Does FedEx do this?

D

duelist1954

New member
Recently I went through the second worst shipping SNAFU that I've been involved in.

This is a long tale of woe...

A gun company, to remain nameless, was shipping me three handguns to test for an article via my FFL holder.

Despite having a current copy of his FFL on file, the gun company shipped (Via FEd Ex) to an eight year old address.

The current residents understandably flipped out at being delivered a load of guns. I don't know if this happened upon delivery or if Fed Ex had to go back to get them.

Many phone calls ensued between FedEx, the gun company and me until we all figured out what happened.

FedEx refused to deliver them to the correct address, and shipped them back across the country (I'm in PA...guns came from CA)

Upon arrival at the gun company, they immediately re-shipped to the correct address...never opened the box to verify contents.

Guns arrived at my FFL holder. In the box was a sealed envelope with one gun in it and two plastic gun boxes, each containing a gun.

To avoid explaining things to the FBI (Homeland security regs on multiple purchases of the same model gun), I picked up one gun each week...lost two weeks in shipping for a total of five weeks to get all three guns into my hands...deadline for article looming!

The gun in the sealed envelope had no trigger lock. Each of the guns in the gun boxes had trigger locks installed. Only one trigger lock key present...only fit one lock. So couldn't shoot third gun for article, but took some pictures.

Shipped everything back to gun company.

Got call today from gun company asking for missing key.

Returned call saying I was kind of expecting them to have it. They swore there were no locks on the guns when they left their plant.

I'm assuming that FedEx put the locks on after the delivery to the wrong address, but didn't open the sealed envelope, just the unlocked gun boxes. And that's why the gun in the envelope didn't have a lock.

Has anyone ever had FedEx put a lock on a gun they received?
 
JMR40...absolutely. That was what the gun company thought. But he's a one man operation. He isn't gratuitously putting gun locks on anything. However, I asked him anyway. Luckily he's a friend, and still speaking to me.
 
Very odd. What about the folk at the address it got shipped to first. To shamelessly employ a stereotype here they might have been so anti-gun that they couldn't abide having unlocked guns around until the Fedex people came back to pick them up that they locked the evil things up. (For the children don't ya know!).

I can understand why you didn't want to ruin the lock and I guess I can understand why the gun company wouldn't want to ruin what they thought was your lock but most of the gun locks I've seen wouldn't present much of a problem to a person with tools.

Too bad you didn't contact the gun company when you discovered the locks. They might have given you permission to knock them off and you could have shot all the guns.
 
situation sucks but it's not often you get to see the bloopers and behind-the-scenes work of a magazine article. hope you have better luck next time.
 
I had fedex misdeliver a package once, and i will say if it was just three guns i would have been 1000x less stressed. I was sending a specimen priority overnight to the bioterrorism defence lab in NY state, and it ended up at a business in nj. Thankfully no one opened it.
 
During the last UPS strike FedEx left a box with 8 S&W revolvers outside, on the steps of a CLOSED gunshop were I worked, even with stickers all over it saying 'Adult Signature Required!'

That evening I just had a funny feeling that I should drive by the shop, and boy was I right.

I called the FedEx distribution center, screamed at a phone clerk for awhile, got her supervisor, screamed at her for awhile, then got the delivery manager and screamed at him for about half an hour.
 
Let's face it, if you ship enough stuff you'll get some horror stories regardless of the carrier.

Friday UPS left a 25 lb case of black powder sitting on my front step...didn't ring the doorbell, didn't get a signature. Box left in plain sight with "High explosives" stencilled on the side...
 
Let's face it, if you ship enough stuff you'll get some horror stories regardless of the carrier.
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth

I worked for UPS for a total of six years, from unload, to sort, to loader, to driver

the MAR (minimum acceptable requirement) for mis-routed packages was one in ten thousand at the final sort level- boxes going into trailers. Think about how many packages they see each day, and do a rough version of the math!
 
Chris, as I said, if anyone ships often enough, they'll hit an issue. That's not a knock on UPS...it is just the law of averages.

One time UPS lost a pistol I was returning to E.M.F. Inc. after writing an article. UPS paid the insurance claim, which I sent to E.M.F.

13 months later I got a call from the head of UPS security. They had found my gun...did I want it back? I did, so I refunded the insurance money and they sent me the gun. Where it was in the system for over a year...I have no idea.
 
the MAR (minimum acceptable requirement) for mis-routed packages was one in ten thousand at the final sort level- boxes going into trailers. Think about how many packages they see each day, and do a rough version of the math!
Click to expand...

Wow.

Once I had to send a shotgun back to Remington, and when it returned, it never showed up at the FFL on the day it was supposed to be delivered. Turned out it went from Ilion, NY to STL, MO by way of Ogden, UT.

I still have no idea how it made it clear across two and a half states without somebody realizing this box was clearly overshooting by the better part of two time zones.
 
My dad once ordered a package to be delivered to Melbourne, Florida, and when it didn't arrive it was traced to Melbourne, Australia. It wasn't a gun or it would have made a better story.
 
to be delivered to Melbourne, Florida, and when it didn't arrive it was traced to Melbourne, Australia.
Click to expand...

Close....oh so very close. Easy to understand the error due to the close proximity of these two places.
 
UPS did a stint like that to me about 15yrs ago I had a Garand receiver and bought a BM59 kit insured it for 25000 and sent it off two weeks later it still never made the destination so I called and talked to them in the office, I was essentially gaffed me off they showed no real concern nor did they care until I produced a receipt showing them that it was insured for 25 grand and if not found in a week (this was three weeks into the ordeal) that I would get 25 grand due to their loss. On the 28th day it miraculously appeared figure that. Before that point they didn't have a clue after I showed them the receipt it suddenly had meaning
 
It seems that FedEx delivery in my area is a franchise thing. I went to work for the Dept of Ag and was getting training and work material via FedEx. The driver was delivering by putting the envelopes in a plastic bag and hanging them on a fence post 1/4 mile from my house. After I found some important forms scattered in the field, that came to an end and UPS got the delivery contract.
This was not the same driver who scared the bejeebers out of my daughter a few years ago. At that time, I was buying quite a lot of ammo from CMP (sometimes was still packed in the stencilled wood cases) which was delivered by FedEx. My 20ish daughter was working nights as a 911 dispatcher and her room faced our open deck so she was asleep with the window open. She awoke one afternoon to find the FedEx guy standing outside her window. When asked what he was doing, he indicated a wood case of ammo for delivery. No reason for him to be standing at her window to effect delivery. He made a comment about about the amount of ammo and daughter answered that I shoot a lot. He asked what I shoot and she said"whatever someone wants shot" and if he needed to know real bad I was around somewhere"maybe watching him right now". The guy about smoked his tires leaving and further deliveries did not take long at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top