I purchased a ticket to the Penn State-Michigan Game on Saturday, October 18 (today) I was unable to make the game, and after one ebay bidder backed out after the auction ended, I sold the ticket on Wednesday night...
I just missed the deadline to ship the ticket Wednesday night, so I ship it out Thursday afternoon with a pick-up at 6:30 pm. On the FedEx Airbill (the piece of carbon paper you fill out) I clearly indicate I want a standard overnight delivery for next business afternoon, and if possible I would also want a Saturday delivery if the first delivery is needed.
At 8:00 pm I log on to fedex.com, input my tracking number to ensure the package has been picked up. It has, however a delivery has been scheduled for Monday, October 20. Since the ticket is for Saturday, it will be useless by them. I call Fedex's 800 number and inform them of this issue. The women I speak to puts a note to upgrade the shipping option, and tells me that since it has not reached the FedEx facility at the airport, it will not be an issue.
At Friday morning at 9 am I log on again to check the status. It indicates that it is at the airport in Windsor Locks, CT and not in Pennsylvania, where it is going. I call Fedex, where I am informed that it is in a carrying case awaiting to leave the facility with a scheduled delivery of Monday. I tell the agent what I was told the night before, so she upgrades the package to Saturday delivery (even though I indicated Saturday delivery on the airbill) and I will be called when it leaves the facility.
At 2 pm I log on to fedex.com again to track the package. It indicates to me that it is in now Memphis, TN where Fedex's U.S. distribution center is. I call Fedex to verify this information, where I am then informed that because the address I am shipping to is rural, that it will not be delivered to in time. So I request the package be held at a FedEx location in Pennsylvania so the person who bought the ticket can pick it up. The agent gives me the address, which she claims is in State College, PA. In reality it is in Clearfield, PA an hour and a half away. There is a location in State College, PA (this will be important in a paragraph or two).
I call the winning bidder and inform him of what is going on. He is, obviously, less than enthusiastic. I give him the tracking number, so he can track the package himself.
At about 8 p.m. last night the winning bidder calls me. He spent a half-hour on the phone with FedEx. According to him, all the changes I made to the package while it was in transit were not properly recorded, and the package had left Memphis and was on a truck to Pittsburgh, and it cannot be delivered until Monday. He is obviously pissed off, and demands I give him an immediate refund. I didn't know what to say, so I agree to talk to my business contact at FedEx on Monday to see what the hell happened.
However, this story has a happy ending. The package was not on a truck to Pittsburgh. The changes did go through, and this morning it flew out of Memphis to Pittsburgh, where it then flew from Pittsburgh to State College, PA and arrived at 8:15 am. He got a call at 1:45 pm that the package is awaiting pick=up at the FedEx facility in State College, and he picked it up about 45 minutes ago. He will be able to use the ticket for the game at 4:30 pm this afternoon.
While I am happy that the winning bidder got the ticket after dealing with FedEx, I am very disappointed that errors were made when the item was initially shipped and that myself and the winning bidder were actively lied and deceived to by FedEx. I plan on contacting my employer's account representative at FedEx to let them know what happened. I also plan on letting my employer's purchasing agents aware, so they may take it in account when it is time to negotiate a contact for shipping.