A Fedex package stuck in the system for over two months | Hacker News Reader

A Fedex package stuck in the system for over two months

blog.rongarret.info

71 pointslisper55 comments

I used to sell textbooks online. Lots of them. And for a time, USPS had a monthly auction where they would auction off undeliverable items (they do it online now).

You would not believe how much stuff they are unable to deliver each month. An entire warehouse full. Of just textbooks, 2 to 3 semi truck loads. Another 5 to 10 semi truck loads of regular books.

These included items where the packaging was damaged, or label torn off or illegible address, etc.

We would go to the auctions and purchase tons of textbooks and started noticing that in some cases we were buying back books that we had shipped to customers and had been lost.

They always made claims that they made every effort to return the lost items but as a last resort, they would end up at the auction.

They would usually cost us several thousand dollars a month in lost shipments so I had a distinct rubber stamp with bright red ink made up that said "Attention USPS: if this book is lost in shipping, please return to the following address..."

We stamped the inside cover (which is usually a blank white page) of every single book we shipped for a year. We never once had a lost book returned to us. But every month, we would buy up tons of lost books and when opening them to grade and stamp, we would frequently find our big stamp and it was always blacked out with magic marker.

So instead of having their "investigators" trying to find where to return books, they were spending time destroying evidence to cover their butts so they could continue to profit off their own incompetence.

I was going to reply, this guy is lucky he used FedEx - had he used USPS he'd have no idea where th epackage went or why it wasn't delivered, and never gotten it back

Once I bought something from SparkFun and when I entered the mailing address my zip code went missing the last digit (my fault.) Instead of being routed to Illinois it was sent to Connecticut. Even though the wrong zip code looked like a CT one, it didn't actually match any valid zip code.

For a few weeks I watched this package go from the warehouse (somewhere in the South, I think) and get stuck in an endless loop in the East Coast.

Anyhow, I told Sparkfun and they sent me a replacement order hoping they'd eventually get that package back and put it back in stock. I don't know if that actually happened.

Yes, we would see that occasionally. Once tracking got better with USPS, we would track packages that would loop back and forth between two hubs at least a dozen times before disappearing.

This is a huge conflict of interest and it's no wonder it was abused. If they can profit off of "lost" items, they have every incentive to game the system and ensure that items that are lost stay lost (and some counter-incentive to ensuring packages aren't ever lost).

How did you ship your items? Was it Media Mail, First Class or Priority?

Media mail. Which definitely had a higher loss rate but the savings made up for the lost items.

USPS doesn't do conditional handling for stuff like that. It has to have the magic words. If you endorse an outer envelope with "Return Postage Guaranteed" or on item packaging with "If found, drop in any mailbox and send to <address>, return postage guaranteed", you'll get it. You'll get billed for the postage when it gets to the post office.

I haven't done it at scale for shipments, but I worked at a place that did it with employee ID cards, and we'd get about 50% of lost cards back that way.

It's an item that was paid for and not delivered as promised. It's not like anyone is expecting them to find a book in a coffee shop and return it to the owner for free. Postage is on them. And they claim that they do. Their claim is that they look through the items to find any identifiers to find out who to return it to in all cases. But in reality, they only do this with insured items because they effect the bottom line.

I will also say that the USPS is rather amazing at what they do when everything works as it should. As a test, I once sent myself a postcard from the other side of the country. The only thing I put on the back was my first name and my zip code.

It actually made it to my mailbox. Of course, in most cases that wouldn't be enough information. But I am from a small town and we were the largest single shipper, so the postmaster knew me by name.

Ah FedEx and their weird accounts.

My wife, a US citizen living in Ireland, needed a US background check as she works with children. The police department in Texas did the work needed and said they could only ship the documents internationally via FedEx. So she asked how much? They said "Oh no, you need to arrange collection and pay FedEx directly"

So off to FedEx she goes thinking she could arrange this as a one off. Nope, you need an account and it has to be set up online. Their account opening forms are really complicated. To be fair, they are probably for people who know about shipping and not for someone who just wants a one-off collection. It took three attempts to get the correct account and to be fair the documents arrived in less than 24hrs which coming from Texas was very impressive.

