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Sorry for the tangential rant here, but FedEx and UPS have been chapping my hide of late. We are all aware of the...uhm...quality..of their shipping and care for packages. Lately though they have been killing me with their estimates being no where near what it is actually costing me to ship. On average, for boxes over 25 pounds, the online estimators have been underestimating by 23%.
On large shipments that starts to add up really fast. I do not ship often enough to have an account and get any kind of discount, and I have meticulously gone over every facet of their online estimator to make sure I am not missing something. The weights and container dimensions are the same when I take the item to the hub as what I measured and entered, if to a residence that is appropriately marked, the value is the same, address, etc.
Today I shipped two boxes that per online were supposed to cost $85.30. Instead the charge was $111.74. When I asked why the difference they couldn't give me an answer. When I then asked for a supervisor because I was ticked off that this is the trend for the last six months the reply was, "Well Sir, you do not have to ship with us." That's fricking great service right there, we lie about what we charge but you can go to the other guys who do it too.
I have gotten BS answers from their customer support like, "Well, the shipping calculator is a real time device so the charges are constantly changing." By great than 20% variance within an hour, and always for a higher amount. Hmm. Or, "Well, I can not replicate the amount that you were charged via the estimator." That's kind of my point there buddy. And my favorite, "you probably inputted something differently." That is why I have a screen shot printed out with all the info, to compare, oh wait. They're the same info! Useless people!
It makes it very hard if you are trying to estimate shipping and you have to add a 20% amount over what their systems estimate and have people believe you are not trying to just rip them off.
OK, rant over.
On large shipments that starts to add up really fast. I do not ship often enough to have an account and get any kind of discount, and I have meticulously gone over every facet of their online estimator to make sure I am not missing something. The weights and container dimensions are the same when I take the item to the hub as what I measured and entered, if to a residence that is appropriately marked, the value is the same, address, etc.
Today I shipped two boxes that per online were supposed to cost $85.30. Instead the charge was $111.74. When I asked why the difference they couldn't give me an answer. When I then asked for a supervisor because I was ticked off that this is the trend for the last six months the reply was, "Well Sir, you do not have to ship with us." That's fricking great service right there, we lie about what we charge but you can go to the other guys who do it too.
I have gotten BS answers from their customer support like, "Well, the shipping calculator is a real time device so the charges are constantly changing." By great than 20% variance within an hour, and always for a higher amount. Hmm. Or, "Well, I can not replicate the amount that you were charged via the estimator." That's kind of my point there buddy. And my favorite, "you probably inputted something differently." That is why I have a screen shot printed out with all the info, to compare, oh wait. They're the same info! Useless people!
It makes it very hard if you are trying to estimate shipping and you have to add a 20% amount over what their systems estimate and have people believe you are not trying to just rip them off.
OK, rant over.
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