I know this might not be the appropriate place for this but I know how much you all value your live stock and also your hard earned money when it comes to this hobby. A necessary evil that we must face is shipping livestock, it has opened many new doors and allowed for anyone to acquire whatever they desired for their tank. I have made hundreds of online purchases and also been on the sending end as well. 99% of the time it goes smoothly but I have had the occasional overnight delay with still great success and never heavy DOA maybe a frag or two even following these extra day delays. On 3/15 my friend who had been holding my corals after I broke my tank down in LA and moved back to Florida decided to send the remaining more expensive frags and pieces as my tank was stable and about 3 months old here at my new residence in Florida. He also took this time to sell some frags to my friend in my local reef club as well he got his own package as the drive was about an hour and fifteen minutes away ( this is relevant later in the story).
On 3/16 I took the early morning off to await my package as per the expected 10:30 AM guarantee. At 8:30 AM I check the Fed Ex Tracking website and it says the package has been scanned in Tampa at the sorting facility and is awaiting another scan to head to the final facility to go out for local delivery. At 10:50 AM I call Fed Ex and ask if they can give me an update and if there is any problem I am more than willing to make the hour drive to tampa or the local facility to intercept the package. The customer service rep says she cant see exactly where it is at but they will call me back. 12:00 PM comes around no call back, I call again and stress that these are live animals and that even though a heat pack has been attached it is quite cold in Florida today and that I will do whatever it takes to meet this package if it is delayed, another string of being put on hold then a transfer to some customer advocacy support line later I still have nothing. They then tell me that my package has been scanned in Memphis but does not show up in any container in Tampa or at the local facility and that there is nothing I can do it must be because of weather delays in Northeast (my friend and I checked before shipping their memphis hub which we know is where the package goes through would not be affected). About this time my friend calls me and I'm expecting him to say that he is also on awaiting his package, on the contrary he is telling me how nice the frags look as he already has had time to dip them and put them into his display because his arrived at 10:40 AM.
At this point I'm getting a bit upset so I try my luck a fourth time calling Fed Ex. I ask the customer service rep what can be told that I don't already know to find out what is going on. She then states it was due to weather delays and then the possibility that once scanned it was put into wrong container. I ask if I can just start the claim for the 10:30 Guarantee to atleast get shipping covered, she stops me in my tracks and says we do not offer the guarantee refund for weather delays or acts of god(hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes). I tell her that my friend has already received his package shipped at same time from same facility to our area ( we have the same local sort facility for anyone who will say its not the same exact area). She puts me on hold and then transfers me to a tracking specialist. This man was very helpful in telling me that the package was scanned for Tampa but did not make it into any container then told me that it showed on a scan in Maryland which made no sense even to him in the 14 years he had been doing this. I then asked if I could get a copy of the transcript since that was not showing on my fed ex tracking page he said he couldn't.
I went to local Fed Ex for some answers where I was met with a "You'll have to call our customer support" and no further assistance was offered by the associate. At that point I was told at 6:00 PM by customer service that there was no way I could track my package or intercept it today, and to call back tomorrow if it isn't delivered by 10:30 AM because they were sure it would be here. I went to bed hopeful since my friend had packaged it well with a lobster box and a 72 hour thermo pack.
8:00 AM comes I have already called into work and let the boss know that I have to be ready to accept this already stressed coral since it had been sitting an extra day in god knows what conditions. I go online to check the tracking and I am met with a message that says "No scheduled Delivery date at this time" that still shows at destination sort facility Tampa, FL. I call in and once again I am transferred and I ask what could cause this, the rep tells me that the package is considered lost and I ask what else I can do to possibly track this package down. She tells me that there is nothing and that I should prepare for the worst, I ask for the claim form accepting the reality at this point she then tells me that the shipper must do this. I told her that value of these corals is more than money so if there was anything I could do to further my chances of somehow at least seeing what happened to the contents id be forever grateful, I then get the PETA level speech about how I shouldn't be shipping live animals if I cant handle the possibility of the loss (I know its a risk we all take but I still put every effort into providing the best possible chance of success when doing so).
I then have my friend fill out the claim form from his email and then the realization hits use that the claimed value shows $200 when we paid over $120 for shipping alone I didn't know that he did not put extra insurance as the contents were roughly about $2000 total, never truly lost anything so didn't think it through. We call them while filling this out to let them know the package was deemed completely lost and if there was anything we could do to get atleast a larger fraction of the value covered they promptly declined. This is all while using my friends shipping account( for discount) who owns a machining company for aeronautics parts that has over $2,000,000 in business annually with Fed Ex.