What happened next is where it gets annoying. She needed to close the accounts as she wouldn't be using them. FedEx said that had to be done offline in writing and she needed to supply a company registration certificate, she had written "Personal account" in the company field on all the account set up forms as it could not be left blank. While she was trying to get this resolved, she got a letter from Revenue asking her to fill in a load of documents relating to customs matters.

Eventually she just went to FedEx's Irish HQ in person to get it all sorted.

I'm not sure who is more to blame, the Texas PD for refusing to arrange the delivery or FedEx for completely ignoring that individuals may be forced to use their service. Either way it was a pain.

It's funny, when we get a situation like that during an abroad visit, we find a turkish guy who puts in the right numbers and calls in the right people to get things done. Otherwise you get the average European apathetic office worker mentality who only cares about getting out of work at 1630 and going to a cafe.

Sounds like an average human office worker.

There is probably some courier service that could have picked it up and handled the FedEx shipment. It would have cost a little more but you would have only needed to make a single call.

About three years ago my wife sent a package from the west coast to the Midwest that somehow got stuck in some kind of USPS package loop.

The online tracking showed it bouncing back and forth between Arizona and New Jersey for several months. No amount of phone calls, emails, or visiting the local post office could help. She was not able to file an insurance claim because the package was still in transit.

After a long time (three or four month) it finally disappeared from tracking, my guess is because the tracking number was recycled. So she filed an insurance claim. Every few weeks an e-mail arrived stating that the investigation was underway and she'd be contacted when it was done. Finally, several more months later, a message from USPS arrived stating the investigation was closed and no refund would be issued because it had been too long since the package was mailed to file a claim. There is no appeals process.

I don't remember what it was that she sent, but it couldn't have been anything important because all she wanted was the Priority Mail fees refunded.

The biggest downside to large corporations is the feeling of powerlessness you have. Good thing this guy was only shipping some paper. I've been screwed by corporations before and there will literally be no possible recourse for someone like us to fix the scenario if the corporation decides not to help. The amount is always too little to sue, but enough to make us homeless or unable to pay our bills. It's fucking disgusting. It's sad we rely and enjoy so many services that would be difficult to do without these large unmoving and immoral beuracracies, but this is the world our overlords have chosen for us.

What is your proposal for an alternative to FedEx, UPS, USPS, Royal Post, etc? Thousands of small independently-owned shipping companies? How would that work when you need to ship a package from/to arbitrary locations in the entire US/world?

What is your proposal for an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, etc? Thousands of small independently-owned networks? How would that work when you need to send data from/to arbitrary locations in the entire US/world?

No idea what you mean other than that you just want to mock someone. acollins1331 is the person looking for alternatives, not me.

>What is your proposal for an alternative to FedEx, UPS, USPS, Royal Post, etc?

No need to build alternatives, properly funding and authorizing the regulation agencies and courts so that they can do their jobs should be more than enough.

It's how banks and ISPs work. The networks are centralized and used by multiple institutions.

IMO, shipping networks would be better off shared across all the delivery companies and services. Then there would be an increased need for transparency and accountability for all packages.

I've mentioned this more often, but at least in my part of the EU legal insurance is both common and affordable. My insurance helps me out with events over € 250 for about € 200 a year. That's perhaps still unwise in the grand scheme, but I'm easily affronted by corporations and they've helped me out in consumer claims more than once, even picked up the tab for a new home appliance once without going to court. If I ever have a big legal battle European jurisprudence stipulates I can get a specialized lawyer and about € 15k in legal fees to burn.

Let's not forget this happened: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/02/usps_recovers_lost_...

Their initial response? A mere shrug and halfhearted condolences.

I've had a package lost through eBay's Global Shipping program. It was a very hard-to-find add-on for my car stereo and I found one in America. A few days after it shipped, tracking data ended just outside NY. A few days later, I pinged them, asking where my package was - after all, the tracking data was scanned at each location, it gave a reasonable pinpoint for the last known location. Instead, overnight, I was refunded and the case was closed. I didn't ask for that, I asked them to find my package, but they washed their hands of it; I wanted the thing I bought, not the money back, but it mattered not. What's the point in tracking packages if they can't even use it when it's needed most!

