<snort>…well there’s the problem! If the staff is busy puffing on a doobie…they just may not feel like tracking anything…<ROTFL>. Sorry…I sometimes can’t help it…I’ll blame it on not enough sleep this time of year.
Holding at a station wouldn’t fix the problems we are having this year. A few shipments simply “lost”, as in, we have no idea where they are, but we will call you when we find them. Two shipments delayed by 48 hours b/c the plane they were supposed to be on was over the allowed weight, etc. Mostly issues that mean there is no way the semen will arrive anywhere near the appropriate time frame.
And I’m usually in agreement with Kathy about most things, but I would never trust the postal service with a semen shipment. Our local post office is completely disorganized and the workers are incredibly rude and unhelpful. As a previous poster illustrate there are difficulties in tracking packages through them; I learned this with day old baby chicks I was supposed to receive. No perfect solution, so we have to stick with Fedex for now!
I feel (and have felt) your pain!
With well over a hundred semen shipments under our belt for the year with FedEx I can not say much bad. I do not rely on their pick up due to last minute semen orders but make sure it gets to the Fedex Depot myself. Nothing has gotten lost and we had just a few delays, mostly in Canada which is going to happen sometimes. I know shipping from or receiving at some locations will be a higher risk. We have a great local office and I make sure they get it, which accounts for a lot going well. The post office, just not reliable and responsive enough and I just do not have the time to figure out which shipment may or may not work with them as often it just needs to go…
The last two year have been more successful with USPS overnight than UPS or FedEx for me. Granted, I’m not shipping semen, but they did deliver a package at 9am on Christmas morning when I didn’t expect the recipient to see it until the 26th. That particular moment sold me.
So, I think Kathy has a good idea to try them!
Yeah…I have to say, I haven’t had any delayed packages with USPS when I’ve used them for overnight shipments and we have used them a LOT! I guess we’ll have to play it by ear :). I will keep everyone posted on how well it does or doesn’t go. We’ve had great luck with Fedex with only one package not making it so far this year, but the costs have skyrocketed this year :(. Probably 20 to 30 percent higher than last year. Our BIGGEST issue “is” the cut off time that we have to have packages ready to go by. Slow days aren’t a big issue, but on a busy day, it’s killer. Good news is that we now GET saturday deliveries here <lol>. It used to be we had to drive up to OKC to pick up SAturday shipments and THAT made me cranky too.
Several years ago FedEx lost my shipment and I found out the hard way that if they lose your shipment they absolutely don’t care if you ever get it. They know there will probably be an insurance claim and they’ll be out any kind of renumeration so they don’t even try to make a ‘best effort’ to find the equitainer & get it to it’s destination. I dealt with several people on that particular shipment and they were either very rude or they outright lied to me. Then when I did put in for the insurance I got a runaround like you wouldn’t believe.
This is why I always have mine marked by the breeder hold for pickup. I don’t leave it to chance. EVER!!!
wow. this thread is scary for a first time breeder trying to figure fresh or frozen …
Ok well ready this thread I just wonder how much “canned horse semen” ends up in OVER GOODS. When I managed for UPS we had a department called “over goods” where packages that end up with out labels get sent. There is no way to know where it came from or who it’s going to, so it get sent to these huge warehouses in the middle of no where (think Montana, Utah ect). So when a packaged would drop of the radar I would get a description from the shipper, a description of what was inside and its value. I would then call Over Goods and usually get some pissy a-hole on the other end. I would then keep him the phone and harass him until someone went and checked the most incoming shipment of over goods packages.
So the thing is about once a year the company would auction off the whole TRAILER(s) of unopened packages. Places like Ocean State Job Lot, Building 19 ect ect would buy them. Now you know how a lot of that stuff gets on the shelves. I’m now wondering how much horse semen containers ended up in those purchases, lols!
Hey guys I am going to regret this maybe 
but I work for FedEx and I also used to work in customer service in a horsey area and we knew how important the semen was and all the stuff you are describing sounds awful. But seriously if you are having an issue with FedEx Customer service PM me. If I am online I will step in and help. I have many years of locating missing items, expediting important items, etc and I am very sorry to hear of the troubles you have had. I truly will help you!
P.S. and as for the Post office the majority of their overnight stuff travels with us on our planes. But again, in an unofficial capacity I am so sorry to all of you!
[QUOTE=bizbachfan;6314565]
Hey guys I am going to regret this maybe but I work for FedEx and I also used to work in customer service in a horsey area and we knew how important the semen was and all the stuff you are describing sounds awful. But seriously if you are having an issue with FedEx Customer service PM me. If I am online I will step in and help. I have many years of locating missing items, expediting important items, etc and I am very sorry to hear of the troubles you have had. I truly will help you![/QUOTE]
I’ve learned that many FedEx employees DO know how important the shippers are. While I’ve had some probs in the past, one memorable experience was due to the semen shipper messing up the address. As I chased FedEx trucks across the County (the tracking info alerted me to the prob), once I caught up with one truck (waving frantically) he took one look at me and said “You must be looking for that semen shipment”!!! (only in the horse-world :)…guess he knew what a crazy horse person looks like when he sees one) He didn’t have it on HIS truck, but the drivers had called each other to try and figure out the address. He dialed the correct driver and let me give him directions to my place. I appreciated that, as there was around $3k in frozen DNA that tank!
