It’s upsetting and disappointing to see a Fortune 100 corporation use unscrupulous tactics to preclude their own customers from collecting on their own policy! The money-back-guarantee policy, which is displayed below is offered under the FedEx Service Guide for express, ground, and international shipments.
FedEx’s Express US Money Back Guarantee Details
Recently here at 71lbs, we have learned that more and more of our customers have received ‘waivers’ on their accounts, meaning that they have agreed to waive their right to file claims and get refunds for late deliveries. This would be OK if the customer knowingly agreed to waiving this right. The problem is that the carrier is slipping these waivers into the customer’s FedEx account, without any knowledge whatsoever from the customer. The customers are inadvertently agreeing to this when signing new agreements, asking if there have been changes to their agreement and told that their agreement is the same or even better pricing at times.
Response from FedEx when a claim is requested on an account with a waiver
Each day, we get calls from customers who are being coerced by their FedEx sales rep, telling them that unless they agree to the waiver, the customer will not be receiving any favorable discounts or pricing terms. Since the majority of customers significantly rely on either of the two carriers for their parcel shipping, they are at the mercy of the carrier’s terms and conditions. In addition, we have learned that FedEx is systematically adding a waiver on the FedEx PRS pricing system, and the sales rep has to proactively remove that waiver before any new pricing contract is submitted.
Here are three actions you can do now to get on top of this:
#1 We ask our customers to be more aware of this issue! Ask your FedEx sales rep to give you a status of your FedEx account. Has a waiver been inadvertently posted? If yes, ask/tell them to remove it, as you probably didn’t say, "sure, I don’t want to be able to file a claim when you don’t deliver on time!"
#2 Speak up to your sales rep — if you are looking at renewing your agreement or negotiating a new one, you don’t have to accept a waiver! And most likely you can still get the same pricing.
The waiver is not only seen with FedEx — we are now seeing UPS customers receiving declination of refunds due to service failures.
You HAVE to be aware, ask questions and don’t accept someone from the carrier telling you that that’s just the way it is — if the carriers do not deliver according to their guarantees, you should be able to make a claim for a refund. Simply put, they sell you on being able to get timely shipments, hold them accountable for what you are already paying for!