It was also infuriatingly difficult finding the right place to ask a question now that companies are running their own shipping segments. They're neatly hidden in amongst the massive company logistics.

I can't imagine shipping $10k worth of nigh-irreplaceable items through the mail. I wonder how much it cost, and if it wouldn't have made more sense to just pay for an airline ticket from Germany to the US and back.

The only way to do that is registered mail, which is expensive and slow, but provides a documented chain of custody for every human who touches the package.

I’m dealing with a government agency that feels the same.

(They legally have to provide a particular service, but chose to provide it over a very limited number of hours, despite receiving full funding for providing it).

Now I spend a lot of time filing FOI requests (only $5!) and bringing forward embarrassing scenarios to the public’s attention.

It’s a big erosion of whatever monies they’re saving.

Going through this with my bank: their « updated » app now says that scheduling payments is a feature coming soon.

The old one could do it.

I literally can’t pay my bills on time unless I login on Desktop.

My course of action: email investor relations (I’m a shareholder... for now) and their president’s office.

This is the devils bargain that the society has accepted.

Small number of customers getting horrible service or getting stuck into Kafkaesque situations is the negative externality from high productivity and low prices. Just because you talk to 10 people does not mean that humans make decisions. Those people just reading decisions from computer screen that computerized domain logic (aka business logic) has decided.

Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in individual cases.

>Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in individual cases.

I'm not even a big customer (just shipping for personal purposes), but still I constantly work with the same support rep. I've dealt with way smaller companies that wouldn't give me a personal rep, with Fedex I always deal with the same guy for support and customs handling. I only ship a few packages a year, and receive a few hundred.

That's nice but your customer rep is still just user interface to the same underlying system.

My experience with shipping companies (no matter which one, and in 4 different countries) is that they generally don't manage to deliver a large fraction of packages. The failure rate must be above 20%, which would be unacceptable for most other kinds of systems.

Every now and then someone convinces me to try Amazon - my most recent experiment with it involved 3 orders, of which they managed to deliver 1. This is to an address in Central London.

I guess you might have a different experience with shipping services in the very grid-like, regular, easily adressable American suburbs - but IME in Europe the most reliable way to get some goods is still to buy them in a physical shop.

I feel like this might be getting awful close to victim blaming but I can't help wonder if there is something wrong with your address / delivery situation if you are losing that many parcels.

I'm in the outskirts of London (previously Greater London). If I purchase something from Amazon I expect it to drop through my door the next day. They do this almost without fail. More often I'm surprised when things arrive earlier than I expected.

Actually at that rate I think its probably more likely a simple error an the address database somewhere. Something simple like the postcode is in the address4 field rather than the postcode field. 20% of the time the employee rejects it as they are highly incentivised to process them quickly.

The failure rate is most definitely far lower than 20% in the US. How would any online retail business survive with a 20% or more loss rate? Retail profit margins are in the single digits, it would make no sense. Not to mention the ludicrousness of only getting 4 out of 5 packages, people would just opt to go to a store to get things.

I've never had a lost delivery in about 5 years with any delivery company. Maybe check with the post why your address seems to be a black hole?

It has been a while since I worked in ecommerce, but we tracked our lost package claims by carrier and I believe they all hovered a bit under 1% for USPS, UPS and Fedex in the US, so I don’t think your experience is really a reflection of the industry.

FWIW, I had a similar kakfaesque Fedex experience a few years ago. I eventually tweeted my frustration and @mentioned FedEx. The entire situation was resolved within 60 minutes.

> It turns out that there is more than one kind of Fedex account, and we had opened the wrong kind. So we opened another Fedex account.

oof. I've had this exact same problem with DHL. There's DHL, DHL International and DHL Express, each with country specific branches. I once had a package of business cards "destroyed" because DHL Express will not deliver to a DHL Packstation.

I can only assume it's a natural artifact of organisations getting so big and inefficient, which seems to be a common factor in the mail industry, and packages literally falling between the cracks of the organisation.

