I don’t know what FedEx thinks about Charlestown, but I know it’s not good.
Here’s what happened:
November 27th: I placed an order at Petco for a new automatic watering bowl for Zachary. His old one had stopped working well, and we’d had it for a few years. What the heck, I threw in some filters too.
November 28th, 12:35PM: FedEx picked up the package.
November 28th, 6:35PM: FedEx says the label became “unreadable”, so they replaced it.
November 29th: The package arrived at the Wilmington center…this is where it started to go terribly wrong. It was placed on the truck to be delivered. No attempt made that day.
November 30th: The package stayed in Wilmington, enjoying a nice cup of coffee with the FedEx team there.
December 1st: The package was placed on the truck. No mention of where the package went that day, but it wasn’t our house.
December 2nd: The package spent another day in Wilmington, taking in the sights. Did you know that Wilmington was part of an unstable frontier in Queen Anne’s war, and was established in 1730 after a sawmill was built there?
December 3rd: The package was placed on a truck to be delivered, but once again, the delivery was “delayed”.
December 4th & 5th: The package spent a nice weekend in Wilmington, visiting the nearby childhood homes of Jack Kerouac (Lowell) and Jay Leno (Andover). I don’t know if the package took any pictures, but I didn’t get any postcard. Ungrateful package.
December 6th: The package came back to the facility after a latenight bender, and was put on the truck to be delivered the next day.
December 7th: “Recipient Location Security Delay”. I called, and spoke with a nice gentleman from Memphis about what this meant. He said, “Perhaps the President was in town, and they couldn’t get through”. I’m serious. I mentioned to him that I am from Massachusetts, and that Dubya wouldn’t be caught dead in this state. I doubt he really thinks of it as one of the current 50, let alone the original 13. His other guess? A “parade”. I also said, “This isn’t Memphis – we have our parades in the Spring and Summer, when people are unfrozen enough to actually attend.” He promised that the package would be delivered the next possible day.
December 8th: The package was out getting a facial, so was not around to get delivered.
December 9th: The package was put on a truck, and I was back to “No attempt made, delivery scheduled for next business day”.
December 10th, 11th, 12th: The package spent the long weekend doing some shopping at the mall and having a nice dinner in Andover Center (I had recommended the Andover Inn). I think it had a good time.
December 13th: FedEx finally gave up. “Package Available for Pickup”. Now through this whole process, FedEx gave me NO notification – no post-it, no postcard, no phone call, and certainly no package.
December 14th and 15th: The package spent the two days in Package Lockup, where bad packages go when their recipients have the audacity to live in Charlestown.
December 16th: I called Memphis, got connected a supervisor, who connected me with Wilmington, who connected me with a “QA supervisor”. She found the package, noticed all the writing over it, and said, “Maybe they didn’t deliver it because you live in the projects”. Um, have you seen my property tax bill? Well, I do live close to the local housing development, but most of Boston can make that claim. So I pointed out to her the erros of FedEx’s ways. She took detailed notes about where to place the package (on our back deck) in case the driver didn’t like leaving it on the front steps. Now remember, the driver has never even rung the doorbell thus far, let alone get out of his truck to drop off the package.
December 17th: You guessed it – “No attempt made”.
In the past few weeks, Zachary has given up waiting and started walking around with a diving rod to find a new source of water. This gift was supposed to be a nice Christmas surprise for him. At this rate, I’m going to just get him a gift card like I do for everyone else. I suspect that the reason the driver didn’t stop by was Speedy Wong’s, the local chinese food restaurant/meth lab (“Check out our #8 SpeedBall Special!”). Come on, it’s a cat bowl!
I don’t know what to do. I do know that I am not going to drive up to Wilmington to pick up a package from Petco, when the closest one is about 3 miles away. So FedEx, Why do you Hate me?
Update: All hail the power of the Internet! After writing this, we went to a Christmas Party, came back, and SURPRISE! The package had arrived! On a Sunday! Of course, it looked like it had been across the border several times, and perhaps thrown in jail, and searched by some NSA guy for having impure thoughts, but all in all, it was in pretty good shape. And the cat bowl even worked!
I’m sure it was this entry that did it – FedEx was sooo scared of the negative publicity that they rushed out to get the package home. Or, maybe some guy was working on Sunday and thought he would drop it off on the way home.
I searched for
“Recipient Location Security Delay”
as this showed up in my package… I am attending Northeastern and live in Boston. I must say, I couldn’t stop laughing after reading this.
