Faster than a speeding apple



  • So earlier this week I ordered some stuff from the fruity company, and it was shipped via FedEx from China. The fruit's website said one week for delivery - estimated as 5th of November. Ok .. no problem, I can wait. I eventually get the email with the tracking number and start looking for updates on the packages location. The last update I saw this morning was that it had departed the FedEx facility in Anchorage on Nov 1 at 4PM. Yep the timing still seems right to get here on Monday.

    So I get home this afternoon after a long lunch .. and there is my package sitting on the doorstep. No warning that it would arrive today at all - the FedEx website still has the Anchorage message as the last entry. But what annoyed/surprised me the most was those FedEx delivery instructions .. the ones that said I had to sign for the package. Now I don't know if I should be going anywhere for the next week when the rest of my order is supposed to arrive.



  • I have an online friend who works for FedEx and says that the tracking info on the web pages only has a passing reflection on reality -- any time that the information does match reality is a coincidence and should be considered an anomoly.



  • In my experience UPS is much better about scanning packages, but FedEx drivers/facilities often skip the scan.

    Or maybe he scanned it but his scanner thing wasn't online at the time and it'll show up as "delivered" at like 8:00 PM.



  • Well the fun thing is that the package that I was expecting on the 6th will now turn up tomorrow. So all in all I can't really complain.



  • @OzPeter said:

    Well the fun thing is that the package that I was expecting on the 6th will now turn up tomorrow. So all in all I can't really complain.
    If they send it upside-down it will show upon the 9th.



  • TRWTF is they just left what appparently are expensive gadgets (correct me if I am wrong) unattended outdoors on a doorstep, without having anyone sign for it.

    Imagine if it was stolen by a random passerby... you'd think the package was delayed, held up in some dropoff point, or something, only it never arrives...



  • @bundat said:

    TRWTF is they just left what appparently are expensive gadgets (correct me if I am wrong) unattended outdoors on a doorstep, without having anyone sign for it.
     

    But who's the "they" in this context? Are fruity getting blamed for Fedex's lack of dilligence, or is it down to Fedex not complying with customer instructions?

    I've experienced both:

    • ParcelFarce, many years back, would often be late (friday afternoon delivery would arrive monday morning, requiring us to accept delivery at one of our busiest business periods time rather than leisurely inventorise the kit over the weekend). They've delivered an expensive switch by leaving it on a chair in our reception - the supplier couldn't verify if it was signed nor who signed for it; nobody in the area saw it being delivered and a customer could have easily walked off with it without us being none the wiser (not saying they could, but nobody was alerted to its arrival). A few suppliers have had to make good on repeated deliveries when they couldn't track the whereabouts of my goods.  The problem seemed to be so widespread that Watchdog dedicated an entire programme to customer complaints about their service.
    • Amazon are one of those companies that retain ownership of the item until it's actually in the customer's hands: if it's lost, delayed, damaged during transit then they quickly accept responsibility of making good, rather than adopt a "it's out of our hands - up to you to contact our courier and determine its fate" attitude. I've had good post-sales support from them; this level of customer service has resulted in business retention for me.

    I'm surprised the Jobsworthy aren't towards the latter - they talk up their "AppleCare". SWMBO's had good post-sales support concerning her macbook, even when it was discovered the battery (out of warranty) was one of those exploding Dell ones. And I thought FedEx was one of those "delivery firms to be reckoned with".

    Guess there's aberrations abound.



  • @bundat said:

    TRWTF is they just left what appparently are expensive gadgets (correct me if I am wrong) unattended outdoors on a doorstep, without having anyone sign for it.

    Imagine if it was stolen by a random passerby... you'd think the package was delayed, held up in some dropoff point, or something, only it never arrives...

    Delivery guys sometimes do that. I myself experienced such a WTF and several other people recently made the news by:

    • Delivering the package to a neighbour, without telling us which neighbour. Plus, the signature was unreadable.
    • Here in Germany some districts have each household equipped with a special blue waste bin for paper waste. Some delivery guy thought this waste bin would be a good place to safely store a package. The package was gone, of course, by the time the family arrived home because this was the day of the month where the paper waste bins were emptied.
    • My own WTF: I was living in a very large students' dorm (~1000 people). One morning I stepped out of the elevator and found about ten packages next to the elevator door, waiting to be delivered. The delivery guy's car was parked right in front of the entrance. Obviously, he had had more packages than he could fit into the elevator and thus stored them temporarily at this point.
      So I did what a good citizen would do: I waited and watched over the packages so nobody would steal them. After I had waited for 10 minutes and neither the delivery guy nor anyone else was to be seen, and I also had to get to my lectures, I took the packages, stored them in my room and delivered them myself after I came back from my lectures. I also told the delivery service what I had done. I only hope that it landed the guy in a lot of hot water.


