FedEx, you are currently on my list of "ultimate worst courier" which is an amazing achievement as it puts you below the likes of Hermes, Yodel, etc.
You have successfully and efficiently delivered me goods from this particular US retailer in the past, so your current utter incompetence is disappointing. Especially as the usually pedestrian USPS-Royal Mail service managed to get me a parcel from the US during lockdown with no bother whatsoever. In fact the performance of USPS-Rpyal Mail was positively scintillating (even though in first few weeks of lockdown) compared to the sh!te I have had from you so far.
You take the biscuit the way you have "rearranged" your system for paying import duty.
I get you need your COVID controls in place and are only sending electronic invoices, but since you stopped delivering and sending the invoice afterwards, plus you took away the ability to phone up and pay by card on the phone, surely a company of your size can afford an IT bod to sort out payment by card on your website?
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The text message you sent out (telling me there was duty to pay) arrived 2 days after the tracking showed the parcel arriving in UK, unfortunately the link in it didn't work- took me to a blank web page- which was a fat lot of good.
Even if you can only afford an IT bod part-time, surely it is not beyond your wit to put info on your website that matches what you send out by text?
Then 3 days after the package arrived in UK I got an email attaching the invoice for duty and explaining how to pay the duty owed. According to the invoice, the duty must be paid within 5 days of the package ariving in UK otherwise it would be automaticaly returned to sender with no further warning. Nice. The invoice said payment could be made by phone or via bank transfer.
However, contrary to what the emailed invoice said, your payment line is NOT accepting payment (calling the number on the invoice, on the appropriate number option I got as far as the pre-recorded message saying "you cannot pay your invoice over the phone, please look on our website for more details of how to pay" and on the "enquiries" option I never got to speak to a person; the website said I could pay by phone. Aaaaaaagh!!!!!!).
If you must use email and bank transfer for payment, why is it you only give 5 days after arrival of a package in UK to pay invoice YET you don't send that email out until the package has been in UK for 3 days?. Why can't you get your pre-recorded phone messages, email, texts and internet to match up or is that just too difficult? (I'd have though you lot being in logistics this was basic stuff?
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Paying by bank transfer means setting you up as a new payee using a PIN-pad card reader. For security purposes, that card-reader remains at home when I am away working as generally I am not setting new payees up on my account that often. Some of us are key workers and are still working on site (not at home) and in fact it's not unusual for key workers to stay over for a bit, so I'd have expected a little more flexibility.
You have asssured me (when I finally got in touch by livechat on Day 4 after the parcle arrived in UK) that my parcel will still be in UK when I get back home today- Day 6 since my package arrived in UK- and am able to log on and pay the invoice for customs duty. You'd better be right and better deliver my parcel you cretinous lot, and for the future I will have to explain to that retailer that unless they can use a courier with sensible arrangements, I cannot buy from them again, sorry.
Grrrrrrr.
GC