My package is currently in Wilmington. Friday it was undelivered due to, “Local weather delay, delivery not attempted”. Monday I was at work (with half of the rest of the US). Tuesday (today) I made sure to be around to get the package…
“Recipient Location Security Delay”
I was going to call them tomorrow but now I guess I don’t have to…
I amy also currently waiting to receive a fedex package that is stranded in Wilmington, MA. Three days in a row the idiots put the package on the wrong truck, then delivered it on the one day I wasn’t there waiting. I spent the entire next day in my living room waiting on it, periodically checking downstairs, checking the status online; I never left the house. They didn’t even bother leaving a notice or ringing my doorbell, which leads me to believe the guy just took off early. I just happened to see your post while searching for the phone number of the Wilmington fedex and can’t believe that this is a recurring thing and nothing has been done.
Same here. Package arrived in Wilmington just after midnight on Monday and was loaded on the truck shortly thereafter. On Tuesday, it was not delivered having a “Delivery Exception: Incorrect Address”. Same on Wednesday.
I called Cust. Srvc. this morning and they spoke with someone who said it would be delivered today…NOPE! Called C.S. tonight — it had been loaded on the wrong truck and was probably on the same Duck Boat tour of Boston as your packages.
The ironic thing (other than living 10mins. from Wilmington and the pkg. came from CA) is, my neighbor is a driver for FEDEX… He could have delivered it simply by going home after work! 🙂 (of course it’s not his route though)
I enjoyed your very funny account.
I’ve never had this problem with FedEx, but your writing reminds me of James Thurber. What a superb way to approach this issue in our day of drive-by-shoot-(off your mouth)athons.
happened again. i too, found your site while looking for the phone number for wilmington. i’m in boston! i don’t get it why they held the package there…
How on earth did you get a phone number to call in Memphis? All attempts by me (I am having a similar issue) to call the 1800 number leads to a automated system, and I cant actually get to a human!
Fed Ex in Wilmington MA apparently is the worst. Last Fri right before christmas witing patiently for packages that should have come days prior & didn’t was told on Saturday when I called FED EX that the driver tried to deliver on Fri….I had 4 people home and the house was lit up….he didn’t leave a door tag or anything. I was told by a Fed ex rep that the package will be delivered on Mon the 24th right around the same time he attempted to deliver it Fri- I was at a Christmas eve party at 4pm came home for 5pm and stayed until 6:30pm no package (my nephew, brothers, husbands gifts were all in those packages)- I called fed ex again only to find that the rep that told me they’ll deliver on monday made no notes what so ever & that infact there would be no deliveries on Monday!!! I was so distraught I can’t even tell you. The rep I was speaking with couldn’t even believe wwhat transpired & tried to call Wil;mington repeatedly for me….only to get a fast busy signal which means….the phone is off the hook!!! I will choose UPS over Fed ex any day of the week- these fed ex drivers seem to make their own rules & it is becoming very apparent to the consumer.
My son just called & said Fed ex dropped the package off…funny nobody signed for it, he didn’t even knock on the door (my son just saw him)…why didn’t he drop it off last Fri right before Christmas if he really was there?? Maybe because he wasn’t is my guess.
Hey that sucks but you are not the only customer that this has happned to. I work for a Home Delivery terminal in Burbank, Ca. And let me tell you that us Drivers do not like the why Fedex has us by the neck. I will explain our job to you and hopefully it will make sense. Fedex has it setup where Ground and Home Delivery are independent contractor business. Fedex express is the only divison that gets a hourly pay and benifits along with vaction. Us drivers at home delivery work for contractors who own routes. There are suppose to be independent but are micromaneged by fedex. So we are sub contractors. We dont get paid by fedex we get paid cash or personal check from our boss. With no taxes taking out it sounds good until the irs sends you a letter saying wheres my moned. We dont get payed hourly we get paid by stop. which means if you have 90 stops to go to that day and delviery 85 you will get 85 dollars that day because fedex doesent pay that contractors for non delivered packages. Now that I broke down the job for let me tell you about a regular day at a home delviery terminal. I get in about 5:30 to 6:30 tues-sat. I then open my scanner that tells me how many pkgs i should expect to scan that day. In this case if it is not xmas time i should expect 150-190 pkgs. When it is around xmas the volume increases to 190-300 pks. I will then scan my pkgs that have sequence numbers on them that go intervels of 10 so example: 10,20,30 and so on. As a driver you hope your highest number is around 1200-1400. After you have finished scanning you pkgs you load your truck by seq number. Then you get your paper work that as your day mapped out stop by stop. Now this process in the morning takes about 3 hours. Every route is diffrent some drive 40 miles some drive 120 miles. Around xmas i would end up with 260 Stops. And I woulding