FEDEX Routing Firearms Differently Than Other Packages?

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BenW

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I dropped a pistol off at FEDEX yesterday and was just checking the tracking info. The pistol went from Goleta, CA to Los Angeles (South), then to Phoenix, AZ (further South), then Back to Los Angeles, then up to Oakland, CA (further North!), then back to Phoenix and off to Prescott, AZ and out for delivery.

Why would it go from Phoenix all the way to Oakland then back to Phoenix again unless it was flagged for inspection or similar? Anyone else have this experience?
 
"Why would it go from Phoenix all the way to Oakland then back to Phoenix again unless it was flagged for inspection or similar? Anyone else have this experience?"

Sounds like a company miscue more than anything else. Possibly it was not put on the truck as it was 'sposed to be, but was shown as such in the computer. Or, a "sleepy" dock/warehouse worker who put it on the wrong truck out of Phoenix the first time. These things, while most likely rare, could happen in a high volume business. You can kinda check by looking at the tracking record and see if the transit times look close to what you would expect.

It would not make sense to send it all the way out there just to inspect it and send it back.
 
Most next-day air shipments go to a hub, even if the direction is backwards or out of the way. Even if you're sending a package say from Detroit to the East Coast it might go to say Oklahoma first just because it's more efficient to send everything to one hub, and sort it there, than it is to try and divvy up all the routes onto individual flights.

So while there's allways going to be a minority of packages that "go out of their way", the vast majority make up for it in efficiency.

As long as they're fufilling their delivery oblication, 1 day, 2 days etc. they haven't had time to monkey with your pistol. Just avoid putting anything that identifies your package as a pistol, be it the box, or the shipping or recieving address.

If you were sending something to the "Shooters Shop" in say, West Allis, WI, I'd address it as "S.S. inc. West Allis, WI" etc. instead.

I would assume that the loaders and box handlers do not have access to the declared contents info in the computer systems by design.
 
Some companies use regional shipping hubs that all packages in a certain area go to. Oakland probably had the closest hub.

Edit: AJ beat me to it.
 
I'm a FedEx Ground package handler, however, the following is not an official opinion of FedEx Ground.


The most likely reason is the person loading the truck failed to properly inspect the ZIP code on the package as they were loading it into the truck. Misloads like this occur from time-to-time, especially with new employees, or when an employee rushes and gets careless, or when they are just not paying attention. The company and its' employees continually strive to provide dependable, timely service with no problems or delays for the customer. However, things happen despite mountains of preventive measures.

On behalf of FedEx and all of my fellow employees, I apologize for any delays getting your pistol to its' final destination. I feel wholly confident that your pistol was not tampered with at any point during its' journey. For one thing, I'm certain the people pushing it along were too busy to even notice what it was. Also, there are too many other eyes, both human and video, in all areas of a FedEx hub for someone to open a package, remove a pistol, and tamper with it without drawing a LOT of attention.

Another possibility is that the original truck was only filled to a small percentage, so they may have put up a load net and filled the back of the truck with packages for another destination. The truck may have gone to the destination for the stuff now in the rear of the truck, where it would have been off-loaded and combined with packages from that hub going to the hub your package was bound for.

Frank


After rereading the route your package took, there is another possibility. Since it went to to LA, then to Phoenix, and back to LA, it's possible the person loading it into the truck misread the shipping sticker in Phoenix and thought it was going from Phoenix to CA, instead of from CA to AZ. Unfortunately, that happens once in awhile when the flow is going pretty fast and furious. Again, I apologize on behalf of FedEx.
 
Thanks for the explanation OEF_VET. I freely admit I always have a tin foil hat firmly in place anytime I ship a gun. I ship a lot of stuff via FEDEX through work, and have never had a problem. This was my first time shipping a pistol via FEDEX (having had a couple of bad experiences with UPS), so between what seemed an odd shipping route and my own paranoid tendencies :D , I started running Big Brother scenarios.

Anyway, it showed up at its destination just fine (Don Williams at The Action Works) so now all I'll be doing is sitting on pins and needles waiting to get it back after Don works his magic on it. :)
 
FWIW, I sent a pistol back to Illinois via "FedEx Priority Overnight Early AM Most Expensive Shipping There Is" shipping and it went directly from LA to some airport in Illinois, the up to another (local, I suppose) airport in Illinois, then to it's final destination via truck. No "hubs", no back and forth, just directly there.

I think they just made a booboo with your package, as OEF_VET suggested.
 
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