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Does anyone else have really strange FedEx driver stories?
A couple of years ago I heard a knock, went to the door, saw the FedEx guy walking away, called out to him, then again and again, louder and louder. He just walked into his truck and drove off. And my front door was right on the street, so there's no way he didn't hear me.
Today my mother opens the door after a knock, and the driver's driving off. And he waves at her as he goes.
I have lots of other complaints about FedEx, and I wonder if these stories are symptoms of a dysfunctional company, mistreating workers, etc. Or maybe we're just on the beat of a dude with a 'tude.
My fedex driver brought me a cat. She found a stray kitten at the gas station in the morning, and didn’t want it to get hit by a car. It rode around in her truck all day in one of those plastic mail containers. I took it, got it checked for a microchip, and now I have a cat!
Not of the drivers, but fedex themselves. If you do not get a receipt, it can be very hard apparently to even prove you dropped off a package because their system for their company is stupid.
I had my wife drop off my laptop to be fixed at a fed ex. A few weeks passed by and I found it odd I hadn’t received any email. I called the tech company and they said they hadn’t received anything. I called up fedex and they said they had nothing in their system they could easily find of a shipment. You’d think a company of that size would have daily logs of what they are doing as a company.
Many phone calls and different departments later, neither company would take responsibility for the claim. I went in person to the store to see if they had my wife going in person on video, but their excuse was their security system writes over itself pretty quickly. The main manager tried helping me look for the package in their system, but from his expression and tone after looking at his screen, it seemed to have gotten lost along the way, but he didn’t want to verbally acknowledge it.
I tried for weeks to get money from anyone, but after much research there was nothing I could do. Then out of the blue, 6 months later I heard my bell. I go downstairs and see a package with my address hand written on a box, I take it up and open the box… and it’s my laptop… in the same packaging, unopened… 6 months later… no notice or anything from the many case numbers I had. The warranty period had already lapsed, so there was nothing I could do about the issue I was trying to fix. It still technically works years later at least. I still wonder from time to time wth even happened.
Probably got lost in the back, found it 6 months later. Someone you talked to felt bad enough to send it back to you but not bad enough to take any responsibility.
Kind of similar, some shoes for my company were meant for a warehouse in New Jersey but ended up at my store, in Ontario... Found the person listed on the box in slack and was working to get them sent to the right place when he got laid off. So I had shoes that weren't supposed to be at my store that we also can't sell. Eventually after getting nowhere trying to send them back, I follow policy at the time and throw them out. The mall doesn't let stores use the compactor, so I leave the shoes in the spot for them to be thrown out sometime in 2022. This past February mall security shows up with a box with my store name on it they found somewhere. Same box with the same shoes... So I threw them out again.
Or they were wearing earphones. Our FedEx guy is great. Even helped carry a super heavy package into the house.
The driver might also have just been hard of hearing/deaf too.
But even if not, delivery drivers leaving a package at the door, knocking/ringing, and immediately walking away is pretty normal, at least in my experience. It's done purely as courtesy, just so the package doesn't sit there unnoticed for too long. And unless they need a signature they're not going to stick around.
I don't see it as being particularly rude either, especially since delivery drivers sometimes get reprimanded if they take too long on their routes. And if that happens too often they may even lose their job.
Delivery drivers leaving a package at the door also isn't universal. Here in Germany, for instance, it almost never happens -- they'll typically either leave it with a neighbor or take it to the post office if you aren't home. This was something I had to adapt to when I moved here, since in the US leaving packages outside my door was super common. But then again, so was getting anything valuable-looking stolen. Even within the US though there are packages where you have to sign for it, which they won't deliver without someone to sign.
The package delivery guys vary a lot in how good their approach is, in my experience, even within the same company (I haven't dealt much with FedEx, but DHL, Hermes, and Amazon are the ones I see the most often here). Here the biggest problem is that some drivers will write down that you weren't home without checking and take it to the post office. Or they drop all the packages off at one neighbor (usually on the first floor). In both cases it's definitely because it's faster, and it's a job where they've doubtless got intense quotas and are very rushed by management, so I try to be forgiving when it's inconvenient.
well this was longer than anticipated...
It was so annoying when I lived in Germany when my packages wouldn't get delivered even though I gave specific instructions to leave it in a specific spot. Even when they did deliver things to neighbors when I wasn't home, they'd leave them next door instead of with my landlords who lived upstairs and had a door on the back of the house.
Then I'd have to go to some random Aral gas station in another village to pick up my package from a DHL counter that was only open some stupid hours like 10-1 on weekdays and 9-11 on Saturdays. And my options to get there were to drive 10 minutes, park, and walk for a few minutes through a road construction zone, or I could drive 15 minutes because the construction was cutting off the main connection between two halves of the village. ome random gas station.