get down loading till about 10:00. By the time I get to my first stop it would be 11:00. Remeber i got to work at 6:00 and still havent made any money yet. If your route has mainly houses and some apts and business you can do about 20-25 stops an hour. If you have to many apts and buisness, you do about 10 stops an hour. So the goes by and I have 130 Stops left at 4:00. Well if i have any buisness left that i havent made yet because they were in a higher seq number then i have to break route to make them before 5:00. Remember we work in seq number so my first stop started at 10 and my highest seq number is 2750. so i have broke route. Now i am back on route and it is 5:00 pm and i have 120 stops left. Now fedex doesent want you to work pass 12:00 am so you have to start busting your butt just to make it. As time goes down it is getting dark and harder to see. You go thru canyons flat surface streets in the city etc. On a day like this i have finished at 11:45 pm and customers complain why are you here so late they dont understand so they just sign for the pkg and i am on my way. Now remember i have gone thru nice areas and bad. Now what if i would of got robbed or the truck broke down fedex dont care as long as the pkgs get out. Also we are not like ups where they just leave the pkgs at your door. We have to do what is neccessary so your pkg doesent get stolen. Because if it is stolen then it will come out of our pay check. Well days like this when i have finished at 11:45 by the time i get home and situated it is about 2:00 am then it is on to work again the next day. I had 256 pkgs that day but i brought back 12 pkgs so i made 244 dollars. If you do the math with me starting at 6:00 am and finishing at 12:00 am i would of made a lot more if it was hourly with overtime pay assuming i was making 21.00 an hour like ups. I dont get no benifits no vaction time adding up 401k nothing just work to show for it and my family to support oh yeah and the IRS to pay back. Let see fedex charges the customer a nice amount to send the pkg what bout 20 on up. But the pay the contractor 1.75 or 2.00 dollars not sure but fedex pockets the rest and they dont pay for health inurance and you cant even file for unemployment or workes comp if something happens because techanliy you are not and employee. So if you own a route and get ill or break a leg and cant work fedex dont care someone better deliver those pkgs or they terminate your contract. As a contractor you pay for everything too from the truck payment maninitence etc… Everything but they can still tell you what to do. Now to answer you question why the box looked like that with all the writing there should of been a service cross on it i seen one but it wasent properly done. It is the cross that has that 07. That means Cust was not in. But along with that there should of been the time date and truck number which wasent there. Now those numbers with the 14- and 17- well those were the route numbers they were assigned to but they didint come up with a seq number which means something was wrong with the address on the label and the system coulding come up with a number for it. Now someone may have tried to correct it but couldint find your address it could of been many things. But thats what all that writing means on that box. Now you see at the end of the us drivers dont care too much about the customers pkg but I aplogize for that because at the end of the day fedex doesent care about us. We do our job to get paid and support our familys and remember not all drivers are able to collect there money from there contrators. Sometimes drivers Wait months till they even see a pay check or some cash a check and they bounce. Remember Home Delviery and Ground isint your every day job. It only seems like that becase Fedex is thrown in front of that name. Even for health insurance I have to go through the county just to make sure My family is covered. Yeah i have to lie bout a couple things to qualify, but my own job cant even supply that for me. So now you know some of what goes in this corrupt comany. remember dont get mad at us we do our job but when you dont get treated fairly by billion dollar company they can care less how the service is as long as that green keeps rolling in. Well take care and this Driver From Burbank, CA will talk to you later i check the internet for all types of things on fedex. No i am not bitter bout my job the people are great and the job is ok but the conditions suck but i wont be here for long. Well Fedex probably wont be here for long becasue the way it is going they are going to be the next ENRON. Fed-up signing out.
I work for fedex. I have worked in the smallest terminal in the US, and one of the largest HUBs in the US. I dont know about wilmington, but I know that in large hubs, alot of things get lost, rerouted, missloaded, and lost again. So in short, Fedex doesn’t hate you, you just happened to be the lucky owner of one of our lost packages.
Happened to read your saga. Have to ask the question, though: FedEx Ground, correct? I’ve NEVER had a problem with FedEx Express when working for two large universities in Boston area, a small company on the North Shore (in the Reading area, serviced out of Wilmington), or in home delivery. Have had major issues with FedEx Ground, but UPS still takes the cake when it comes to a crapshoot whether I get my stuff or not. At least FedEx still has Customer Service that isn’t belligerent and nasty to its customers!
