Posted by NCLisa on 8/3/07 8:07am
Msg #203734

I've just lost all confidence in FED EX! (long)

On August 1, I dropped of 2 envelopes in one Fed Ex box, and 1 in another hours before the cut off times. Neither were picked up until the 2nd, and Fed Ex is telling me there were no problems with either truck. The woman on the phone tells me that I dropped the items off in a manned fed ex location in Durham, and I said no, I dropped them off in a box at Gateway Center in Morrisville as I was no where near Durham that day. We argue about this. So then I decide to check on what I sent out yesterday, the 2nd, in a box in downtown Raleigh. Now I also helped a friend out yesterday, and cut payoff checks, and got out funding packages in that same box which is in front of her office. Every tracking number I checked said that it missed the cutoff time and was not picked up until 10:30pm (It's a 5:30 box). I'm livid!! Fed Ex said they had no report from either truck and no problems listed, so I dropped them off late. (If I'd dropped the Raleigh's off late, how did they get picked up at 10:30?) I've always been a huge fan of Fed Ex, but this has me worried.

The ones from the 1st were handwritten airbills that were sent to me with the company name prefilled out. Could it be that the driver was lazy and didn't want to process them, and left them at a manned store in Durham for the next day?

Reply by MelissaCT on 8/3/07 8:25am
Msg #203738

Re: The FedEx guy out here told a story

about a driver that took part of the barcode off one of the boxes in this area & attached it to his clipboard. You see, they can't scan the barcode on the box more than 1-2 minutes earlier than pickup time, so he found a way to cheat. He was eventually caught & fired. Perhaps your guy/girl has found a similar loophole?

Reply by RalphNC on 8/3/07 8:27am
Msg #203739

We have a rule here that we go to the Fed Ex office and PERSONALLY hand the docs package to a Fed Ex guy or gal... we do not even just lay them on the counter, much less consider putting them in a box.

It's the only sure way, alas.

Reply by NCLisa on 8/3/07 8:41am
Msg #203743

Well I live way out in the middle of nowhere so my usual drop box is 9 miles away. A staffed fed ex location is farther than that. I've never ever had a problem before, and now to have it happen twice in 2 days.

A guy from Fed Ex just called, and his checking into this too, he said he realizes I'm being truthful. I gave him the address of the office I was working in yesterday, he verified I was there all day and that all of us at various times during the day dropped envelopes into the box. Everything shows that they were dropped off at the main Raleigh location at 10:13 last night.

The packages from the 1st show that all of them were dropped off at the main Durham location. I told him I don't even know where that is. Did the drivers have a meeting and decide that they don't want to process handwritten airbills anymore?

Reply by Rachel/ORWA on 8/3/07 8:59am
Msg #203747

Another NSA in my area had a similar problem with a manned pickup location (not a FeEx site, however). Turns out the guy who picks up there is technically a "ground" guy, and simply drops the next-days in a drop-off box! In this instance, he apparently didn't, at least not in time. The NSA finally worked it out, but it was a major ordeal.

Learning from her experience, I try to never drop FedEx packages anywhere. I call for a pickup, and I've trained the driver to print off an extra label after he's scanned it in, and leave it for me, even if I'm not there.

I understand that sometimes you have no choice but to drop off somewhere, and then you just hope what's happening to you doesn't happen to you.

Reply by Loretta Reed on 8/3/07 9:04am
Msg #203750

My fed ex dop off location is at Kinkos.It is 30 minutes or more north of me.
The driver picks up at 6pm and goes to the Fed Ex at the airport. I have no choice but to drop off at the drop box here in town. I am going to start calling and requesting a pick up at my door from now on, when I can.

Reply by NCLisa on 8/3/07 9:11am
Msg #203753

There are 3 boxes that I use all the time, as one is closest to my home, one is near the airport but is at a major intersection of 2 highways that I have to use to go anywhere in that area, and the 3rd is at the office of my friend. This is the first time in 2 years that I've had troubles with these boxes. I have a pickup in the mornings if I had closings the night before. But these were all late morning, early afternoon closings that I wanted to drop off same to so the TC would get them the next day. I can't get a pickup at my house past 10am or my moms past noon.

