NGD: Didn't happen

[BatUtilityBelt]

I was looking forward to a NGD on a Fender Jaguar, but FedEx screwed that up... yet again. I'm sure some of you remember my story about a FedEx driver stealing my guitar and pawning it instead of delivering it. I'm getting flashbacks of that today because this one is going exactly the same as that incident. I don't know how/why FedEx acts this way, but I thought I'd share another cautionary tale.

Earlier this week, I bought a discounted "mint" Jaguar from a Reverb store with great feedback. The deal went smoothly, but when I got the shipping notice, I said "Uh oh, they used FedEx"... All week, FedEx tracking told me to expect the delivery today. This morning I woke up to an email from FedEx telling me they would deliver it before 9:20 am this morning. I thought that was oddly specific, but good news nonetheless. Since it's signature required, I stayed home, of course.

9:20 came and went with no visit. I was not surprised, because FedEx has never actually delivered a package to me within the time frame they promised. My house has a ridiculously easy to find address in the city, but maybe it is cloaked from FedEx technology. After the predicted delivery passed though, I checked the tracking about every hour or so.

Around noon, I got a bit more nervous when instead of "out for delivery", the tracking page said ""Unfortunately we are unable to retrieve your tracking results at this time. Please try again later."

I got more nervous a bit later when the tracking page changed its message to "We made a delivery attempt: 11/05/2021 12:41 PM. Delivery will be attempted again on the next business day." The whole time, I was sitting less than 10 feet from my front door, and there had been no attempted delivery. Now I had serious deja vu over driver-stolen-guitars.

I called FedEx customer service to get answers and tell them their data was wrong, and of course that was ineffectual, but did use up a good 30 minutes or so. I remembered last time this happened I got a better response by tweeting @FedEx, so I did the same. The Twitter @FedExHelp at least knew more than the phone customer service. They confirmed their system knew no delivery had been attempted despite their tracking data indicating it was. They told me they would not wait 'til Monday to attempt delivery, rather would schedule it for tomorrow.

So hopefully I'll have a NGD coming, not more bad news about FedEx abused guitars, stay tuned.

[Partscaster]

That sounds horrible. You should be sure to always make arrangements so that any sender knows not to use Fed-Ex for your shipping.
FED Ex is not nearly as good as UPS in my rural area.

[ID10t]

The good news is that it requires a signature. Unfortunate inconvenience but try to relax and wait it out.

[mighty_duck]

Fedex has become horrible. My last three shipments took 2weeks, 3 weeks, and 2 .5 weeks. All of them spent nearly a week in a town 50 miles from my home with no movement. One of them was from California (to me in Oregon), with a detour through New Jersey.

[andrewsrea]

This is the time of year that they start using 3rd party delivery people, who are delivering as side jobs. I spoke for a bit with a 68 year old lady last year, who was doing just that. She noticed my package under her passenger seat and came back at 9:30PM a day later to deliver it.

[BatUtilityBelt]

The good news is that it requires a signature. Unfortunate inconvenience but try to relax and wait it out.

I learned from the case when the driver stole my guitar that requiring a signature guarantees nothing - they don't match the scribble to anything, and if the driver says they delivered it, FedEx believes it.

[BatUtilityBelt]

This is the time of year that they start using 3rd party delivery people, who are delivering as side jobs. I spoke for a bit with a 68 year old lady last year, who was doing just that. She noticed my package under her passenger seat and came back at 9:30PM a day later to deliver it.

Wish they were all good like that.

[Mossman]

FedEx is the absolute worst! I always hate it when I discover something I've ordered is being shipped via FedEx. They nearly destroyed a bass that I built for a customer, and I've received plenty of battered packages from them. One time they delivered a guitar to me with the headstock sticking out of the box! What the hell happened there?? The only thing I can think of is that somebody tried to rip into the box to steal the guitar and got caught in the process, or something. And why didn't anybody try to stick it back in? Fortunately, nothing has gotten damaged so far, but that seems like a frickin' miracle.

If it's not beat-to-shit packages, then it's an inexorable inability to find me. I have all my packages shipped to my workplace. FedEx delivers and picks up packages there twice a day, so they should know the address well. But somehow they almost never get a package to me on time. Sometimes they claim that a delivery was attempted during business hours, but that's an obvious lie. Our shipping department is the first thing you see when you pull into the parking lot, with a great big, wide open bay door that you can't miss... It's not a complex, or even a large building (and did I mention they deliver there ALL THE TIME??). There have also been at least three times when the package sat in a distribution center about 30 miles away for 3 or 4 days with no explanation offered.

As much as people like to bash on "snail mail", I do almost all my shipping with USPS, and I've never had a problem with them, either sending or receiving packages. Packages arrive when they say they will, and they don't look like they've been thrown in a cement mixer when they arrive. They don't cost any more than UPS or FedEx, either.