Mark me down for one that found this while trying to Google an actual number for Wilmington. It must be a Boston thing because I’m in Allston. When I lived in a house in Quincy my family never had problems but UPS and FedEx can’t seem to grasp the concept of if the customer doesn’t answer leave a tag on the door. I actual had a war going with UPS last year over packages being documented as “attempted” to be delivered when tracked online but yet I never got a tag. But then on day 3 I would have 3 back dated tags. I complained so much I’m surprised i didn’t get banned. One package I was expecting I came home to find (and I am not exaggerating) 1 properly filled out tag and 11 more blank tags stuck all over the door. Are the serious?!? I wouldn’t mind but I actually wasn’t even complaining about things not being delivered at that point. I was perfectly happy to miss the first attempt and then go pick things up myself in Watertown. So basically all I expected of UPS was not to deliver my package but just to let me know when I had one there by leaving a tag and I would handle all the “delivering” myself. They couldn’t even seem to do that. But yet I am the one that is unreasonable. I thought I would have more luck with FedEx (and yes it was FedEx Ground) but it was worse. I am 4 months pregnant and specifically made sure that the driver would be able to carry the crib I ordered up to my apartment (the woman at the 800 number said “well he’s BETTER carry it up for you, they are supposed to and don’t you be trying it yourself” but hey that’s the South and they are “nice” down there.) She even noted it on the package notes and ao I waited at home all day. Lo and behold…no package, no doorbell ringing to tag, but yet an attempt was made. So I called again and waited at home all day again. This time the guy rang the bell and by the time I called on the intercom and ran down the stairs he was gone and left the 70 pound crib in between the outside (unlocked) door and inside (locked) door in the middle of Boston. I was livid and I called them and they made the driver come back and carry it up the stairs for me. Bottom line….you need to be the squeakiest wheel you ever heard because the “catch more flies with honey” thing doesn’t work at all. The 800 numbers always seem nice and helpful but the managers in the local areas don’t see to be accountable or willing to deal with it. The customer is NEVER right. At least in my local area that seems to be the case.
I had trouble with Fedex too. I ordered christmas outfits for both of my daughters and my son. I got both dresses from walmart and my sons outfit from Sears. Walmart shipped one dress by UPs and the other through Fedex. Sears chose UPs too. Well The stuff shipped through UPs came with no problem (as usual), but the Fedex one was delayed. They said that they could not find my address because it wasnt on a map. Funny how UPs found me the same day and my address was on a map but it mysteriously dissappeared off of Fedex’s maps. Well anyways, I called them , also in Memphis, Tn and it was an automated machine and it took me forever to get a hold of a live person to talk to. When I did get to a live person it was someone who spoke bad English. He asked me If I was sure that my address was correct lmao. I said yes I have lived in this city for 30 years and at this particular address for 6 so I am positive my address is correct. roflmao I told the man directions to my house and he said he would give them to the delivery person. Luckily my package did finally come today written all over just like yours. Mine had that I lived across from some man that doesnt even live across from me, no wonder they got lost.
It’s not just in Wilmington, MA… I live in St. Louis and the same thing is happening to me. I purposely had the package delivered from CA to my office so I knew someone, even if it was not me personally would be around to accept the package. I made several trips to my customers throughout the day and checked the fedex tracking website at least 3 time before noon. FedEx did not show, did not attempt a delivery…nothing. By the time I decided to give up and go home at 5 p.m. I checked the website again and it indicated that delivery was not made ‘Recipient Location Security Delay’. My office is in the rural valley areas of west St. Louis. The closest thing to a security delay is a squirrel carcas in the road. I have called to complain. The customer service people in Memphis are a total waste. She asked if I wanted to give her directions to my office for a redelivery on Monday. I told her that if you work for a delivery company like FedEx you better know your route better than that. My company receives at least 5-10 FedEx delivery per week, not a lot but a trained monkey with a glass eye and a bad sense of direction could find my office.
Next time ship UPS or USPS.
Hilarious! You should start a comedy blog.
My recent FedEx package arrived at the Chicago facility at 9pm, departed at 10pm, and then, without arriving again, left yet again the next day at almost noon. All the while, FedEx was pushing the estimated date of arrival farther and farther to make it seem like my package (2 days overdue) was on schedule. At least it is suppose to come today. *fingers crosses*
I am amazed that after reading this posting, most of the comments made thereafter have been about other people's misadventures with FedEx and not about how this story is so well crafted. Kudos to you for your ability to turn what was obviously a very unpleasant experience into an intelligent, unoffensive repartee. Keep writing! 🙂
OMG This is incredible. I have been waiting this package since Monday and I told them that I am not at home weekdays 8-6pm because I am working. They said no problem, we will deliver the package to the superintendent which live right next to my apartment. So when I came home, I saw a door tag saying that "We missed you". I've called them asked whats going on.. They said the ohh sorry for the inconvenience (what am i gonna do with the sorry?) so they said we will definitely deliver it tomorrow. Guess what next day I saw another door tag ! Called back again, talked to the supervisor and she said I am watching it, it will be delivered today. Next day, another door tag!! Seriously??I mean come on!? Is this some sort of joke? So I've end up talking to the manager and it's been 5 days and I am still waiting my package.. We will see..I can not believe how much FEDEX sucks..