Thursday, August 22, 2019

Fedex: three months and counting

It has now been three months since we shipped a package via Fedex that turned out to be undeliverable (we sent it signature-required, and the recipient, unbeknownst to us, had moved).  We expected that in a situation like that, the package would simply be returned to us, but it wasn't because we paid cash for the original shipment and (again, unbeknownst to us) the shipping cost doesn't include return shipping.

Once we discovered all this, we opened a Fedex account (because for some unfathomable reason they won't simply accept a credit card to pay for the return shipping).  In fact, we opened two of them because it turns out that there is more than one kind of Fedex account and the first time around we opened the wrong kind.  But once we did all that we were assured that we'd get our package back.

Today marks the three-month anniversary of the original shipment and we still haven't gotten it back.  I called Fedex today to find out what was going on and was told that our package is in the "overgoods department" and was last scanned a month ago, on July 22.

So what has happened since then?  No one seems to know.  Not only that, but in order to locate the package again we have to tell them what was inside!  Not just a general description (it was a document) but they wanted the title of the document!  There is no other way to identify the package at this point because the package has been labelled a "problem package" and the tracking number has been changed.  Our package has been lumped together with a bunch of other "problem packages" under the same tracking number.

That means that they opened the package and discarded the original packaging.  And they did this without making any attempt to contact us despite the fact that our contact information was on the original order, and we even opened an account with them for the express purpose of getting this package returned to us.  Which, we were told, would be no problem.

At this point, I'll give you long odds against our ever seeing it again.

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