We regularly give homemade treats or Cokes to our FedEx & UPS delivery folks. Have never had a problem with deliveries.
FedEx Home is inconsistent for me, but FedEx Ground is extremely reliable; the driver shows up right around 9 am, which is great since it means the package won’t sit on a truck all day. UPS here is also very reliable but arrive at my place late afternoon, so I’ll often have it held at their place 15 minutes away so I can get it earlier in the day.
Like politics, all delivery is local; I’m lucky, others not so much, I guess.
I’ve had similar experiences but not with Fedex. This has happened to me twice with Golden State Overnight. They simply said noone was home… But there was someone home the whole day. The doorbell never rang, and no tag was left on the door. They even tried faking a description of my house, like “single story white house, no one home”. My house is not white and there are no single story buildings on my street. I called to complain, but the best they could do was tell me that the driver had already returned the package to the facility and will have to deliver again tomorrow even though the tracking info indicated the fake delivery occurred just 5 min ago.
This happened with the deliveries last month. There’s more… A friend of mine was over at my house and noticed the boxes marked with GSO…and proceeds to tell me about his similar problems with GSO.
I guess stuff like this is regional, as some of you have probably had stellar experiences with GSO (as I have had with Fedex), but for my neighborhood, Golden State Overnight sucks big time
for me 95% of the time fedex is cheaper. DHL was the best but of course no longer domestic
FedEx is the worst. Actually Comcast is the reigning and undefeated champion of suck, but in this fight, I agree FedEx is terrible. They even managed to lose an overnight package and just ‘lose’ it - end of story. WTF.
I’ll add my name to the list of disgruntled FedEx Ground customers. I was expecting a delivery from Wine Library, and we timed the order so it would arrive the Friday before Thanksgiving. Fat chance! They claimed they made a delivery attempt, but there was no door tag (our building was open). The first door tag we saw was the following Monday. Unlike Charlie, I have no problem with using my staff for this kind of thing, so I had my paralegal chase it down. She called them and raised hell. They claimed they would deliver on Tuesday, but they never showed. She raised hell, and they swore to her it would be delivered by 1:00 on Wednesday. She called them at 11:30 on Weds, and the person answering the phone asked her “Why are you calling? Its not 1:00 yet.” Of course 1:00 came and went. When she called to raise hell (and boy, was she raising hell), she was told that she should have never been promised a delivery time. The wine finally showed up at 4:30, three full hours after I left for my Thanksgiving trip. Did I mention my paralegal raised hell about it?
On the other hand, my UPS guy rocks.
This happened all the time in my neighborhood with Home Delivery and Ground until I called the main Fed Ex number and ratted them out for this. It is VERY annoying. UPS is the best in my neighborhood but it is like selecting between the two worst NFL football teams right now. Neither is very good. BTW, with Home Delivery or Ground they won’t make any special arrangements even if you call and beg with money. Not true of UPS in my area. They will reschedule delivery for you even using ground.
Alan,
I am only commenting on the “why would he make fake deliveries?” part. This happened to us.
We got a new mailperson early this year. My wife is at home full time and told me, after a few months of noticing this, that it seemed our mail wasn’t being delivered every day. Sometimes missing a couple of days. We started tracking it and it sure looked like no mail person was coming for a day or two at a time. We complained and found out that a lot of people on his route had complained. The postal service investigated finding out, of course, that he was delivering every day … just not the mail. He had a sweetie on the route and that “delivery” apparently took precedence over the mail delivery. So there could be a reason for the faking of deliveries. As to whether it is a good reason or not is probably a matter of perspective. 
LOL, Scott. I have to admit that this level of incompetence has had me wondering if the guy is taking entire hours off to smoke weed in the FedEx truck or something!
Add me to the Fedex list. Sometimes I will not buy wine if it is shipped Fedex as I always ask before I order. I had a fake attempt this April as I stood outside and watched the driver stop for a second then drive off. I called and had to go meet him to pick up my package.
I have had the same problems with Fedex, though at past residences. I have an Australian Cattle Dog who goes off like a fire engine if the someone comes to the door, yet still I’ve had delivery exceptions. Other times I’ve had her startle, only to rush to the door in time to see a driver headed back to the truck, tag on the door - no package in hand - and have him claim to have rung the bell.
Where I’m at, UPS has always been solid.
Hmmm good idea…never thought about giving him coke. Did he speed up??? 
Add me to the list. Happens often at home. But had this happen to me at work for the first time this week, too. Hmmm…
I get my wine delivered to my office (for several reasons) and in the past that pretty much ensured that deliveries will come when they say they will. But this week, my wine was on a Fed Ex truck, per tracking, and allegedly made it all the way to my building, but never made it inside. Claimed there was a “security issue.” Now, we have a very busy but too small loading dock, and sometimes it takes a while for the delivery trucks to actually get into the dock; they have to sit out on the street until one of the two spaces opens up. So, if they have to wait too long, they roll out; thus, it’s possible that Fed Ex tried to deliver but couldn’t. But I’ve NEVER seen Fed Ex do that before, and because it’s a law office, I’d hope they would always make their deliveries considering the time-sensitive materials they’re typically delivering. Like my wine…
Add me to the list of someone who has gotten fake delivery attempts from FedEx. Hell, they tried it at my doorman building in NYC once. It was routine when I lived in the burbs.
Never, ever use FedEx if you can avoid it.
I just moved to a house and have been experiencing this as well. Fedex will actually drive up my driveway and leave a tag on the door without knocking or ringing the doorbell. I work at home and have been just feet from the door when this happens.
I installed an annunciator that rings a bell in my house when anyone drives up. Also, an IP camera that points at my driveway that I can monitor on my computer. Now, I make a point to meet them at the door. No more missed deliveries when I’m home.
Yep. This has happened to me more than once. The last time it happened I was pissed and persistent enough that I finally managed to get myself routed to the guy’s supervisor. I didn’t get my package delivered that day but when the driver came by the next day I did finally get the truth. He apologizes and flat out told me he was at the end of his route when he saw my package and didn’t want to double back so he flagged it.
I’ve had this happen once with Fedex, never with UPS that I recall. I generally prefer UPS, but there was a stretch of time a few years ago where it seemed like every shipment from UPS had the Styro shipper beaten up, with little bits of Styro getting everywhere when I unpacked the wine. It hasn’t been a problem since then, so it may have just been that there was someone working my area that liked to toss packages around, but has since left.
I have gotten call tags when we have been home too.
that said I had wine shipped last Friday from the West Coast. Envoyer used Fedex Ground and Premier Cru used UPS Ground.
Envoyer’s 2 boxes came one on Tuesday and the other Wednesday. Still waiting for the UPS boxes to arrive it should be on Friday.
It really sucks to hear all these stories of bad service and non service. I’ve not had any such issue with UPS, FedEx, or GSO (that I can recall). That said, I try to avoid having my wine shipped whenever possible (with a preference for me picking it up — most wineries are very cool about holding my wine for pickup, even if that means they have to hold my wine for a few months — one particular winery is currently going above and beyond very cool by holding ALL of my orders from them for the next couple years while Ash and I are living overseas).
I will say this about FedEx and UPS: Over the past month, I’ve seen more than 50 wine packages crossing the States to various extents for a Secret Santa wine exchange that is currently happening on the CT forum (I’m the person who matched people up, and monitored the shipments). Only 1 package was “lost,” and that was a UPS package. There was one suspected “fake delivery,” and that was FedEx. All other shipments were delivered without problem.
[insert standard Premier Cru joke here]