[slowhand84]

I was looking forward to a NGD on a Fender Jaguar, but FedEx screwed that up... yet again. I'm sure some of you remember my story about a FedEx driver stealing my guitar and pawning it instead of delivering it. I'm getting flashbacks of that today because this one is going exactly the same as that incident. I don't know how/why FedEx acts this way, but I thought I'd share another cautionary tale.

Earlier this week, I bought a discounted "mint" Jaguar from a Reverb store with great feedback. The deal went smoothly, but when I got the shipping notice, I said "Uh oh, they used FedEx"... All week, FedEx tracking told me to expect the delivery today. This morning I woke up to an email from FedEx telling me they would deliver it before 9:20 am this morning. I thought that was oddly specific, but good news nonetheless. Since it's signature required, I stayed home, of course.

9:20 came and went with no visit. I was not surprised, because FedEx has never actually delivered a package to me within the time frame they promised. My house has a ridiculously easy to find address in the city, but maybe it is cloaked from FedEx technology. After the predicted delivery passed though, I checked the tracking about every hour or so.

Around noon, I got a bit more nervous when instead of "out for delivery", the tracking page said ""Unfortunately we are unable to retrieve your tracking results at this time. Please try again later."

I got more nervous a bit later when the tracking page changed its message to "We made a delivery attempt: 11/05/2021 12:41 PM. Delivery will be attempted again on the next business day." The whole time, I was sitting less than 10 feet from my front door, and there had been no attempted delivery. Now I had serious deja vu over driver-stolen-guitars.

I called FedEx customer service to get answers and tell them their data was wrong, and of course that was ineffectual, but did use up a good 30 minutes or so. I remembered last time this happened I got a better response by tweeting @FedEx, so I did the same. The Twitter @FedExHelp at least knew more than the phone customer service. They confirmed their system knew no delivery had been attempted despite their tracking data indicating it was. They told me they would not wait 'til Monday to attempt delivery, rather would schedule it for tomorrow.

So hopefully I'll have a NGD coming, not more bad news about FedEx abused guitars, stay tuned.

Fedex really is a special kind of awful when it comes to guitars. I am almost certainly going to get another Kiesel headless ordered but I will be staging elaborate rituals and prayers to the shipping gods that it makes it to my door

[toomanycats]

Let's Go FedEX!

[tlarson58]

Weird. They built up such a good reputation and it's turning to crap. I had a amp stuck in WI for five days last month.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Sigh. They emailed early in the AM that it would be delivered today by 9:20. I didn't believe them, but stayed near the open door just in case. After the delivery time came and went again, I tweeted this to FedEx.

What stinks most is being held hostage by the required signature.

[BatUtilityBelt]

If FedEx was being honest with me, I would expect something more like this:

[mickey]

I've always had rather good luck with FedEx, it is UPS that has driven me nuts.
Some years ago my wife ordered something and had it shipped to her office in the main AT&T Building in downtown Nashville.
On Monday UPS tried to deliver it, on Tuesday she got a phone call from them saying they couldn't find the address.
Well, UPS delivers up to five times daily at the loading dock at the main AT&T building.
She assured them the address was correct and she had talked to one of the UPS drivers delivering to that address that day.
By Friday they still couldn't find the address so I had to drive out to the main UPS hub and pick up the package.
I don't know how familiar you are with Nashville, but please look at the attached pic and see if you can find the AT&T building???

[Partscaster]

One of them was from California (to me in Oregon), with a detour through New Jersey.

reminding me of waiting for a US airline for skis to catch up with me in Finland before a ski race. When the airline finely got them to me, they had stickers from Singapore.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Yikes. A FedEx customer rep just told me they don't know why the tracking site and an email tell me to expect delivery today, when their system says tomorrow. Incidentally, FedEx has never delivered to me on a Sunday, so I know their "tomorrow" doesn't mean tomorrow. I asked why they have inconsistent data, and who can get me a solid answer, and only got a "dunno, sorry" answer and no escalation. I have a strong feeling I will have to file another FedEx driver related police report soon. Worse news is that the shop I bought it from tells me they don't have the guitar's serial number or actual photos, both of which would have been super useful in the police report.

[LightWingStudios]

Yikes. A FedEx customer rep just told me they don't know why the tracking site and an email tell me to expect delivery today, when their system says tomorrow. Incidentally, FedEx has never delivered to me on a Sunday, so I know their "tomorrow" doesn't mean tomorrow. I asked why they have inconsistent data, and who can get me a solid answer, and only got a "dunno, sorry" answer and no escalation. I have a strong feeling I will have to file another FedEx driver related police report soon. Worse news is that the shop I bought it from tells me they don't have the guitar's serial number or actual photos, both of which would have been super useful in the police report.