Anyway, thank you bizbachfan for your great customer service attitude!!
thanks Indy-Lou, yes some of us really do care a lot!!! I have chartered planes before to get single package where it needed to be.
I have dealt with my fair share of FedEx customer service people and if the person who is on the line isn’t helping, I demand to speak to a supervisor. We do a lot of business with FedEx and I’m not going to get blown off by someone who doesn’t appreciate what is at stake. I’m glad to say that a majority of the time the person on the other end of the line does the best they can to help me. And I am sure to let them know my appreciation for their help. I have only had one major FedEx meltdown this year and our FedEx agent took the issues to his superiors. Everything was made right and I am glad our FedEx agent seems to give a crap about us.
Kathy - that really sucks about the pick up time. I can only imagine what life would be like here if that were the case. How will it work with USPS, as I had heard they were discontinuing their overnight service in order to save money?
I’m a client of Crossroads Farm and watching what she went through with FedEX scared the beejezus out of me as I’m breeding my maiden mare to Banderas- and of course the turkey went from a 41mm to a 54mm in less than 24 hrs so timing was critical. A huge thank you to Jennifer for getting me the goods so quickly and bizbachfan who had some additional insight- FedEX was on top of their game and I just came from breeding her. Sorry you had to go through that CF!
I’ve used FedEx for years, and (touch wood) they have been for the most part excellent.
The company I boycott is UPS.
They own their own brokerage firm so everything shipped from the US to Canada is ‘brokered’ by them across the border - and of course they charge for it.
They call it a “service they provide to their clients” - I call it a cash grab.
Last week,a client returned an equitaner to me by UPS, and (once again) I had to pay a brokerage fee to UPS to get my own empty container back.
This NEVER happens with FedEx!
I would not recommend UPS for anything, ever.
grrrrrr…
FRED !!
You have an envelope coming from Virginia, your PM box is full !
[QUOTE=Crossroads Farm;6308794]
Today- awesome stallion owner fed exes me a shipment that, according to tracking all along, will arrive before noon. Vet’s here at noon, set-up, waiting… No delivery. Called FedEx. They tell me it’s still sitting in Memphis, and they’ll deliver it tomorrow! Ummmmm- no, not alright! After arguing up through the supervisor again, they manage to get it on a flight, and I might have it by 9:30 tonight… They even admitted that it had arrived in Memphis at 2am, but couldn’t give me a reason it hadn’t been on an earlier flight to me. And they couldn’t have cared less that I was upset. My poor vet is coming back at 10pm. If we miss this mare, I will understand “going postal.” They’re lucky I don’t own a gun. What happened to “when you absolutely, positively, have to have it there overnight???”[/QUOTE]
OMG, the SAME thing happened to me this week!!!
Stallion owner shipped semen last Monday from CA for delivery to Tampa on Tuesday before noon. Vet office found out the shipment “missed its connecting flight in Memphis” and that FedEx then said they would deliver it on Wednesday. Vet office said h.e.l.l. no! So FedEx finally put it on a flight and said it would arrive by 9 pm Tuesday. Well, guess what? They put it on a flight to ORLANDO! But they didn’t say anything until after the shipment didn’t arrive by 9 pm and my vet office once again started making more phone calls. So, then FedEx said they would put it on another flight from Orlando to Tampa that night. But NO…before they could make that happen, someone in Orlando put it on a slow truck to Tampa. It didn’t arrive to the vet until 10:30 am on Wedesday! Grrrr…
Now to see that FedEx did this same thing in Memphis just a week prior to you!? They should have KNOWN better that they can’t just shrug and deliver it a day later! Mine was even in an equitainer, not some obscure disposable box. No question but that it had a short shelf life.
One word, INSURE with FedEx. Insurance for $750 only costs $5-10? but it gives them a reason to move their butts to save the big money, rather than yawn and refund just your shipping fee.
Then track it every couple of hours. Don’t wait until things go wrong, it is YOUR package. No one is going to care like you do - vets office included.
Update- the mare that we bred on a “not sure how far post-ovulation hail mary, because Fedex decided on their own that they couldn’t deliver to me on Sat. since my farm was a business, and business’s aren’t open on Sat,” just got checked in foal!!! Vet and I high-fived on that one!
Thanks to Jennifer at Dreamscape- she is a rockstar stallion owner! Switch stallions at the last minute? No problem. Collect right now? No problem. Get it to me from Canada with very little notice? On a weekend? With a Canadian holiday coming up? No problem. Can’t wait for our Checkmate and Banderas foals next year! And big thank you to bizbachfan- we’ve had two Canadian Fedex shipments since, that she has personally tracked from the inside for us! Both came through trouble free
