Federal Express Change For "Hold For Pickup"

Jeff23

Arachnolord
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
620
Federal Express has made a change of rules for "live" shipments. I was informed today that they will no longer allow "Hold For Pickup" at "Print and Ship Centers". Pickups must now be done at distribution centers where the item will be in a warehouse rather than behind the counter in a store. Make sure you use the right location or it may delay your pickup. These items will be rejected back to the distribution centers if received.

This is unfortunate, but I can't blame them. Evidently they are having problems where people do not pickup their live items for multiple days. It then becomes a dead stinking shipment.
 

MetalMan2004

Arachnodemon
Joined
Oct 14, 2016
Messages
676
Thats an unfortunate decision that they were forced to make. It was so easy to pick my package up at one of those stores. Who the hell leaves a live animal there for days to let it die and rot???
 

G. pulchra

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
592
Federal Express has made a change of rules for "live" shipments. I was informed today that they will no longer allow "Hold For Pickup" at "Print and Ship Centers". Pickups must now be done at distribution centers where the item will be in a warehouse rather than behind the counter in a store. Make sure you use the right location or it may delay your pickup. These items will be rejected back to the distribution centers if received.

This is unfortunate, but I can't blame them. Evidently they are having problems where people do not pickup their live items for multiple days. It then becomes a dead stinking shipment.

This has been in place for at least 6 months here.
 

Jeff23

Arachnolord
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
620
This has been in place for at least 6 months here.
So maybe it is a regional thing then. I had received three shipments with no problems at my local location. Now my drive just got a little longer. But that is okay. I am about to start breeding my prey and won't need much if any shipments going forward anyway.
 

G. pulchra

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
592
I'm betting it's a poor communication thing with Fedex. Have you been able to find it in writing?
 

Jeff23

Arachnolord
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
620
I'm betting it's a poor communication thing with Fedex. Have you been able to find it in writing?
You are likely right. I did a search after your first post and it came up empty. Maybe I was using the wrong Google search terms. I didn't even try to browse their website.

I originally started with deliveries to the distribution center for whatever reason, but didn't like the amount of time to do the round trip so I switched over to the local store front. Of course most of those live deliveries were not marked as live shipments (if you get my drift).
 

RobynTRR

Arachnosquire
Joined
May 7, 2012
Messages
107
This isn't new policy or a change, it has been that way since FedEx bought the Kinko's business/locations. FedEx Office locations are not permitted to send or receive live shipments. Enforcement of that has varied over the years, but has gotten stricter in the last couple of years. There are still managers/staffers here and there that allow/overlook it, but it does cause issues, delays and disappointment /anger when they refuse a package delivery. Sometimes they may accept a live package for drop off, only to call the shipper a few hours later and insist they come back and pick up the package because "we don't do live shipments".

They have a handbook of rules at the location that clarifies the "no live shipments" rule, and an overzealous staffer may pull it out. Through hundreds of thousands of packages I have never heard of a live package left at a FedEx Office for "days until it stinks". If a staffer suggested that, I think they must have been speculating.

These are independent businesses, not staffed with actual FedEx employees. Live package drop off and pick up is supposed to happen at the hub locations, and for live reptile packages you shouldn't get pushback at the actual hub facilities. Of course the rules remain different for inverts, but at ShipYourReptiles we are still working on getting that changed, and we remain very close. It WILL happen this year, hopefully by summer.

You can search the FedEx.com site for hub locations. The normal filter doesn't work very well, it forces all of those FedEx Office locations into the results, but search for "Dangerous Goods" locations and it will pull away everything but the actual facilities, that will give you the cleanest result.

-Robyn@ShipYourReptiles
 
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