Now the stuff I put in there from my friends office were funding packages and payoffs. Good thing we collected an additional 10 days of interest on the HUD of all her closings, otherwise the payoffs would be short since they now won't be there until Monday!!

Reply by MelissaCT on 8/3/07 9:53am
Msg #203769

Although rare, this makes the argument for scanning signed

docs -- entire package as The FL network is offering.

Reply by SharonMN on 8/3/07 10:23am
Msg #203781

Re: Although rare, this makes the argument for scanning signed

I just don't think this is the NSA's problem. All overnight delivery services have problems occasionally, and deliveries do not arrive on time 100% of the time. Your job is to deliver the package to the shipping vendor (drop box, manned location, whatever). It is unnecessary to develop your own personal procedure to triple-check that the shipping vendor does their job correctly. Just drop it and forget about it. I can assure you that 1000s of businesspeople in your city do so every day. If there are ongoing problems with a particular shipping vendor, title can start using a different vendor, or start thinking they need to allow 2 days for delivery from X city.

Reply by CaliNotary on 8/3/07 3:47pm
Msg #203865

Amen Sharon!

This is the time where we really all need to be checking our own bottom line.

I probably make more profit on a $75 signing than some people on this board do on a $150 signing because I've made efforts to make my process more efficient and don't spend a lot of time making sure my a$$ is covered every which way for any problem that could possibly arise. Which almost never happens anyway.

Fees in the industry are trending down, not up. People need to trim the fat and stop worrying about doing anyone else's job but their own.

Reply by Lisa Prestegard on 8/3/07 3:01pm
Msg #203857

You're right, Melissa! This is exactly the reason...

for scanning the package after it's executed.
The only time I had an issue with FedEx was one similar incident. A substitute driver simply "forgot" one of the boxes on his route two days in a row.
My docs resided within that box.

When Title called frantic that they hadn't rec'd the docs the next day, I emailed them a fully executed copy. In the meanwhile, a trace was put on the pkg., the error discovered, the loan funded on time even though the docs were late.

Happy ending.

Reply by kathy/ca on 8/3/07 6:44pm
Msg #203890

Just because you scanned the docs doesnt mean you took them

to be shipped off, just that you had them signed. At least I see no proof of that.

Reply by CaliNotary on 8/3/07 3:36pm
Msg #203864

"We have a rule here that we go to the Fed Ex office and PERSONALLY hand the docs package to a Fed Ex guy or gal... we do not even just lay them on the counter, much less consider putting them in a box.

It's the only sure way, alas."

It's also a ridiculously expensive way. It's MUCH cheaper to just deal with delivery issues if and when they occur than it is to do it this way. To waste umpteen hours over the course of the year trying to cover your butt for every possible thing that could go wrong is just bad business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-benefit_analysis

And don't fool yourself, Fed Ex can screw up a package that you hand over the counter just as easily as they can screw one up that you drop in a box.

Reply by kate_nortca on 8/3/07 3:06pm
Msg #203858

I had a similar problem with the one FedEx box in our town twice. Both times it was just the same. I dropped off documents and they simply were not picked up that day. And if they were they were not scanned. I received calls from both signing companies screaming bloody murder about where were the docs! I realize the world is not perfect nor are any of us in it. However I expect a certain amount of accountability from FedEx. The first time this happened the person I spoke to on the phone stopped just short of telling me I was either lying, making the situation up or imagining things! If she had simply admitted that they might be at fault that would have gone a long way towards smoothing over the situation. But they stubbornly defended their driver both times even though the error was clearly on the driver's fault.

Definitely very frustrating. Some of the steps you folks have taken above will probably eventually prove necessary since the closest manned location for me is 1.5 hours away.

Kate