Tag Archives: fedex

shipped fedex from beverly hills, ca to exton, pa then painting goes poof?

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NBC 10 Philadelphia’s Deanna Durante has done the most comprehensive reporting to date on what looks like an 18th century painting of an unknown man which quite literally walked OUT of a FedEx location in Exton. I am guessing the one on Creamery Way since they said not normally open to street traffic? Anyway the news says “FedEx Ground location” and it’s West Whiteland Police asking for the public’s help, so I am guessing this is the location still?

CBS 3 Philadelphia also covered this, MyChesco, Patch, and well me.

art theft in chester county from fedex ground location!

So Downingtown Auction House? I know it’s got to be whom I am thinking of and they are wonderful and this is not them. They have been around, and do lots of American and portraits. This painting was shipped from Beverly Hills, CA I am told by a woman who used auctioneers in the past. That makes me wonder if she is an ex-Chester County native? An ex-pat so to speak? That is what I hypothesize, right or wrong.

Things that strike me as odd include: do we know the subject of the portrait or the painter? NBC 10 Reporter Deanna Durante’s report indicated other authorities perhaps getting involved who deal in art theft? And possibly being listed on a website called Art Loss Registry.

I do not pretend to know much about 18th century portrait painters, but as far as auctioning something, often people will send stuff to auction where they think they have a market. So I wonder if that is in part why a Downingtown, PA auction house was chosen? Could this painting have regional historical interest? This is of course why my inner Nancy Drew wishes authorities would release more information on the painting. Perhaps if we knew more about the painting, we could know more about why it was stolen, unless it was just a crime of opportunity perhaps originating in California and now whomever is stuck with a hot potato? What are authorities in California saying, for example?

So West Whiteland PD says it shipped from Beverly Hills, CA? If you Google there are 3 active Beverly Hills FedEx locations, or so I discovered. Maybe I am wrong, I don’t know. I am not exactly an expert on Beverly Hills.

So, it was prepared by a business in California and shipped FedEx ground? You would need someone to expertly crate it and ship it, right? I know FedEx can do that, I have done that through the FedEx in Malvern. But one thing about the FedEx in Malvern. A couple of times I have missed a delivery and had to go there to pick it up. I have had to show ID and so forth, so I am still confused as to WHY the person at FedEx in Exton released the painting?

I will note, that I do NOT believe UPS will let you change where something is delivered to once it is shipped, but someone will have to verify that. No clue about USPS because I do not see them as an avenue of shipping for art, do you? Again, maybe I am wrong.

Deanna Durante’s report mentions the painting may have been re-frames and may have “L Parks” on the back of it. It was packed and shipped at a FedEx in Beverly Hills. Christie’s Auctions actually has an article about how the BACK of a painting can tell as much of a story as the subject and painter of a painting.

I am kind of fascinated that I can’t find any media in the Los Angeles area talking about this yet. Maybe it will end up just stealing for stealing, but maybe it is because of whomever painted the painting or whom the subject was?

Doesn’t it seem this is a total FedEx thing? After all, has FedEx piped up about this at all? So FedEx is this an “inside job” that started in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills?

Police say this painting was taken Friday, January 27, 2023 at 7:15 A.M. Since the public has only recently heard of this can we say the poor lady who owned it exhausted all avenues with FedEx? Yes, I know, I am becoming repetitive. I am just fascinated by this, as are lots of people.

If you see the painting, please call police. Or wouldn’t it be nice if the thief just RETURNED the painting?

art theft in chester county from fedex ground location!

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OMG it’s an art heist right here in Chester County!

Another CrimeWatch PA announcement for West Whiteland Police Department caught my eye today:

West Whiteland Police Department:

THEFT OF PAINTING

The West Whiteland Township Police Department is investigating the theft of a painting. The painting was shipped by a woman from Beverly Hills to a auction business in Downingtown. An unknown person picked the item up at the FedEx Ground facility in Exton.

The painting has not been recovered.

A photo of the painting is attached.

Call Sgt. McCloskey or Det. Pezick if you have any information. Date:

Friday, January 27, 2023 – 7:15am

Incident Type: Theft Reference ID: WW-23-01853 Case

Type: Criminal Source: West Whiteland Police Department

Sourced via CRIMEWATCH®: https://chester.crimewatchpa.com/westwhitelandpd/14787/cases/theft-painting

OK so the date up there is January 27, 2023? why has it been so long before we would find out about this if it was a theft and I’m presuming it’s a pretty tasty, art theft, right?

So how many auction houses are considered to be in Downingtown, Pennsylvania? Two?

I went and looked up this FedEx Ground location. It’s on Creamery Way in Exton. It has a shockingly bad rating on Google of 2.3! And there are reviewers who accuse this location of theft. All you have to do is go read the reviews if you don’t believe me.

So I wonder did they really just give it to a random person or is this an inside job?

