Fedex loses whole pallets of shipments.
And will not refund the shipping.
Here are some consistent problems some companies are having with Fedex.
If your pallet is lost you have to file a form with Fedex. At most the refund you will get is the amount you insured the pallet for. But in some cases Fedex will “re-evaluate” the value and give you less than what it was insured for.
Fedex will also not refund the cost of shipping if they lose your shipment. They just don’t want your business.
How does this happen?
I don’t know for sure, I can only form theories.
Poor quality of people don’t scan things, or ensure things are scanned before moving on to the next package or pallet. Yep, computers mess up. You think it was scanned but it wasn’t. Businesses all over the US are having problems finding enough employees. They are resorting to temp workers which are low quality most of the time. Even if they do get a full-time employee the quality is often poor due to a bad attitude and simple apathy.
Pallets are wrapped in plastic to keep all the items together from rough handling. The shipping label with barcodes is placed on top of the plastic to make sure it is scannable. Perhaps the label can fall off under unusual conditions. A solution to this is to put another shipping label under the plastic.
More problems
Fedex also will often not respond to emails that request the charge be put in dispute. Fedex has an on-time delivery guarantee, but sometimes doesn’t make it. When this happens a company will ask Fedex to put the charges in dispute but Fedex will refuse to do it.
When dealing with Fedex, they don’t want to honor their guarantee. Which means they don’t want your business.
Company failure in general
All shipping companies lose pallets, even UPS. But how they deal with the issue matters. This is called “customer service”. If their service is terrible people will use another company. A lack of customer service is a significant contributor to failing companies. Poor management is another contributor to failure. Management that is reactive to problems, not proactive at preventing problems, tends to spend most of their time putting out fires. Thus they struggle at growth. Management that is unable to make long-term good decisions to use proper equipment will also struggle with growth. And this contributes to stagnation of the company. Stagnation usually means the company slowly falls and eventually fails.
You can find a search of Youtube videos on why companies fail here.
Have you had any consistent problems with a shipping company? Please mention your country and the shipping company in the comments.