Introduction
If you don’t know, Fedex Smartpost is similar to UPS Surepost, whereby Fedex Ground picks up your package and at a certain point, hands it off to the USPS to do the final delivery to the recipient’s address. I’ve never had a problem with Fedex Smartpost in the past except the fact that they are ass slow. They also have 2 tracking numbers on them and could confuse drivers and the mail man. Worst is when a package gets lost and Fedex and USPS blame each other, and you’re caught in the middle. Okay, I think I’ve just talked myself out of using Smartpost from now on.
My story
So I had an eBay buyer pay for a laptop on the Friday night before MLK. I knew this was going to be bad because the first pickup would be on Monday since Fedex Ground nor UPS picks up on Saturday (which still irks me) and it would probably take until the following Monday for the item to arrive, so nearly 1.5 weeks in the buyer’s mind. This would be bad for my feedback. Anyway, I printed out a Fedex Smartpost tag, and luckily I had a Fedex Ground delivery coming on Saturday. I waited for the guy to drop off my package and I handed him the laptop. He looked a bit confused but kept on walking to the truck.
Four Days Later
On Thursday, the buyer messaged me saying that the item says it’s delivered to WA. I was confused, and sure enough, when I went to check my PO Box, the box was delivered back to me. I then asked my PO Box person why they delivered it back to me, and she said she asked the Fedex Ground guy the same question and he shrugged his shoulder. IDIOTS!!!
It wasn’t my PO Box’s fault, so I drove over to Fedex and told them the situation. He scanned it in and sure enough it said delivered to WA. He then scanned it in again and said it’ll go out to the buyer now. I asked him how the hell this happened the 1st time, and he said the driver probably forgot to scan it in. It’s odd because the idiot scanned it in to say DELIVERED to my PO Box.
Anyway, HOPEFULLY it’s on its way now although it has the same tracking number. I then told my buyer the situation and offered him a $10 credit for the delay.
Lessons Learned
Drop off your Smartpost boxes to the Fedex location who knows what to do with them. Or better yet, stop using Smartpost altogether.
are Fedex Smartpost & UPS Surepost extra/paid services offered or part of/included w/USPS somehow?
does USPS not offer a pickup service on their own?
No, this is something new started by Fedex and UPS since they think it’s cheaper to let USPS deliver it at the last mile.
Even if you’re waiting over a weekend Fedex Home is almost always the better option since they’re 4-5 days tops across the country and they deliver Saturdays too. USPS Priority wasn’t really an option for a laptop anyways.
SmartPost and Kohl’s using bags to ship breakable items are the bane of my existence. And Kohl’s ships SmartPost. This past month I’ve had shipments going from Salt Lake City to Denver. That should be a 2 day transit time, but instead it took 11 days. And MO to CO should be 3 days tops, but it took 14 days, FOURTEEN! I could’ve walked from either starting point to Denver in half the time!
I’ve always wondered if us lowly regular folk could ship via SmartPost, but after being on the receiving end I’ll never do it.
This was a 4 pound box, so on that border. Ground would have cost me $4 more or so, and if things had worked, it would have been fine, but now it’s costing me an extra $6 to reimburse the guy for delay.
As for Kohls, yeah those polybags are killing me. I hope they see a spike in online returns due to their shitty packaging.
As for Smartpost, I tried to create a Smartpost account with Fedex. Had a rep email and call me a couple of times, but they never completed the process. Oh well.
Win some, lose some 🙂
The biggest problem I have with the Kohl’s bags and destroyed items is that they’re all Kohl’s Cash orders and if I return them I lose the KC or the value of the KC when returned. I’m waiting on all my SmartPost orders from a few weeks ago to show up before I do the online chat to return/replace things. Looks like Monday will be my last order arrival.
Speaking of KC returns, I returned an item this weekend and the girl couldn’t scan the receipt that was on the actual box. Luckily I brought along an old receipt. Turns out it was during the $20 off $50 KC. FML!
Receipt on the box? I don’t think I follow.
Yeah, Kohls is starting to ship big household items individually and put the packaging slip/return invoice on the box. For some reason, the store couldn’t scan in that UPC code, which makes no sense since it’s the exact same as all the others in the past.
Seriously? Ughh, Kohl’s never ceases to amaze me. I’m going to think long and hard before I order from Kohl’s again, even if that means losing out on KC. I spend so much time fixing all the beat up stuff I get from them that it’s almost not worth it anymore. And I have a pile of destroyed items building up too. I have them in a big Rubbermaid bin and I’m running out of room. I really hope they’ll let me throw everything into a big box and ship it back to them. Then again, I don’t trust that the inept clowns will be able to correctly process a return like that. I don’t sleep either 🙂