And if this occurred in January why is it only being reported now is it because the sender of the painting and whichever auction house it is have exhausted all avenues with FedEx and they went to the police?

I just also wonder how the FedEx could just kind of let a big piece of art walk out of the door? Don’t they have security cameras? Don’t they ask people for ID? Don’t they sign for a package?

I am totally fascinated by this and I hope the media picks up on it and runs with it. And I hope somebody goes to FedEx and FedEx corporate and ask them how paintings just kind of go missing? I would also like to know which auction house it was because I feel sorry for them.

I have posted the painting a few different times throughout this post because I tried lighting it differently so you could see the image better.

This is literally a Nancy Drew Mystery. I would love to know who the portrait is supposed to be and what it’s perceived value is? And is this one of those things were they get the FBI art theft unit involved?

Stay tuned.

customer service is dying in the u.s.a.

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This started out as a simple phone call to Harry & David, now owned by 1-800-Flowers. You see, friends from far away sent us an unexpected and lovely but very perishable Christmas present. The gift shipped out of Harry & David in Atlanta, GA on December 3rd, 2022. It arrived, rather warm, not frozen yesterday…December 11th. That is 1-800-food-poisoning territory. FedEx Home Delivery was the shipping partner they chose. FedEx rarely does anything screwy, ironically.

We thanked our friends, and today I called Harry & David. I wanted to let them know this happened. That’s bad when it’s something truly perishable. This was truly perishable.

The first time I phoned I got an offshore call center and I could not understand the person. So I was polite and ended the call so I could call back.

The second time I phoned, I got an even worse offshore call center person, so I said please transfer me to a United States based customer service representative. They argued with me. I said look, it’s complicated, please transfer me. Oh no we can’t do that, was the reply. Yes, you actually can I said. They transferred me to another person within their offshore call center. I hung up.

The third time I phoned Harry & David customer service, I was still in an offshore call center. I repeated my request for a United States based customer service person. They transferred me within their call center…again. The woman starts her spiel and I flat out interrupted her. I told her this was my third phone call and I know for a fact they can transfer customers to the US call center. Wouldn’t do it. So I ended THAT call.

My fourth phone call landed me offshore again and I repeated my simple request to THAT person. She actually transferred me. Once in a US call center I got a super nice lady named Karen who understood my issue and me.

It shouldn’t be that difficult to get a customer service representative on the phone.

I also penned a little note to the companies and their CEOS:

Dear Harry & David, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC. and Steven Lightman,

Your customer service leave a great deal to be desired. It is now offshore. It took THREE tries today to get someone to transfer me to a US based customer service person. They kept saying “Yes ma’am” and then transferring me to others in their offshore location – not sure where. I finally got through to someone in US with my 4th try, so should I bill you for my time at my hourly rate?

The reason I was calling is someone sent us an expensive and perishable gift. It shipped on December 3rd. FedEx Office Small Business Resource Center delivered it on December 11th or yesterday. (Hey Raj Subramaniam I guess you need to hear this too!)

Customer service is a dying art form, and US companies need to stop outsourcing it.

I mean that. Customer Service is a dying art form. Take a recent experience with Slice, the Pizza App. I had liked using them because local businesses I liked were on them. And you could use PayPal and not store a credit card. Their customer service at first was excellent.

In November I ordered Pizza one night. Whom I wanted to order from wasn’t delivering that night so I used Slice to order from Tonito’s on Boot Road in West Chester. Quite possibly the worst pizza I’ve ever had. The entire order was also wrong. I don’t know how else to explain it. Nothing was right and the pizza was overcooked with skimpy toppings that made Dominos looks better, and local Dominos is NOT good. We threw it out.

I contacted Slice and they contacted Tonito’s. Basically Tonito’s said I was lying, so I went back to Slice with the actual order. No surprise, Slice said “Oh, you are right.”. Tonito’s gave me a teeny sliver of the $74.00 I spent back. I said to Slice, I never ask for refund, but this order screw up was the worst ever so I am asking for a refund. Slice tells me no at first then their corporate owner contacts me via Twitter and says yes I deserve a refund. I never got the refund.

Slice and I are breaking up. I decide to send them one more note now since I was writing about the death of customer service in corporate America.

Gosh another bad customer service #shoutout since I am now writing about customer service being a dying art form. Slice, you are also on a highlight because I am still waiting for that refund I was supposed to get since like….November 22nd? The one your corporate owner/founder Ilir Sela said would happen.

So Slice and the whole giving me a refund? A lie. So we are breaking up, and it’s sad because for a while they were better than GrubHub and Door Dash (which I will not use.)

Yes I know, it’s a take no prisoners kind of day. But part of my corporate life was always customer service. You are nothing if you do not provide customer service in customer service driven industries. I am not saying take countless gobs of crap unnecessarily, but I am saying provide actual customer service. Off shore call centers are cheaper and make corporate bean counters happy, but it doesn’t make customers happy.