Beyond upset at this point if anyone has any help or info they can provide so that I can handle this a bit better or get any answers I would be forever grateful, hell even to try and get ahold of this package 2-3 days late to see if I can save any of the wildlife. I have had the huge bubble coral for 5 years and already had a new home lined up as it was too big for my current tank here in Florida.
Thanks,
Branden
On 3/16 I took the early morning off to await my package as per the expected 10:30 AM guarantee. At 8:30 AM I check the Fed Ex Tracking website and it says the package has been scanned in Tampa at the sorting facility and is awaiting another scan to head to the final facility to go out for local delivery. At 10:50 AM I call Fed Ex and ask if they can give me an update and if there is any problem I am more than willing to make the hour drive to tampa or the local facility to intercept the package. The customer service rep says she cant see exactly where it is at but they will call me back. 12:00 PM comes around no call back, I call again and stress that these are live animals and that even though a heat pack has been attached it is quite cold in Florida today and that I will do whatever it takes to meet this package if it is delayed, another string of being put on hold then a transfer to some customer advocacy support line later I still have nothing. They then tell me that my package has been scanned in Memphis but does not show up in any container in Tampa or at the local facility and that there is nothing I can do it must be because of weather delays in Northeast (my friend and I checked before shipping their memphis hub which we know is where the package goes through would not be affected). About this time my friend calls me and I'm expecting him to say that he is also on awaiting his package, on the contrary he is telling me how nice the frags look as he already has had time to dip them and put them into his display because his arrived at 10:40 AM.
At this point I'm getting a bit upset so I try my luck a fourth time calling Fed Ex. I ask the customer service rep what can be told that I don't already know to find out what is going on. She then states it was due to weather delays and then the possibility that once scanned it was put into wrong container. I ask if I can just start the claim for the 10:30 Guarantee to atleast get shipping covered, she stops me in my tracks and says we do not offer the guarantee refund for weather delays or acts of god(hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes). I tell her that my friend has already received his package shipped at same time from same facility to our area ( we have the same local sort facility for anyone who will say its not the same exact area). She puts me on hold and then transfers me to a tracking specialist. This man was very helpful in telling me that the package was scanned for Tampa but did not make it into any container then told me that it showed on a scan in Maryland which made no sense even to him in the 14 years he had been doing this. I then asked if I could get a copy of the transcript since that was not showing on my fed ex tracking page he said he couldn't.
I went to local Fed Ex for some answers where I was met with a "You'll have to call our customer support" and no further assistance was offered by the associate. At that point I was told at 6:00 PM by customer service that there was no way I could track my package or intercept it today, and to call back tomorrow if it isn't delivered by 10:30 AM because they were sure it would be here. I went to bed hopeful since my friend had packaged it well with a lobster box and a 72 hour thermo pack.
8:00 AM comes I have already called into work and let the boss know that I have to be ready to accept this already stressed coral since it had been sitting an extra day in god knows what conditions. I go online to check the tracking and I am met with a message that says "No scheduled Delivery date at this time" that still shows at destination sort facility Tampa, FL. I call in and once again I am transferred and I ask what could cause this, the rep tells me that the package is considered lost and I ask what else I can do to possibly track this package down. She tells me that there is nothing and that I should prepare for the worst, I ask for the claim form accepting the reality at this point she then tells me that the shipper must do this. I told her that value of these corals is more than money so if there was anything I could do to further my chances of somehow at least seeing what happened to the contents id be forever grateful, I then get the PETA level speech about how I shouldn't be shipping live animals if I cant handle the possibility of the loss (I know its a risk we all take but I still put every effort into providing the best possible chance of success when doing so).
I then have my friend fill out the claim form from his email and then the realization hits use that the claimed value shows $200 when we paid over $120 for shipping alone I didn't know that he did not put extra insurance as the contents were roughly about $2000 total, never truly lost anything so didn't think it through. We call them while filling this out to let them know the package was deemed completely lost and if there was anything we could do to get atleast a larger fraction of the value covered they promptly declined. This is all while using my friends shipping account( for discount) who owns a machining company for aeronautics parts that has over $2,000,000 in business annually with Fed Ex.
Beyond upset at this point if anyone has any help or info they can provide so that I can handle this a bit better or get any answers I would be forever grateful, hell even to try and get ahold of this package 2-3 days late to see if I can save any of the wildlife. I have had the huge bubble coral for 5 years and already had a new home lined up as it was too big for my current tank here in Florida.
Thanks,
Branden
