FedEx Ground and FedEx Express are effectively two different companies with the same name. Ground used to be RPS, which was bought by Fedex and rebranded. Their delivery infrastructure is very different, and hence it’s not surprising they don’t play nice with each other.
Fedex locations, no doubt, have a mailroom. Not the big giant package sorting this is what we do for a living mailroom, but a corporate mailroom that handles mail related to Fedex doing business for Fedex’s employees. If you try to ship a package to Fedex, that’s where it’s gonna end up, under the assumption that it’s for someone at Fedex. That mailroom setup would be utterly separate from the infrastructure that’s in place for handling customer’s packages. I can’t even imagine why this would have seemed like remotely a good idea.
Yeah UPS has gone completely insane trying to do that whole, “Pick a package up at our location thing.” A buddy of mine shipped a package by UPS, to be picked up by me at the UPS shipping office here in town. They weren’t even going to try and deliver it to my house. How crazy is that!
UPS called me the day it came in, so I went and picked it up at the UPS location he sent it to. Must have been some kind of weird space/logic/time warp that let us do that one.
whistlepig
There are times where I’ve been home and they still leave the little ticket. Probably because they can make more “deliveries” if they don’t even try to deliver the package. Why bother finding the package, bringing it to the door, ringing the doorbell, and waiting for someone to show up when you can just write the little ticket and move on to the next place?
In my experience FedEx Ground has no provision for package pick-up.
FedEx does have an option for “will pickup”. At least internationally. I cannot remember how it went though. For internationals, you just had to give a phone number and print "will pickup at FedEx location for a destination. I think that they eventually changed it so there had to be an address, even if it was unreachable. Customs issues, most likely.
If you read your e-mail confirmation from Apple (the one they sent me is copied below), there is a link to a form that you can fill out to pre-sign for the package. Follow the link, print out the form, sign it, tape it to your door, and voila! iHappiness.
"Dear (PunditLisa),
We wanted to let you know that your order has shipped. If you ordered multiple items, you may receive separate shipments with no additional shipping charges. All shipments except those delivered by the U.S. Postal Service require a signature on receipt. Visit Order Status to track or pre-sign for your shipment. If you’d like to request a return, print an invoice or view your account history, please log in to Your Account. "
iNot want to leave a package saying, “Brand New Macbook Pro” sitting on my porch. I live in a good neighborhood, but I’m unwilling to bet $2000 on the kindness of strangers not to grab that package:
“By signing the Shipment Release Authorization form, I hereby authorize Apple’s carrier to leave my package at the address I have specified for delivery when placing my order. I understand that, in so doing, I assume the risk of any loss, theft, or destruction, and release Apple and its carriers from all liability that may result from, leaving the package where I have indicated on the Shipment Release Authorization form.”
What can I say? I live on the edge.
You can but it’s a pain. I had to once (for something from Amazon, I have no idea why they picked FedEx Ground, although it may have come directly from the supplier). FedEx Ground refused to leave it at my door although FedEx has no problem. the FEG warehouse was waaaay out in the middle of nowhere, they had no visitor parking so I used an employee spot, and then waited in the dispatchers office while they went to the back and dug around for it. It was obviously something they don’t do very often (but they were very nice about it).
But that was a distinct option with UPS.
He no doubt still ‘shipped it’, theoretically, to your address, and then asked them to hold it. Unless I’m misunderstanding your rather oblique OP and future comments, you basically shipped the thing to
Whistlepig
Fedex Sorting Facility
1 Fedex Boulevard
Whistlepigtown, State, USA
which is a whole lot different than shipping something to
Whistlepig
1 Whistlepig Lane
Whistlepigtown, State, USA
and then checking a box that says ‘Please hold at sorting facility for pickup’.
Could well be, I figured apple knew what they were doing, since I’ve sent other packages that way. I didn’t look at the UPS package, it just worked.
Ah, you were lucky - they would break into my television, poop on my cake and paint swastikas on my cat. And you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won’t believe you.
Whenever I know a package is coming, I leave a tiny note on the window for the delivery guy, telling him where to hide it. No one ever comes up to our door to see the note besides the delivery guy, but this may not be a good idea if you have solicitors or close-living neighbors. Or you could leave a note saying you’re not home and you would like a slip left behind instead so you can go pick it up yourself.
I try to have everything shipped by Canada Post. They’ll try to deliver it around noon; I’ll be at work; and the next day it’ll show up at the local post office, conveniently-located in a plaza five minutes’ walk from my apartment. I hate when there’s no option for Canada Post. FedEx or UPS, I have to go to some distribution centre in a scuzzy area halfway across town.
They must have liked you then. Back when I was a lad, FedEx used to use my television as a battering ram to break into my house, steal my swastikas, flush my cat down the toilet, and then play all my Cake CD’s at full volume in the middle of the night to wake up the neighbours.
I love me some Cake. I need a Cake shirt for Christmas. You can keep the nazi cat plumbers with their Trojan horses. Battering rams don’t believe in Jacob Marley.
Like sharpened knives through chicken mcnuggets.
Right!
FedEx would throw cakes through my windows, poop on my cat, eat my television, and paint swastikas on my toilet. They also slashed the tires on my car, burned down my trees, and hacked the cement out of my driveway.
But you try telling that to kids nowadays, and they just laugh!
On Cake’s main page-
“I couldn’t imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah.”
–George W. Bush
Fed Ex Ground (local) called me at 8:12 this morning and said, “we have your package” It was there.
But to keep the dysfunction going, they called my work number and said, "this is lola, please call me back at the main fed ex number and asked to speak to lola at extension 555 if you didn’t receive your package. "
I called, because I did receive my package (finally) and wanted to give some props to the local staff for stopping the local loading line to find my package. they were cool.
nobody at fed ex had heard of lola or her extension number. After 10 minutes of being on hold and getting shuttled around I hung up.
i have my MacBook Pro, which should mean I can quit typing without pressing the broken Shift key to make capitol letters.
whistlepig