Another online order that gets shipped FedEx to me was scheduled to be delivered today. After their last screwups, I was prepared for yet another. And they screwed up again. This time, they are “Unable to locate address” although they deliver things here all the time.

I called. They told me that they aren’t “really sure why” the delivery was not made and that the package will be re-delivered not Monday, but Tuesday. They quickly realized the stupidity of that extra day (without even requiring me to point that out) and then promised twice that it would be delivered on Monday. We’ll see. And once again, they tried to use the “RPS excuse” on me. FedEx bought a company called RPS in 1998 to do ground delivery and “it is taking the company a while” to get the two companies integrated. It’s been five years. The federal government can completely change administrations twice in that time period, but FedEx can’t get cell phones to their drivers. They have no way to contact their drivers or for their drivers to contact them to get directions to destinations. What a fly-by-night operation.

Worst delivery service EVER. Incidentally, UPS delivered a package on Wednesday, no problems whatsoever, as usual. Go UPS!

This time I’m demanding to get my shipping charges refunded. Of course, they’re not sure that can be done. We’ll see.

On the bright side, I’m the 9th search result in a Google search for “FedEx Sucks”.

6 Comments »

TiVo announced the Top 10 Season Pass shows, and we share Survivor, Sex and the City, and Queer Eye, but the rest of the world is missing out on K Street, The Office, The Daily Show, 60 Minutes, < Frontline, Good Eats, Monster House, and Monster Garage.

No Comments yet »

A few days ago, I emailed Steve Ballmer reporting a problem with Windows XP. I actually did get a reply from him the very next day:

Surprising that the CEO of a large corporation, who is obviously too busy to even use punctuation, actually replied to his email from just some dork. He even had some tech support guy contact me (if you work at Microsoft, when steveb talks, you’d better listen!). And he’s been pretty vigilant, sending me an email every couple days to get more info from me. Of course, my Windows kernel panics often at random times (like everyone’s PC) so it’s pretty pointless, but I commend them on their attempts to resolve it.

Maybe I’m too cynical about the company, but I think the fact that I called him on his claim is the reason Steve Ballmer replied. And I think he missed the original point of my message — admitting bugs is not taking responsibility, actually fixing it and giving your customers the fix for free is taking responsibility. And let’s be honest, anyone who has ever called Microsoft’s tech support is left on hold for hours and then you have to actually pay for the support you get. So, if you ever have trouble with Windows (and I’m sure you do), email steveb@microsoft.com. It’s about the only way you’ll get any response from Microsoft.

No Comments yet »

Today is the last day of my 33rd year. Tomorrow I become 34 years old. Why do I still feel like I’m 24?

No Comments yet »

After we realized that Netflix sent us the wrong DVD, I went to their web site and reported it (they have a way to do that) and I even checked the box on the white sleeve that says that the wrong DVD was sent and mailed it back.

Then I get an email message from them telling me that I mistakenly sent them the wrong DVD in the sleeve! I did both things they ask us to do, and they still get it wrong. There’s no way to telephone them, so I submitted a customer service form on their site explaining it. I then get another email today telling me that they understand what happened and that I should send the movie back as soon as possible. I don’t know how to explain something so simple to them.

I also find it odd that they don’t even bother to make it up to me. Sending me the wrong DVD is their fault. You’d think they’d credit my account 50¢ or do something nice since they screwed up. And they don’t even add the movie I missed automatically to my queue, so when I sent the DVD back, I’d get the right movie again. Nope, I have to add it myself and the next 3 movies on my queue were immediately sent out instead of the one that I actually had higher in my queue.

No Comments yet »