I'm glad Amazon is finally putting a stop to it.
Whenever I don't have a choice, they disappoint me.
Just last week, I had a Fedex shipment that was late. One of the reasons it was late was that it passed through almost two dozen Fedex locations.
Seven in three days.
My package spent three days traveling from Coal City, IL (9:11am 11-Dec) to Swatara Township, PA, (10:59pm 13-Dec) a distance of 741 miles, on an EPIC UNFORGETTABLE 12-day adventure on its route from California to Maryland.
61.75 hours to travel 741 miles is an average speed of 12 mph.
Just a taste of the epic journey: https://i.imgur.com/C0NlH9K.png
Anecdotes are nice but this happens so frequently I've given up on Fedex and will only use them as a last resort.
I live in an area where Amazon Prime delivery is so fast that I swear that sometimes they deliver the damned thing I order before I actually order it.
It was most likely just sitting at their sorting center, which I can see from my back window.
I don't know if there is something especially going wrong in my area, because there was a news story about how bad FedEx has been - people needing medical equipment and stuff that has been sitting for weeks.
Here in Canada we have Purolator - the gov't (Canada Post) subsidiary that is a FedEx competitor. Their systems are ancient, their entire operation is pathetically slow and inefficient.
E.g. a recent undelivered shipment that was to arrive last Friday still had the 'expected delivery date' unchanged two days later. When it finally changed it also noted that the package hadn't even left the distribution hub yet.
In 1967, Purolator bought the Canadian courier company Trans Canada Couriers, which later took the Purolator name. The courier company was then later sold to Canada Post, but kept the Purolator name since it was commonly known in Canada.
Purolator comes from the phrase "pure oil later," as in long-lasting oil filters for combustion engines.
The worker was very rude, and refused to let me send it, unless I double-boxed it. Company policy? He offered sell me a box and packing material.
You can expect wildly different experiences shipping SmartPost vs Custom Critical.
I've had them call me on my cellphone and offer to come to me at my office when I wasn't at home for a particularly high-dollar package. This wasn't a FedEx ground shipment though.
Although I'm not sure why you can't pick up your packages at a FedEx location though. I've always been able to do that. Maybe for SmartPost you can't, but that logistically makes sense, as they might not be in possession of the package by the time it gets to your locality.