  • @Rhywden said:

    • My own WTF: I was living in a very large students' dorm (~1000 people). One morning I stepped out of the elevator and found about ten packages next to the elevator door, waiting to be delivered. The delivery guy's car was parked right in front of the entrance. Obviously, he had had more packages than he could fit into the elevator and thus stored them temporarily at this point.
      So I did what a good citizen would do: I waited and watched over the packages so nobody would steal them. After I had waited for 10 minutes and neither the delivery guy nor anyone else was to be seen, and I also had to get to my lectures, I took the packages, stored them in my room and delivered them myself after I came back from my lectures. I also told the delivery service what I had done. I only hope that it landed the guy in a lot of hot water.

     

     Are you sure he was only storing them temporarily? He might have considered them delivered (they're at the right address!), and you're lucky he didn't report YOU for stealing them!



  • @ekolis said:

     Are you sure he was only storing them temporarily? He might have considered them delivered (they're at the right address!), and you're lucky he didn't report YOU for stealing them!

    He'd not have had much of a chance with that argument. I did, after all, tell the post office about this guy not doing his job properly [b]and[/b] I actually delivered the packages. He'd also have to explain how I was able to lay hands on ten of his packages without his knowledge and without getting a signature for the packages (which is required for all package deliveries over here.)



  • @Rhywden said:

    Delivery guys sometimes do that. I myself experienced such a WTF
     

    Name and shame, then!

    @Rhywden said:

    Delivering the package to a neighbour, without telling us which neighbour. Plus, the signature was unreadable.

    Encountered the same issue with Royal Mail.

    Had a card through the door reporting an undeliverable package, none of the fields were filled in other than "am" ticked and some squiggly line against the signature. I rang to enquire about it, and the guy on the other end increasingly grew more annoyed when the answer to most of his questions were "I don't know - that's blank on this card" yet I was still blamed for not knowing any details about a missed delivery, which I could understand if I'd ordered something but.. at the time I'd only just moved into rented accomodation and was still receiving mail addressed to both the landlord and previous two occupants so I took issue with his "well you MUST have ordered something, RIGHT?" assertion.

    Stupidly, I asked him to track the parcel against my address. "It don't work like that" was the response.. from an employee working for organisation that uses the address as the sole means of identifying the correct destination. Stumped me.

    @ekolis said:

     Are you sure he was only storing them temporarily? He might have considered them delivered (they're at the right address!), and you're lucky he didn't report YOU for stealing them!
     

    <father>"The boxes were just resting in my room"</ted>



  • Oh, that reminds me, I remember an even better one:

    So, here I was coming home from a lecture in the late evening (8pm) and finally checked my mail for the day. I was moderately shocked when I found an orange envelope, bearing the seal of the District Court of Berlin. I naturally raked my brain in order to remember what I had done wrong. Speeding? Nope. Caused an accident? Not to my knowledge. Missed some payments somewhere? Doubtful.

    Due to the shock, I opened the package without closer inspection. A summons to court due to a report for bodily harm which was done... not by me, but reportedly by the person the mail was actually adressed to. Only now did I check the adress - and save for the city, nothing matched. Different name, different street, different house number.



  • A common WTF in delivery in my country is people assuming you are never at home, and instead of ringing they directly put the paper to force you to retrieve the package at the post office. Of course, there is two or three day delay to do so.



  • One particular scene I will never forget is when I was very young (about 8 or 10 at most), I saw this postman complaining about the weight or something and then dropping dozens and dozens of letters on the trashcan. I was completely "WTF" and couldn't believe my eyes, approached the trashcan and it was, indeed, full of real letters. Was it happened at a later age, I'd be equally tempted to deliver them all or read them all.



  • @OzPeter said:

    S there is my package sitting on the doorstep. No warning that it would arrive today at all - the FedEx website still has the Anchorage message as the last entry. But what annoyed/surprised me the most was those FedEx delivery instructions .. the ones that said I had to sign for the package

    No signature means no proof you received it. it could have been taken from your doorstep and they can't prove it wasn't.

    Just sayin'...