Can't they use the pics from the Reverb listing?

[BatUtilityBelt]

Can't they use the pics from the Reverb listing?

The reverb listing pictures were Fender stock photos. It was a restock. I asked if they could send photos before buying, but they said it was factory sealed and in their warehouse. With a big discount, I bought anyway... oops.

[LancerTheGreat]

Man, this socks to see happen.
We had a FedEx driver steal my girlfriend's laptop after we had it sent in for warranty repairs. Ended up out a $1400 laptop, but ASUS sent her an upgraded version that msrp'd for $1800, still sucked to have to deal with.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Well, after all that hoo-haw, the guitar did show up on my porch, and the driver never tried to get his signature. Very good news: the box was not opened. It still had the staples Fender sealed it with. I may have a NGD for it, or may not though... After tuning it up and tightening the wiggly pickup selector, I found the volume pots and tone pot are wired wrong, so they give pretty much a 0 or 10. So I'll have to determine whether this is a deal breaker for what I paid, or if I have some soldering to do.

[Mossman]

Glad to hear it arrived safely. If it's just a wiring problem, I'd just fix it and call it good... especially if you got a really good deal.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Glad to hear it arrived safely. If it's just a wiring problem, I'd just fix it and call it good... especially if you got a really good deal.

I've been playing it. The miswired pots seem to be the only issue. It plays well and sounds very good, so I'm inclined to agree unless I find other issues. It's otherwise new with all the case candy. A lot of manufacturers make this mistake on lefty guitars, but I don't remember a Fender having the issue.

There was an ink mark on the front of the headstock above the finish that it took me a while to remove. I am guessing that was Fender marking it as a return. According to the box stickers, it looks like it originally shipped to the UK and was returned there before coming to the US.

And now I also have to consider returning it just because the seller is acting a bit like a jackass. I told them it was delivered but left with no signature, and that the 3 pots are wired wrong, and his response was:

[Mossman]

Glad to hear it arrived safely. If it's just a wiring problem, I'd just fix it and call it good... especially if you got a really good deal.

I've been playing it. The miswired pots seem to be the only issue. It plays well and sounds very good, so I'm inclined to agree unless I find other issues. It's otherwise new with all the case candy. A lot of manufacturers make this mistake on lefty guitars, but I don't remember a Fender having the issue.

There was an ink mark on the front of the headstock above the finish that it took me a while to remove. I am guessing that was Fender marking it as a return. According to the box stickers, it looks like it originally shipped to the UK and was returned there before coming to the US.

And now I also have to consider returning it just because the seller is acting a bit like a jackass. I told them it was delivered but left with no signature, and that the 3 pots are wired wrong, and his response was:
Response to wiring problem.jpg

Translation: Tell your story walking.

But you have to ask yourself; is it worth it to give up a good deal on a nice guitar just to stick it to some moron who probably won't learn anything, anyway? If no other problems arise, I'd just leave negative or neutral feedback, and never buy anything from him again.

But it's hard to say, since I haven't seen this guitar yet (hint).

[BatUtilityBelt]

Translation: Tell your story walking.

But you have to ask yourself; is it worth it to give up a good deal on a nice guitar just to stick it to some moron who probably won't learn anything, anyway? If no other problems arise, I'd just leave negative or neutral feedback, and never buy anything from him again.

But it's hard to say, since I haven't seen this guitar yet (hint).

Exactly right. I've not found other problems, so I'm writing the NGD now. Spoiler, I know I can fix it and it is a keeper. I already told the seller that I will keep and fix the guitar and leave him a bad review because any undisclosed problems are the seller's responsibility and he shirked that.

[Mossman]

Translation: Tell your story walking.

But you have to ask yourself; is it worth it to give up a good deal on a nice guitar just to stick it to some moron who probably won't learn anything, anyway? If no other problems arise, I'd just leave negative or neutral feedback, and never buy anything from him again.

But it's hard to say, since I haven't seen this guitar yet (hint).

Exactly right. I've not found other problems, so I'm writing the NGD now. Spoiler, I know I can fix it and it is a keeper. I already told the seller that I will keep and fix the guitar and leave him a bad review because any undisclosed problems are the seller's responsibility and he shirked that.

Geeze... People just don't care anymore. I'm having a similar experience with a water-slide decal maker on ebay, who disregarded all my instructions, never showed me a proof, and just printed and shipped the decal to me without saying a word. When I confronted him about it, his attitude was like: "Yeah? So what? I gave you what you asked for". I posted about it in the "Flamecaster Tele" thread if you want to read all about it: https://www.aguitarforum.net/viewtopic. ... 651#p34651