Maybe offtopic, but I had a similar issue with comcast years ago when I used to manage multiple accounts for a business with satellite offices. TV, Internet, and phone could be any collection of local account or "national" account; both with different access methods.

The original FedEx, now called FedEx Express is a fine service. This sounds like FedEx Ground/Home Delivery which was originally Roadway Package Systems and acquired by FedEx in the nineties. I’ve had more trouble (as a recipient) with that service than any other shipper. Last mile delivery is contractors. It really tarnishes the FedEx brand.

UPS and USPS have yet to lose or significantly delay one of my packages.

UPS can tell me what home delivery truck my package is on and where it is on the road. With FedEx Ground, I count myself lucky if they even know what zip code my package is in.

It appears this was FedEx Next Day Air which is usually FedEx delivery drivers. Not sure who they use in Ireland. FedEx ground is about as good as Amazon’s various couriers.

So far USPS has been the least bad for me as a receiver and occasional sender of packages. That doesn’t really mean they’re good.

Something I’ve noticed is that when USPS packages get delivered to my complex, they show up as “Delivery attempted; nobody was available to accept package” at around 9 AM, then show up at my door at around 3 PM. I had my suspicions but when I finally asked the mail man confirmed that they simply aren’t allowed enough time to actually make the deliveries. In the online shopping era doing a complex like mine can take four hours or more, when they only allot 2 hours.

This last Saturday I had a package bounce like that as well, only it never showed up at my door. Instead, I found the door tag in the mailroom and had to go pick it up today.

At my previous residence I rented a townhouse with its own address in a less populous area and did not really have this issue. However, I did have a different problem, which was that the address on my driver’s license did not match my address (its complicated.) I frequently import stuff from Japan, and EMS always requires a signature. So I often found myself at the post office with my leasing documents trying to prove that yes, I live here. I had a USPS account with Informed Delivery that I confirmed with a physical mailpiece, which is good enough proof for the DMV, but not good enough for USPS.

It’s really, really saying something that this is the experience I consider to be the best I’ve had. Though I’ll give UPS credit for having somewhat accurate, if coarse grained, delivery windows to tell me when to expect something, instead of “Oh, it’ll come by 8 PM” and then it comes literally at any time including after 8.

When I pay a seller for shipping, I am paying for delivery to my destination. I never go pick it up. It is the seller’s responsibility to get the package to me, once I have paid shipping.

I do a fair number of chargebacks.

> It is the seller’s responsibility to get the package to me, once I have paid shipping

You're not wrong, but as a buyer of things, my end goal is to get the thing I bought. If I have to shlep a few blocks to the post office, I would rather do that than live in the world of ambiguous will-they-won't-they-deliver-it.

I'm strongly considering simply having everything shipped to my local post-office and picking it up, if such an option is available, but luckily (knock on wood), our mail delivery hasn't been awful recently.

You sound like a terrible person.

There are many reasons outside the seller's control that you'd have to, god forbid, pickup the package at your local post office or branch. Doubly true when it comes to international shipments or shipments requiring a signature.

The seller chooses the method of shipment. It is absolutely not out of their control. They have been paid for a service, and if the package does not arrive at the destination (the post office near the destination is not the destination), they did not render that service.

It is no different than if you paid a GC to redo your bathroom, and his sink guy fucked up and didn’t install the drain pipe. It’s the GC’s fault, because they were paid for the job, and they chose and supervised the subcontractor.

Again, you sound as if you have no concept of the "real world". Not everything will always work exactly the way you want it to.

There are a variety of reasons that a package may not be delivered to your door, among other things some of the more common are signature requirements, requiring customs payments, and the post office just not delivering to your house. The sender has no control over when you're going to be home, how your local postal system handles customs, or what the policies of your local post office are.

It's more like a contractor not fulfilling your ever wish because it would be against the building code and then you getting upset about it.

They don’t have to use the post office. They can prepay customs. They can send it signature not required, or they can ship with a shipper that makes a delivery appointment.

It’s still the seller’s fault if the goods you paid for don’t arrive at the agreed delivery location, regardless of shipping circumstances.