And the one time I didn't make it within that tiny window, they send the package to the German customs office so I had to wait like a month for them to send me a notification, then I had to deal with their stupid hours where they close for lunch (they're public servants! When do they think the public has free time to go there if they only work standard work hours? And why not just stagger lunch breaks?). It was really cold that day and they wouldn't even let us inside the lobby to sit down until precisely 1300 because das ist verboten! We could see them through the glass door and warm and comfy while we were freezing our asses off outside.
And then after all that, they told me I didn't have to pay any customs fees. 😒
So, I mean, I guess it's good I didn't make it to the gas station during the two nonstandard hours they were open. And at least I wasn't getting paid by the hour so it didn't cost me anything to be forced by the German government to take time off of work to pick up a stupid Blu-Ray that I bought online.
Oh man this is a mood. Luckily since I live in Berlin it's usually not this bad for me anymore... usually.
People seem to think that Deaf folks can't drive. I have no idea where this comes from.
Why do you want to talk to the FedEx driver though? I understand being courteous, but I don’t know what kind of conversation I would have with one that isn’t about mail.
I may be reading based on personal assumptions, but I assume the package was a “hand to me” or “signature required” and the driver walked off with it based on the tone of the post.
I have a similar issue occasionally where I get notifications that my package was undeliverable even though the carrier never attempted to call me on the intercom (directory code is included in delivery instructions). Occasionally Amazon drivers will open a chat session then immediately leave (probably to convince the app they tried to contact me). Can’t really blame the driver given the terrible working conditions but it’s reflecting poorly on the company with how often this happens.
At the beginning of this year I had UPS fail me. They're usually very good.
I ordered a laptop, ~$1500, from Best Buy. I was out of town, but there was an option to choose ship date, so it was supposed to arrive the day after I came home. For some reason that failed, and the UPS driver brought it 2 days before I was coming home. This was also a signature item, and she put it on the doorstep, knocked on the door and immediately left.
Fortunately I have good neighbors -- I called them and they put the package in the shed in my backyard for me.
Definitely had this happen before as well. Quite surprising that "package arrived too early" is not a failure case many delivery services are prepared for.
Though this is partly an issue with how delivery dates are now being "guaranteed," before that you didn't have any idea when it'd arrive.
I've noticed that Amazon is starting to require authentication to receive high-value packages by sending you a 6-digit code on the day of delivery, which must be shared with the driver for them to complete the delivery (they stress that this should be done in-person). Interestingly a driver didn't ask for a code on one of my packages and it's still showing in my account as "shipped, not yet received," even after several months. This seems to be a better system than the signature system, but it has a whole host of usability concerns (should a package locker negate the need for this, sending packages as gifts, etc).
We've had mailmen not deliver the mail because of "a dangerous animal" before. Worst case scenario, someone else was walking their dog past our house. And in every scenario, our mailbox is on the road so they wouldn't have even needed to get out of the truck. But then again, our local post office is far and away the worst one I've ever seen.
Yes, to clarify: the transaction did not take place. The first time a couple of years ago he was supposed to pick up a package. This time.. :shrug: I have no idea what was supposed to happen because nothing happened.
I once had a... somewhat controlled product being delivered via FedEx, and they attempted to deliver it to a Subway Sandwich location instead of the federally licensed location it was meant to go to. They did this multiple times, in the morning, claiming the delivery location was closed. Finally the recipient told FedEx to stop doing that and that he would drive to the nearby city where the distribution center is to pick it up himself. If they had successfully delivered it to Subway there would have been some very concerned and confused sandwich artists.
One time I ordered a used, but still in box, Steelcase Leap chair. I saw the FedEx truck, waited behind my screen door (where I was likely not visible), and saw him idle there for maybe 2 minutes. He took off, and the package was marked as delivered immediately after.
I called FedEx right after and they said they were closing so they would address it in the morning. The next day it showed up. I think someone realized they weren't getting away with it.
Our company's FedEx driver gets grumpy with me if we have a drop-off of anything heavy or multiple boxes. He's just an unpleasant dude overall. He gives me this "are you guys serious" look when he has to drop stuff off.
Like c'mon I don't like my job either but you don't see me taking it out on you
For whatever reason FedEx absolutely refuses to deliver our packages to correct address. The context is that there is two versions of my street name, as in North Street Name and Street Name. For whatever reason their system has our house on North Street Name, while we live on Street Name, we told them repeatedly that they our address wrong and they refuses to change it in their system. And the thing is that our address is on the packages. Another thing is the house that they deliver to shares our number, and it doesn't have anyone living there, so we see that the package have arrive, my family has to act like porch pirates for our package.
Yea dude shows up randomly and leaves packages I have no idea are coming
Pleasant surprise when it's something I forgot I ordered
My FedEx experience has been terrible the last few years. My building has a gate in front that you can only get past with a key. I've made the delivery preferences very clear to call a number if the gate is locked but it never happens. I've even made signs that I left at the gate begging the guy to call, or even just chuck the box over the fence, but I just end up with more of those goddamn notes. The only time I've successfully received a package was when I staked it out on my day off and ran down the moment he pulled up.