2. misc-audio
  3. 970887245

Shipping hassles with FEDEX

I purchased a used pair of Proac 1.5 speakers back in late June. The right speaker arrived with a small ding on top, exposing the particle board below the veneer. After contacting the seller, who maintained total ignorance, a damage report was filed with RPS, aka Fedex Ground. At the end of August, following a phone call to the whereabouts of a home inspection, finally a pick-up was scheduled. They took the speaker, in it's original box, promising return in about 5-7 days. Two weeks tto the day I began the hellish dealings with Fedex. Not only could they not locate my speaker, noone in the supervisorial depts. would return calls. Two and half weeks lapsed and finally the truck pulled up and dropped the speaker at my door. The box which was in "good" shape when it went out was now wrapped in tape. Torn throughout. I was livid. I lifted the box into the house and felt the speaker bang against the sides. Immediately, after phoning Fedex, Apromise to have things rectified was made. They told me to go ahead and open the carton that I would be compensated. The condition of this speaker, at one time in beautiful yew finish, looked like something delivered by a band of gorillas. Each corner and edge is now chipped. A complete embarrassment to acknowledge the lack of care and integrity. As of today, nearly 3 1/2 months later, this issue is not resolved. Any simlilar experiences? Any effective results? Thanks siddh
siddh
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Siddh- I've never had a problem with UPS or FEDEX. However, everything I've been told says that if you have a complaint about bad service, you document events in writing as Rockvirgo says, being polite, and then request specific action, i.e., reimbursement for the full retail price of the speaker or (probably more likely) replacement of the cabinet by Pro-ac, with an written estimate from Pro-ac. Be polite but firm and address it to Manager of Customer Relations with a cc to company president (you can get his name from NET or local library) and local BBB.
siddh OP
345 posts
 
Thanks for feedback. I need to iterate that approaching the heirarchy within Fedex has been impoosible, since no call backs have been received. For most of my dealings, I have shown patience and an attempt to understand the difficulties he Fedex employees are faced with, but no call- backs is inexcusable. My most recent conversation with a claims dept. employee led to my inquiry as to whether Their supervisor actually exists. Has anyone actually seen him. She got a kick out of my cynicism. He's never there to receive calls, nor does he return them. A letter may be the answer. Again, thanks.
beoskerp
3 posts
 
I am a coordinator with fedex-ground formerly RPS and I will try to answer any questions that you may have. One thing that I can say is that Fedex-ground uses independant contractors who own their delivery trucks
siddh OP
345 posts
 
Hi Boeskerp, Thanks, for responding. Any suggestions on how I can make contact with the proper individual. One that will look into bringing this to a close, by either reimbursing me or claiming non-responsibility? Thanks
rayhall
393 posts
 
Despite the horror that is supposed to be UPS Customer Service, I have only had problems with Fedex. My problem didn't have to do with damaged shipments, but with a misrouted shipment. I purchased NBS interconnects from another Audiogon member. In tracking the shipment, I could see that the shipment made it to NYC (its destination) but seemed headed back to the originator. To make a long story short, it took over 15 calls to Fedex Customer Service. Most of the customer service reps, after looking at the tracking history of the package, just hung up on me. This included even supervisors. Others transferred my call randomly within Fedex's internal phone network. I had so much of this type of difficulty, that it became clear that this is a pattern of their reps to deal with "difficult" cases in these ways. Finally, I was able to reach a manager of a Fedex dropoff office on Sunday, who informed me what was going on and she gave me the name and number of the manager of the Fedex warehouse to call on Monday. The package was placed on the wrong conveyor belt when it was removed from a truck in the NYC warehouse. This experience was a rude awakening concerning what passes for customer service today at Fedex and probably many other places.
More to discover