Fed Ex has officially done my head in. I've had an envelope carrying our mail from a US mailbox centre to our address here in UK, every month for years now. Like clockwork, around the 20th of the month, an envelope gets shipped, which I receive a few days later. Sometimes I haven't bothered to open them - knowing they are just catalogues and boring documents from banks. There have sometimes been up to four envelopes stacked on floor, waiting, waiting, at times, until I'm 'in the mood'.
In June, however, I had a small package coming through which I was highly anticipating. It was a deck of cards which I had pre-ordered in January, after finding out the author was going to only order enough to fill pre-orders and a few more after that and then no more. It was going to be a limited edition work of art and she sent emails, long chatty emails describing the printing process, any delays (for example, don't expect to get anything done in China in February due to their New Year shutdowns), how she was naming each deck, several times throughout spring, all of which I enjoyed. The package was delivered to my mailbox address - I saw it! - but it missed that month's delivery by two days, so I had to wait another month for it to come to the UK. And oh dear! this was going to plunk it straight down in the middle of a Mercury Retrograde. I began to fret. I looked at the photo of it in the mail centre a couple of times, just to soothe myself.
On the 22nd of July, it was shipped from the US, arrived in UK on the 23rd, cleared Customs and Duty - and disappeared. This is what I see on the 25th when I finally check the tracking number. I sign up for status updates. I get an email the next morning saying the package would be delivered that day by noon. I sit around the house all day, missing some necessary errands, until 3 pm, but it never comes. I call a number given on the website and get told someone would put a search on it. They couldn't explain my status update email stating delivery because it obviously hadn't been seen since the 23rd. It was explained that the status update wasn't really connected to what was actually happening anyway.
The next week, I call again and this time am given a name and a phone number of an investigator - whose number is never, ever answered. I call the first number again and get told they were still searching. I get another status update on the 2nd of August which got me excited until I noticed that it was saying the package would definitely be delivered by noon - on the 29th of July. This was only proof that yes, the system is definitely disconnected from reality.
I call the following week - this would be around the 5th of August now and get told they are not going to search anymore, it is lost and I needed to get the sender to make a claim for the value. I write a note to the mailbox centre advising them of this and ask that they make a claim for not only the $20 value of the package, but also the postage getting it to them, plus their charges for sending it to me - over $70 in all. I'm devastated. All these months of anticipation for naught. Being a firm believer in Mercury Retrograde and it's effects - I've tracked that for years and have learned to duck and dive and come out the other end fairly unscathed, for the most part. I used to train my employees that I would not be overly distressed during MR if the orders came in wrong and the till dysfunctional every day and miscommunication ran rampant. But this one was out of my hands.
On Saturday, the 10th of August I get a letter from Fed Ex, which was relating to me that there was a Customs and VAT charge of £34.81 on this missing package, please pay at this site. No information on who to talk to about this. Just pay now or we hold your package. Apparently, someone in Customs and Duty had assessed the package as having £95 freight charge, plus $20 value of the cards and a £12 clearance charge that they like to stick on packages incurring a duty, just because they can. This shouldn't even have been flagged for ANY taxes as $20 is just about the limit that they allow in (£15 actually). They like to add the shipping charge to the value of package charge to inflate their tax haul, which I've always thought is WRONG and evil. There, I said it. Of course, the shipping charge to get anything from one country to another is going to be high - often higher than the value of the package itself. And then I bet there is an agreement out there that if one pays to ship a package from one country to another - the postage should cover it to the door. So I've always figured this £12 'clearance' charge (used to be called delivery from customs to your door charge) must be illegal. And that wasn't a typo on the £ sign on the £95 freight charge - which is just more proof it is wrong as it should be a dollar charge, having come from the USA.
I hit the roof and am an emotional wreck all weekend until I can call on Monday, the 12th, to question this. And maybe the package has been stuck in customs as I suspected all this time? I get this guy on the phone that within about two sentences, I can tell he will not help me. He refused to listen to me - and when I began protesting that he listen to what I'm saying, he started parroting me saying I wasn't listening to him. All he was saying was that there was no need to pay attention to letter as the package was considered lost. I wanted WAR, I wanted someone to admit a huge wrong had been done here and clear it and maybe look again. I began asking him to forward me to the investigatory team and inexplicably, he kept refusing. Finally, after several minutes of this, with him having taken my identifying details at the beginning and been looking at my file throughout, he asked if my name was Brenda, said he hadn't HEARD my name when I'd first called and to tell him my name again. I stopped talking in shock, refused to give him my name and he proceeded to call me Brenda several more times. I sat there, completely silent for a moment, as my mind tried to process what crazy hole I've just fallen into and how to get out? I finally burst out with the genius mediation tool of "You're NUTS!" at which point this guy primly says "If you are going to use foul language on me, I will hang up" I say "I'm not cursing here - I'm saying you are nuts!" He continued to call me Brenda but backed off his need to hang up on me and I finally, finally thought to say "I sure hope this conversation IS being recorded because you are so out of order" and he suddenly decided transferring me would be a good idea and the phone went silent for a minute and another guy picks up who knows my name and my story. (by the way - someone later told me that they are not allowed to hang up on a customer so we figure he was trying to force me to do the deed.)
This new guy also started arguing that there was no need to pay attention to the letter as, the package was lost anyway but finally began to listen to my complaints. Finally admitted that the freight charge was wrong - and oh, for that matter, there should never have been a VAT charge applied in the first place because the package value was under the limit. But never mind that - the package is lost. He took the whole thing off the account though. And knew who he was talking to throughout. I was only halfway satisfied though - this is an issue I've grumbled mightily about for the whole time I've lived in England (19 years and counting) and I want the system overturned. I make sure and never order anything from overseas and just stockpile at a relative's house until my next visit usually. But this guy can't help with that.
I've also fallen into a fight of sorts with the US mail company during this time, but that's another story. However, it adds to the confusion and stress I'm dealing with over various other things.
So I'm slowly resigning myself to the idea that I'm not going to get my precious deck of cards after all and that Fed Ex as a company is joining the crowd of broken companies in my mind.
And now it's time for the next month's package to come. And it doesn't come. And on the 27th of August, I get an email from my US mail centre, to contact Fed Ex as they are having problems delivering to me. Turns out that on two tries out, they can't find my house. I go through a loop again, several calls to two different numbers, running into nonsense I won't bore you with again - but notice the package doesn't come the next day. So I call again and this time, get a guy named Louis, who seems intelligent, on the ball and competently cuts through the problem, says they need a phone number (I wasn't asked for this yesterday), wonders with me if the giant cornfield in front of my house (blocking even fleeting views from the road) is causing part of the problem? Puts it on notes. Assures me it will come tomorrow, apologises for the hassle. He is SUCH a relief to talk to I finally complain to him about previous experiences - like being called Brenda - and he apologises about that as well - and says "hopefully this clears up everything for you Shauna" - making a point to use my name, wasn't that nice?
I rang off and started back into my day, my life, my house and after a few more minutes found that I was standing tall, that I was feeling competent again, that I was feeling like I DO have the ability to cut through to solutions, to take on the world again - instead of this unstable morass that I've been feeling like for over a month (I've had some other issues going on as well). I mused, in astonishment, that all it took to get me to this point was having a redeeming conversation with an intelligent person who easily set things in order.
So did you get the package yet?
ReplyDelete