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Comment by bastardoperator | Hacker News Reader

I ordered a computer from Southern California, they shipped it to Texas, Florida, Maine, and then back to Northern California. My last two orders were just stolen from someone at FedEx. They got the shipment, but it never left the facility after that. Customer service is an offshore apology machine that can't help with anything. I used to prefer fedex, but the standard of service is so subpar I go out of my way to avoid them.

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I assume you know that you can open a claim? They'll either find your package really fast, or will have to pay its full value. Often the vendor has to initiate the claim. If the vendor doesn't want to open a claim, refund. If the vendor doesn't want to refund, chargeback.

Be careful about those chargebacks. I bought two new pixel phones directly from Google and only one arrived. Google support was of course awful and Fedex did absolutely nothing outside of asking me what color the phone was. lol

I ended up reversing charges for the missing phone and Google immediately wrecked me - I was using Fi at the time so they killed my cell service and killed my ability to use Google Pay for anything - including the Play Store. Probably some other stuff I don't even remember. Between my personal account and my business accounts I realized at that moment that Google could completely wreck my life. Be careful about retaliation for a chargeback, if you live within one company's ecosystem it can be a brutal retaliation you're not ready for.

Did you contact the card company about this? Or your bank? Or a lawyer? Just curious. Card company should have someone who works on goog account

Retaliation for charge back probably elevates this from a civil matter to a criminal one; you should totally contact your local DA. They might think it's fun.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's just covered by the EULA. There's almost certainly a clause in there about Google being able to terminate service for any reason.

Not all contracts are legal.

I think it’s fair to say you should do chargebacks only to companies you won’t do business with any more.

Only if the package is insured. That's around 1% of the declared value of the package, so many/most vendors don't opt for it.

My last two stolen packages required the vendor to open a claim, I did in both cases and both vendors refunded me. Fedex wouldn't even entertain trying to help me.

I had this with an Apple Watch return. The package was either lost or stolen in transit, and neither FedEx nor Apple were interested in helping me. Only got it resolved after emailing Tim Cook's address, which goes to executive customer relations.

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