I’m posting this to see if others have had this problem, and if anyone can shed light on what’s going on here.
Long story short (as short as I can make it anyway): my local Fedex Ground deliveryman fakes delivery attempts regularly. Someone will be home, the buzzer will never ring, and lo and behold, the tracking info suddenly turns to “Delivery Exception - Customer Not Home” when someone was home the whole time. Of course, there is no door tag left at our door, so there is absolutely no evidence the guy actually made it to the building. This is an unmistakable, repeated pattern - has happened about TEN times this year and several times has happened on the same day, within the same hour, that we’ve successfully received deliveries from UPS or USPS. A few weeks ago, we had to call Fedex to force the guy back out to our place after he had just faked it for the THIRD DAY IN A ROW. That time, after strong-arming only, he successfully made the delivery so he clearly does know how to use our buzzer, etc. Another delivery this week - same problem. Even after making multiple calls to Fedex, and the sender riding them hard today because of a faked delivery attempt yesterday, the guy (and we did confirm it’s the same guy) pulls the same freaking stunt again today (after Fedex had suggested that I should pick the package up - way to pass off YOUR job onto me!)
The only reason I can think of that the “deliveryman” would do this is that he falls behind schedule and starts faking like he made delivery attempts that he never actually made, in order to get ‘back on schedule’. Does anyone know what their compensation structure is? Do the incentives encourage this kind of behavior? Is there any penalty imposed on them if they do fake delivery attempts? How does this guy still have a job? From the repeated calls to Fedex we have gleaned that the Fedex Ground deliveries are outsourced somehow, and this apparently contributes to the lack of accountability that we are experiencing, but beyond that I’m hoping someone on the board (maybe some of you winery owners that have dealt with all the different couriers) can explain what the heck is going on here.
Needless to say, this is beyond aggravating to have someone stay home all day, not get the delivery, and have it be due to conduct that is basically fraud. The problem is so bad that I am dropping off mailing lists and not buying from wineries that ship only by Fedex anymore.
In the meanwhile, UPS is eating their lunch. I’m sure they’re not perfect, but our regular UPS guy is great, and my last two deliveries by UPS actually came a day early! I posted about the Fedex problem on Twitter today, and the UPS twitter rep replied thanking me for my business almost instantly; Fedex’s rep did reply but not until later in the day and I didn’t get it until the Fedex fail had already happened again today. Hoping to hear from their rep tomorrow, but I can’t imagine anything they can do to make up for the damage here. My poor suffering family member who was stuck at home all these days wants those days of their freedom back!
Thankfully, most of my favorite mailing lists do UPS so the pain of cutting out Fedex completely won’t be that bad, but this is just crazy!
Alan, I absolutely have had this problem in Brooklyn. Stayed home all day from work for a delivery and they make no attempt to deliver, attach a notice to the door without ringing, change the status electronically, and that’s it. I will not do business with Fed Ex if I have a choice, and I will not do business with a shipper if I have no choice other than Fed Ex.
There was a story on our local news yesterday: FedEx guy drives his van up to a house with metal fence and gate to deliver a brand new TV. FedEx guy pulls the TV out of the back of the van, carries it up to the fence, throws it over and drives away. I guess he was pressed for time.
Still don’t get it. They stop at the house…fill out the notice…walk up to the door and put up the notice…they could have delivered the wine in that time.
FWIW…as a shipper of wine, I have had far better experience with FedEx than UPS. I’m sure YMMV.
Except in my case, there were many times no notice was left - the guy could have punched in “nobody home” into their computer system without ever leaving the truck. Now THAT is a time saver.