[Resolved]  Fedex — misinformation and unethical handling of grievance

Address:

400089

In aug this year, i decided to send a parcel to guyaquil in ecuador to my daughter. Her birthday was approaching and i wanted to send her gifts, cards and food as she was away from home for the first time.

Since this was my first experience with international courier, i researched rates, and settled for fedex. My husband who is and i are currently reside in navsari, gujarat. I found a fedex agent and started to find out the kind of items i could send to her. I was told that food was a banned item so i decided to leave that out. I eventually got my items together after consultation and took it all to him, to be put together by him in a predetermined carton, as is the process.

I consulted the person for every item i wanted to put in the parcel. I asked about custom duty as well. These were the things i was told:
-all clothes.. Personal and gifts are allowed
- there would be no customs duty whatsoever
- the final invoice and rate of items in the parcel will be decided in mumbai
- even though food is not allowed, a packed box of son papdi would be fine (He persuaded me to add a box to utilise the weight that i was paying for, to its fullest)
- there is no need to count exact items, just an approximation will do (He actually stopped me from counting and said everything will get finalised in mumbai).

I was tracking the parcel as it reached guyaquil but didn't get delivered. My daughter called a number there, and was told that it will be released only after customs duty was paid. There was a food box inside that was banned and she has to allow them to remove it. She sent a mail agreeing the food box (Half kg son papdi) be removed, and asked why customs duty and how much. She was replied in broken english that that is something the customs officials determined but the amount was never told to her.
I took over from india, wrote online, and sent the agent in guyaquil a mail demanding to know the amount, and that since most of the things were birthday cards, gifts and her personal clothes and new clothes, why customs duty. I even wrote to fedex agent in mumbai and navsari raising my concerns.

The fedex agent there said that personal used clothes were a banned item and sent it again to the customs agent to reopen the parcel. They removed a vintage saree that belonged to my grandmother that i had sent to her to wear for an indian dance that she was choreographing for her school kids, that i cant just put a price on; gift bags that had been missed in the invoice; they told my daughter to change the amount of the rates on the invoice for the items that the agent in mumbai had not included at all: and instructed her to change the rates on other items as well. She did it after translating since everything was in spanish and how do you put a price on birthday cards sent by a huge amount of family and friends.

I continued to write online expressing my concerns. I was told that they will put me on to the person in charge.

Finally the fedex agent in mumbai said that the ecuador agent had sent him a mail that my daughter should pay an x amount of customs duty, a y amount as penalty for wrong invoice immediately or the parcel would be destroyed within 24 hours. Desperate for her birthday cards, she paid the amount and took the parcel.

She is a volunteer there teaching english to public school children. She had to borrow the money from around and pay them and then i transferred the money to her. The amount of customs duty was never told to her inspite of both o[censored]s repeatedly asking so that she could arrange the money there in a strange country where she had barely arrived a month back. The customs duty and penalty was far above the total amount of the items, except for my grandmother's saree that was anyway removed.

Nobody from fedex got back to me except to say, we are looking into it. After more than a month of collecting the parcel, i get a mail saying it's not our fault, please take it up with the forwarder. This is the first time i had heard the word forwarder.

The forwarder in navsari said, there is a line in the invoice that says he is not accountable. Navsari forwarder says he was trying to help me. Mumbai agent said we put rates to help our customers and of course customs duty has to be paid.

I have a few issues:
-a forwarder is also representing fedex even if he is not your employee. Him giving me erroneous information is tantamount to fedex giving me misinformation. I wish i could have made an informed choice. Misinformation was of no help at all and cost me money, loss of time, loss of precious goods, and a whole lot of mental stress and trauma.
- items were missed in the invoice and i was told that it will be finalised in mumbai. I landed up paying g a penalty for it.
- the agent in mumbai put the rates on items that my daughter was asked to modify by the agent in ecuador.
- people took longer than a month to respond and refuse to take responsibility. They still co time to respond with generalise statements once a month, status g, sorry for the inconvenience caused, but refusing to do a thing about it.

It was mental harassment and torture to lose a precious item, to miss the important date of the birthday, and to have to shell out approx usd 280.

All i had wanted was a formal apology, a reimbursement of the money we had to shell out, and a token o[censored]sd 1 for the item taken out.

Now i feel really aggrieved with the lack of response and accountability. I feel the need to escalate it and take it further.

If you need additional information, i will be happy to provide it.