  • Garbage Person

    @Zadkiel said:

    @OzPeter said:

    S there is my package sitting on the doorstep. No warning that it would arrive today at all - the FedEx website still has the Anchorage message as the last entry. But what annoyed/surprised me the most was those FedEx delivery instructions .. the ones that said I had to sign for the package

    No signature means no proof you received it. it could have been taken from your doorstep and they can't prove it wasn't.

    Just sayin'...

    But it was signed for! By somebody named F. Porch!

     



  • The house I live in is older than the street on the side where the entrance is, so my address is on the street on the other side of the house (where there's only a small garden with a fence around it). It's not unusual to find mail stuck in that fence, even though there's a sign saying "Entrance on the other side - from street X". Luckily the courier services seem to know how to find me.



  • @ender said:

    The house I live in is older than the street on the side where the entrance is, so my address is on the street on the other side of the house (where there's only a small garden with a fence around it). It's not unusual to find mail stuck in that fence, even though there's a sign saying "Entrance on the other side - from street X". Luckily the courier services seem to know how to find me.

    A thrilling tale of swashbuckling adventure!



  • @Rhywden said:

    @bundat said:
    TRWTF is they just left what appparently are expensive gadgets (correct me if I am wrong) unattended outdoors on a doorstep, without having anyone sign for it.

    Imagine if it was stolen by a random passerby... you'd think the package was delayed, held up in some dropoff point, or something, only it never arrives...

    Delivery guys sometimes do that. I myself experienced such a WTF and several other people recently made the news by:

    • Delivering the package to a neighbour, without telling us which neighbour. Plus, the signature was unreadable.
    • Here in Germany some districts have each household equipped with a special blue waste bin for paper waste. Some delivery guy thought this waste bin would be a good place to safely store a package. The package was gone, of course, by the time the family arrived home because this was the day of the month where the paper waste bins were emptied.
    • My own WTF: I was living in a very large students' dorm (~1000 people). One morning I stepped out of the elevator and found about ten packages next to the elevator door, waiting to be delivered. The delivery guy's car was parked right in front of the entrance. Obviously, he had had more packages than he could fit into the elevator and thus stored them temporarily at this point.
      So I did what a good citizen would do: I waited and watched over the packages so nobody would steal them. After I had waited for 10 minutes and neither the delivery guy nor anyone else was to be seen, and I also had to get to my lectures, I took the packages, stored them in my room and delivered them myself after I came back from my lectures. I also told the delivery service what I had done. I only hope that it landed the guy in a lot of hot water.

     

    When I was living in a dorm, in Germany, standard practise for delivery guys was

    1. Ring bell for recipient
    2. If 1. fails, ring any bell in the vicinity until someone answers
    3. "Hey man, here's a package, deliver it, ja? Kthxbye"

     



  •  A few years back we employed a high priced US-based delivery company which shall remain nameless to ship a rack of servers from Toronto to Calgary.  We arranged for them to arrive at the same time as our netwok architect was going to be in Calgary so that he could receive and install the whole lot in our new data centre.

     Naturally, when he arrived on the 2nd of July, there were no servers and no delivery truck coming.  After making some phone calls and doing some detective work, we found out what had happened.  It seems that the driver thought he would be helpful by arriving one day early (On July First, if you're keeping score) and couldn't understand why none of the offices were open.  Fortunately, he was able to find a loading dock on the other side of the street which was open, and dropped off a shipping crate containing over half a million dollars worth of hardware there.  Convinced that his job was done he left wthout notifying anyone and presumably had a few more pints and went home to enjoy a long weekend with his phone switched off.

     Two days later we finally found the shipment, still waiting on the dock where it had been dumped.   Nobody who worked there had any idea why those boxes were there, as they had just shown up over the long weekend.  Fortunately nothing was damaged other than the shipper's reputation, but it did turn a leisurely three day install into a one day race to plug everything in and go.

     



  • @OzPeter said:

    and there is my package sitting on the doorstep.

    Fedex guys (at least in Belgium) are the best to deliver package at doorstep, faking signature, and using the wrong address. Whenever possible, i avoid fedex. When unavoidable, i do deliveries at work, where there is always someone available to sing receipt.

    My parents got a 200$ parcel delivered. Not only was it delivered at wrong address (at a farm 10 numbers further down the road), but the fedex guy faked the signature, because there was nobody at the farm. After several back and forth, farm owners found the parcel one week later, in a corner of their stable.

    I don't know why companies are still doing buisnees with those guys.



