday 15 November 2019.

Except they did not. We were here the whole day. I probably looked a few times, just in case.

So I clicked on the tracking numbers provided by RockAuto and found myself in a FedEx web-site with the announcement that my package had been delivered.

I contacted the company by chat. I eventually closed the first chat session after the agent would simply ignore me for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. In the second chat session was not much better. After informing that agent 3 times that I was not in the US, he gave me telephone numbers for FedEx Canada.

Then the US agent set me up with a chat with a Canadian FedEx agent. But that took 15 minutes to show so in the meantime I telephoned. Now an agent based in Montreal has said that he would telephone back before the end of the day (Monday 18 November 2019).

That ate up about 1 1/2 hours.


What on earth is wrong with FedEx?

Are these frustrations common with FedEx?

Click to expand...

Hello. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles.

I actually work at a transportation company and use Fedex daily. I agree that they aren't the most reliable or enjoyable to work with. Haha. What are your Fedex tracking #'s? I have a system login that may give me more information and enable me to help you track them down a bit better. If you're comfortable with me seeing the origin and destination addresses, etc.

UPDATE No. 2: Both packages were delivered by FedEx about half an hour ago. Eureka! Contents checked out. Well packed which is what I have grown to expect from RockAuto. In the meantime, RockAuto Customer Service sent me an email with a ticket number -- thanks General! -- so I will have to let them know that everything arrived.

The driver -- who I recognized -- apologized profusely. He explained that he had trouble coordinating with the people were the packages were originally delivered. Unlisted number. Apparently the folks telephoned, left a message but did not leave a telephone number. The driver said he had been doing this job for 20 years. He also talked about street numbering strategies that would make his job easier.

Am happy I started this thread and thank all of you who contributed. It is good to know that these difficulties are common. It is also good to understand the difficulty of the job from the perspective of the courier service driver.

Thank you Jaedus for the offer. Next time?

westslope said:

UPDATE No. 2: Both packages were delivered by FedEx about half an hour ago. Eureka! Contents checked out. Well packed which is what I have grown to expect from RockAuto. In the meantime, RockAuto Customer Service sent me an email with a ticket number -- thanks General! -- so I will have to let them know that everything arrived.

The driver -- who I recognized -- apologized profusely. He explained that he had trouble coordinating with the people were the packages were originally delivered. Unlisted number. Apparently the folks telephoned, left a message but did not leave a telephone number. The driver said he had been doing this job for 20 years. He also talked about street numbering strategies that would make his job easier.

Am happy I started this thread and thank all of you who contributed. It is good to know that these difficulties are common. It is also good to understand the difficulty of the job from the perspective of the courier service driver.

Thank you Jaedus for the offer. Next time?

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Hopefully there isn't one, but of course.