I had a similar experience once, years ago, except it was probably my fault. It was the first time I tried using a FedEx account, printing out the form, putting in the clear sleeve, attaching it to the box, etc. I suspect I didn't get the sleeve attached correctly, but it eventually (somehow) made its way back to me a month or so later. I sympathize with the poster's frustration with the bureaucracy and confusing account situations. While I know people who are FedEx experts and have no problem jumping through their hoops, since my issue I've stuck to paying the extra few bucks to have someone at a FedEx (or UPS) retail store handle the shipping, in the hopes that this improves my chances of success.

I'm guessing that the package ended up in Mississippi because FedEx's main hub is in Memphis, TN very close to the MS state line. There are several big warehouses just over the state line, and maybe FedEx uses such a facility for packages that are in limbo.

Shippers have problems, and anecdotes abound. Doesn't mean they don't ship billions of packages successfully each year. So keep some perspective.

My anecdote: shipped a prototype computer box weighing 300 lbs 'overnight freight' from Iowa to San Jose. It disappeared for 12 days. Finally turned up on a truck in San Antonio. To their credit they called every day to update (which was 'no new info'), probably to measure my level of consternation. I was unconcerned at the time - the box was going back to be updated and we had new ones already.

Twice (!) I received computers that appeared to have been dropped from a great height onto a solid bar - they were nearly broken in half. Both continued to work! But dang.

Par for the course with shipping companies in my experience.

They're pretty damn good when everything goes according to plan, but when something unexpected happens it turns into a nightmare.

Do any of you remember this shennanigans?? https://jalopnik.com/how-ups-screwed-a-popular-youtube-car-g...

FedEx is indeed frustrating and I'd like to share my experience.

My current home is an area that became incorporated about 4 years ago resulting in new addresses for all residents. When looking up my home, almost all map apps leave off the house number. FedEx can't process this, freaks out and ships my packages to my old address. The shipping notification email I receive from FedEx always says "your shipping address has been changed" with absolutely no prompting from me. This has resulted in me trying many things in order to correct with no resolution. Most times, I receive my package by jumping through one or more hoops with no resolution to the core issue.

The hoops:

  1.) drive to the old address to pick up packages (an hour drive) 

  2.) Call FedEx and waste a minimum of 35 minutes each time
 
  3.) Re-route packages to a nearby FedEx store 

  4.) Call the merchant, some have helped, some have directed me to the shipper 

  5.) I've created a FedEx account, deleted all shipping addresses except for the current

  6.) Written a script I copy and paste to Twitter support with all information they will need. They typically respond with "the ticket has been submitted, we don't have any further information"it's sort of a spray and pray approach. Either I'll get an updated shipping notification or nada. If I receive nada day-of delivery, I'm calling or rerouting.

  7.) Update my address in Google Maps, but I don't think it took

My wife's solution has been to have all of her (mostly Target) packages be delivered to her parents' house which is equally frustrating. This address issues also affects my ability to order Jimmy John's online, their system just won't let me, I have to call it in. DoorDash requires I spell out how to find my house in the notes (I've noticed most delivery drivers don't read the notes until they can't find my house).

To one-up OP, I have a World Cup ball from Adidas stuck in some delivery delay hell. It's actually funny now, I'm coming up on my 1st anniversary of placing an order for an item that I haven't received yet. Ordered the ball on 8/16/18, and just received the latest email update notifying me of a delay only 2 days ago. I called support last November and they said that the ball is stuck in the warehouse and they apologize for the delay. I could have opted for a refund then but decided to let it ride. I really want that ball. Photo for proof: http://tinyurl.com/y2st8lt4

DHL FTW. Has been the most on point for personal, low bandwidth use.

Fun fact. DHL has a location in every country, including North Korea!

I live in Ireland. I regularly get amazon packages delivered without any issues. I have ordered items from China via China post and they have arrived too. I don’t think I’ve had a missing package in years.

This is just my situation, but I wonder if those who have had a single negative experience shout the loudest sometimes.

It hasn't happened to me yet. Must not be matter!

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