  •  Had a similar issue with DHL. Ordered some software (2x Windows 7 Professional and 1x Ultimate) in the UK, but it took a few weeks for the Ultimate to be delivered. When it finally arrived, it travelled from the UK to Germany, to France, to Malta, in something like 12 hours. And then the local delivery van couldn't find the delivery address. In Valletta. Which is a 'city' where about 8000 people live, and you can walk around it in about an hour and a half, whilst taking photographs of the sights.



  • My father used to have to ship expensive/unique test equipment into his office...

    1) "Official" service - can't use, they ship on first flight going in the direction that the package is heading,
    but no flights EVER leave going our way, so package waits.

    2) Post Office - can't use, package gets delivered to central address of the large organization where he works,
    package takes 2-3 extra days to get delivered, if it gets delivered - might be sitting on a dock someplace.

    3) Fedex - can't use, senders confuse with option 1 ("Federal" in the name!), see above.

    4) UPS - can't use, senders confuse with Post Office (aka USPS), see above.

    5) Burlington Northern to be held at the airport for pickup - his service of choice because it can't be confused with any of  the above
    OTH, (and this is how I know the story), I drive him to the airport, he runs in, comes back with nothing - they shipped the package to
    a city with the same name on a different island.  Can't win.


     



  • @ijij said:

    they shipped the package to a city with the same name on a different island.  Can't win.

     

    One day, i asked a friend to send me a harddrive. To avoid a 2h drive to pick it up and because i would only see him 2 months later, he said "Ho, my father can have it sent to your local station using the railroad company"

    The guy writing the station name added BE  (Belgium) in front of town, leading it to be mistakenly read has "GE" (Germany). After 3 months trying to locate the package, friend had to make a 1 day trip in train to collect if back in a station in Germany

     



  • @TheLazyHase said:

    A common WTF in delivery in my country is people assuming you are never at home, and instead of ringing they directly put the paper to force you to retrieve the package at the post office. Of course, there is two or three day delay to do so.

    In my younger days (eg, 6 months ago), I naievely assumed that when a package was delivered to my apartment, they would dial the buzzer to be let in. My sister, who worked nights at the time, would be home all day to answer the phone for when my package arrived.

    I get home on the Monday, and find the stupid Canada Post note stuck to my mail box, dated for the day before (Sunday, which has no mail delivery). When I get upstairs, I talk to my sister:

    Me: Did they phone?

    Her: No. I've been home all day.

    Me: Did they knock???

    Her: No.....

    Since then, I just ship everything to my office. It saves a lot of hassle.



  • Used to live in a duplex. During that time I had 3-4 'nicer' computer things delivered, one of those 'nicer' things being a $600 color laser printer from Samsung. Despite saying it needed a signature, the guy just continually dropped it off on the little porch area, which was visible to the street. And you know how printer boxes are always emblazoned with how awesome they are all over them.

    Still, TRWTF was FedEx just dropping off my $5,000 wedding ring 4 days earlier than the expected arrival date and not letting me know. It just sat there, outside, the entire time.

    Then again, that wedding was trwtf, now that I think about it. But luckily I have it out of my system now.



  • ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3

    @tchize said:

    The guy writing the station name added BE  (Belgium) in front of town, leading it to be mistakenly read has "GE" (Germany).

    Are you sure BE wasn't interpreted as DE for Deutschland? :)

    There's no ISO-code "GE" for Germany, there was "GER" I suppose.



  • @Weng said:

    But it was signed for! By somebody named F. Porch!
     

    I had an issue with my mail-box, the crap lock on it wouldn't open. But my mail carrier was a ghost. When I saw him, which was only twice in a week, I'd dash for the door and bang! He was mysteriously gone. 

    Thankfully, I knew just the trick. I'll give the Postal Service money and stop wasting time.

    Down to the post office I go with an empty envelope. "Yes, I'd like to send this certified, return reciept, restricted delivery." (Ha ha. The invisible fucker is going to have to materialize at my door, ring the bell, and ask for ID.) "The sender and recipient are the same." "Yes, I am sending it to myself." "Do you need insurance?" "Nope." The woman at the counter holds it up and squints, powering up her x-ray vision or something. "Why are you sending an empty envelope to yourself?" "How can you tell? It doesn't matter, does it?" "I can't send an empty envelope!"

    I'm forced to rummage around in my wallet and send myself a wad of gas reciepts. 

    Three days later the mail man 'delivers' it, (which works out to the envelope doing 0.012 miles per hour, a WTF of its own) by stuffing it in my front door, ringing the bell, and imitating Usain Bolt. The fact he'd come all the way up to my door was the only reason I caught him. "Hey! You forgot something!" "What?" "The form I was supposed to sign." "There isn't one." "Bullshit. I sent it myself so I could ask you to unlock my mailbox, the lock is stuck." 

