FedEx customs nightmare... Never again FedEx!

I feel sorry for Roger Federer for sharing the same nickname as this big bloated company with terrible customer service. They have lost me as a customer forever. UPS, here I come!

So I had to send some documents to India. Very important documents to me, but worthless to anyone else. To my unaccustomed-to-shipping-service mind, this was just the thing fedex existed for. Quick, safe and guaranteed delivery.

1. Shipped the envelope on 17th May (open on Saturdays! Go FedEx!)

2. Got delivery estimate of Wednesday 21st May (Quick! Go FedEx!)

3. Wednesday morning it showed that it reached Mumbai (Safe! Go FedEx!)

Then disaster struck.

4. Clearance Delay. An ominous red exclamation mark on the tracking page.

Customer has requested non-express clearance.

Recommended action:

No action required at this time.

Reason for delay:

Unknown status: Non-FedEx broker.

Recommended action:

Responsible party contact broker.  

Huh! What does this mean? Should I take action or not based on recommendation? Who is a broker? Is FedEx a broker? Why are they referring to themselves in 3rd person?

5. Called the 1800 number to make sense of it all. The very courteous, always apologizing customer service representative asked me to confirm what the package was. "Just documents" I said. "No obstacles?" she asked. "Obstacles? There is a file folder, is that an obstacle for some scanner?" I asked. She made the relevant notes on the case, also took down the recipient's contact information. OK. so that was all that was missing I thought. Somewhere down the line they lost the recipient's contact number and the description of the package.

6. Then I and the recipient get this email from the fedex India office

Please find attached above is the airway bill and invoice for your reference. The shipment has arrived in Mumbai under Cargo mode.

Kindly forward an authority letter along with demand draft in favor of “Federal Express Corporation” towards delivery order charges with your CHA.

Cargo? Envelopes go in cargo? Who knows, maybe its jargon for something I dont know. Looked at the invoice and found this. WTF!! Optical transmitters? Headed for Taiwan? And I have to pay import duty?? For this??? Where is my package then? On its way to Taiwan instead?? Oh shit! Oh shit! What do I do?

7. Once I recovered from the mini freakout, I reasoned with myself. This is a big company, mistakes happen. The airway bill was correct. Maybe just the wrong invoice was attached. I just have to call customer support and make them aware of it. They can surely deal with Indian customs, being big name shippers, they probably have their express channels.

8. Again called 1800. I think they are trained to constantly apologize and not solve anything. The first person I talked to said FedEx cant do anything, I have to talk to a broker in India to release the package from customs. Who the hell is a customs broker? I only know of stock brokers and property brokers. How do I find a broker in India? And why should I need a broker for a 1 pound envelope of documents?? And why should I pay??? Round and round it went, him insisting I must pay for the transmitters because thats whats on the invoice, me trying to tell him the invoice is wrong. Finally got shunted to the trace department supervisor Tessa. She went through the same grind, till I finally read out the commercial invoice to her (note to self: when customer support puts you on hold while they retrieve case files, they are not actually retrieving all the files). After I read it out to her, she finally pulled out the invoice on her end. I asked her to compare the tracking number on the invoice and the waybill. Both were different (obviously!). 

9. Finally she admitted fedex got it wrong. Thank the heavens! Asked me to email my copy of the receipt, waybill and invoice. Which I did promptly. I had no template for invoice, so used their template of commercial invoice, which they themselves provided.

10. I thought I was finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The fedex trace department will kick into action and clear this misunderstanding in a jiffy. Tessa even promised to follow up with me with updates on this. I thought, how nice. 

11. Who knew this was a start of a 2 week and still ongoing ordeal. FedEx India emailed me again, saying Mumbai customs will have to inspect the package and apply a fine for misdeclaration. WTF again! Why am I on the dock? Did I not spend an hour with customer support getting them to admit it was fedex's mistake? Did that memo not reach India? Why cant fedex usa and india sync up? Why do I have to act as a liaison? They later sent me 6 more forms to fill. Asked for recipients passport information. The recipient was now an "importer" and I was an "exporter". The recipient was given an import declaration form to fill. Knowing Indian bureaucracy and its affinity for paperwork, I was not surprised. But considering fedex was a big name company, I expected them to shoulder some of the responsibility. You cant dump random complicated import forms on customers and expect them to figure it out themselves. I am not a commercial exporter. Neither am I a customs broker. This was all just a mistake! On the part of FedEx! Why cant they solve it? Why wash hands off it and dump it all on us?

12. At the time of posting this, we filled out the forms to the best of our ability and emailed to fedEx. Their clearing agent now wants the paper copy of the forms signed and attested. FedEx India and their clearing agent are now arguing over what more paperwork is required. I feel the paperwork will never end.. it will soon rival the size of the package we are trying to get released from customs office. FedEx USA meanwhile decides to grace me with a 6:50am wake up call saying the recipient has refused to pay. Huh? What? Pay duty? Why? Did we not make it clear a week ago that this was not a commercial package? Is this groundhog day?

Never again FedEx.. never again.