    He went to his truck and grabbed the slip he'd pre-signed with '<his initials> - F Door'.



  • You know; maybe it's just me, but last I checked forging a signature is still fraud right? Wonder how well a claim would hold up in court if an expensive parcel (let's say; the previously mentioend $5000 wedding ring) goes missing and the delivery firm waves the delivery slip with a forged signature in your face. The delivery guy is named on the slip and a handwriting expert could probably make short work of comparing the signature to the guy's handwriting...



  • This thread is starting to convince me that if anything ever gets delivered it's merely out of luck or coincidence.



  •  I only buy things on the Internet that are delivered via the internet.

    I'm an instant-gratification guy, I don't want to buy something, then wait.



  • @Ragnax said:

    You know; maybe it's just me, but last I checked forging a signature is still fraud right? Wonder how well a claim would hold up in court if an expensive parcel (let's say; the previously mentioend $5000 wedding ring) goes missing and the delivery firm waves the delivery slip with a forged signature in your face. The delivery guy is named on the slip and a handwriting expert could probably make short work of comparing the signature to the guy's handwriting...
     

    I had a new mail carrier in a week. The local Postmaster didn't think it was funny. 

    FedEx, UPS and the other private shippers operate differently. It's a contract issue, and you generally can't sue. You're stuck with administrative BS, where the company makes the decision to pay you or not. They'll no doubt accuse you of stealing it yourself by forging your own signature. On top of that, FedEx limits you to a thousand bucks, and UPS/Airborne Express limit you to the lowest of replacement/repair/declared value, and only if you paid extra.

    Oh, and if you can prove it was stolen by the delivery guy? it's plain old garden variety theft, which the company may or not be responsible for, so you'll might get only a pittance from the shipping company. 



  • @Ragnax said:

    You know; maybe it's just me, but last I checked forging a signature is still fraud right? Wonder how well a claim would hold up in court if an expensive parcel (let's say; the previously mentioend $5000 wedding ring) goes missing and the delivery firm waves the delivery slip with a forged signature in your face. The delivery guy is named on the slip and a handwriting expert could probably make short work of comparing the signature to the guy's handwriting...
     

    That.

    @NoOneImportant said:

    Oh, and if you can prove it was stolen by the delivery guy?
     

    No... but that's not the point.

    Simply stating that it hasn't been received and the courier producing a signature that doesn't match yours is proof that the delivery guy has been negligant, as well as defrausing his company by faking evidence that he's fulfilled his responsibilities. You can't prove that he's stolen it, but you CAN show he was charged with delivering it, and he's failed to do so - then tried to cover his tracks.

    Proof that he's stolen it can rest with his employer or the bobbies. Proof that they're incompetant and commiting fraud is enough to publicise.



  • @NoOneImportant said:

    FedEx, UPS and the other private shippers operate differently. It's a contract issue, and you generally can't sue. You're stuck with administrative BS, where the company makes the decision to pay you or not. They'll no doubt accuse you of stealing it yourself by forging your own signature. On top of that, FedEx limits you to a thousand bucks, and UPS/Airborne Express limit you to the lowest of replacement/repair/declared value, and only if you paid extra.

    It's a matter of knowing who to sue.

    Contacting the shipping company first hand is a bad idea. Your contract is with the sender, who in turn contracted the shipping company to deliver goods to you. It is the sender that is breaching contract by failing to deliver said goods. Signature comparisons on delivery slips only come into play if the sender allows things to escalate into a court case and wants to submit the shipping company's slip as evidence.

    Under EU law you'd even be able to sue the sender for additional compensation for what is called 'consequential loss', i.e. , secondary damages due to the delivery having failed. A wedding ring going missing could be an excellent example of this. Having to take additional time off from work to be at home for a repeat delivery can also be a consequential loss, depending on circumstance.



  • @Ragnax said:

    Under EU law

    I think you will find that the [European] domestic law still varies strongly in this respect from country to country.

    There are some EU required changes, that have been implemented in national law, but its still domestic laws that apply :)



  • @Ragnax said:

    Under EU law you'd even be able to sue the sender for additional compensation for what is called 'consequential loss', i.e. , secondary damages due to the delivery having failed.
     

    I think this is part of the reason TalkTalk have such a shit reputation - when it works, it works well. When it fails, many people waste days off work awaiting a missed engineer visit.


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