Another example? A senior friend got scammed via her A T&T account. I don’t even want to think of the countless hours she has spent filing police reports and reports with A T & T and more to prove that no, she didn’t actually buy a shiny new over-priced iPad and goodness knows what else.

And then there is another friend, a widow in upstate New York. She bought a deer that lights up from Cracker Barrel . It arrived broken. All $432 of it including tax. She can’t get anyone on the phone or to return a phone call.

Customer service in the United States is all but dead. Customer service departments are all outsourced to people who do not necessarily or literally speak our language and only read off of a script.

Mind you I know businesses which pride themselves on customer service, but they are the exception rather than the rule and they are mostly local and small businesses who still care about their customers.

R.I.P. Customer Service.

the sisterhood of the traveling rug

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This could be considered a cautionary tale. To pay attention when you’re bidding on things in an out-of-state auction. More specifically pay attention as to how you will get the item home.

Just after the New Year I was checking out an online auction down in Charleston, South Carolina. There was this old red-ish rug in an old house on an old floor that was like my dream rug of what I had been searching for to decorate with in my dining room.

I am not a giant fan of wall-to-wall carpet. I like hardwood floors and area rugs. And my favorite area rugs are old Persian and oriental rugs, most of which (like most people) I cannot afford. So like many other things when it comes to decorating you have to get creative. You check out auctions, you check out house sales, you go barn picking.

So when I saw this rug I knew if I could get it at a reasonable price, I would finally have what I wanted. I am not one of those people who was fortunate enough to inherit old rugs like this from family members as hand-me-downs. And it’s hard to find a decent sized oriental or Persian or Afghan rug that isn’t brutally expensive even if it is in rough shape.

Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that certain kinds of rugs aren’t being made as much in their originating countries as they once were and when relationships with countries change with the US it means things aren’t being imported much either. Another factor are consignment stores and dealers jacking prices for their profit margins. Mind you, we live in a free market society and if that’s what they want to charge that is their right. However, it is my right as a thrifty soul to shop a better bargain.

There were other rugs in this auction in particular and this would’ve been considered a lesser quality rug, although for me it was what I wanted. So I set an absentee bid (and it was low) and walked away from the auction site. Much to my surprise no one really bid on it except for one other person. And they seemed to lose interest in it and in the end to my surprise I got it and got it for a song. I got it for like a true garage sale price which seriously shocked me.

I have won rugs in auctions before. If you are working with an honest to God budget or just don’t have a lot of money it is sometimes your only option. The key is to know the auctioneer, and in this case it was a Caring Transitions franchise.

After I won the rug I waited to see when they would invoice me for shipping. I contacted the auctioneer and this was a learning curve for both of us.

This is a room size rug pretty much – a smaller room but then again I have a small house. As I noted previously, I have won rugs in auctions before and I’ve had them shipped to me FedEx. They come insured, you have to sign for them – you have to be home to take receipt and it’s generally speaking pretty easy.

This time it wasn’t so easy. Some auction houses have their own personnel who pack and ship items if they agree to pack and ship. Other auction houses and auctioneers have a third party pack and ship items. In this case it was finding a third-party to pack and ship who didn’t want to gouge me for many times over what I actually paid for the rug.

One company told the auctioneer around $425 and that wasn’t necessarily including all the fees and what not that they charge. Another company told the auctioneer well over $500. Neither the auctioneer or myself expected this at all. I did not know what to do so I reached out to a friend of mine that lives in the area of the auctioneer. She agreed with me that the price was crazy.

This is where it becomes the sisterhood of the traveling rug.

My friend offered to get the rug and take it to FedEx and have them pack and ship it. Because that’s what I have done in the past and it was quite reasonable in price.

My friend went to the warehouse where it was being stored and nobody was there to greet her. So in the end, the auctioneer kindly had the rug I purchased delivered to her home and she took it to FedEx. FedEx charged me (with significant insurance for safety purposes) a little over $95. Not $400 not $500.

The rug arrived this morning and I signed for it. Now I have an appointment with my rug cleaner who will come and pick it up and take it out to be cleaned and have a mat cut for it. I am able to afford to do that because I didn’t just settle for what these packing and shipping companies said should be the charge.

So that is my cautionary tale. And I will tell you that when I spoke with the FedEx man this morning he said he had delivered something else locally a while back – a musical instrument – and the man who receive the package was charged over $500 to ship it by a third party pack and ship company.

So when it comes to these subcontractors I guess it’s caveat emptor or buyer beware… and do your homework.

And yes I know some people are going to read this post and think I am crazy hunting down an old rug. So many people will say “why not just buy a new one?” That part is easy. I love vintage. I like the character of old and vintage items. I just don’t like the price tag sometimes which is why you shop around.

Many thanks to my friend who helped me get my rug to me. She is and always has been aces.

’tis the season for undelivered packages with lasership

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From LaserShip’s Twitter Page. Oh the irony.

I did not think it was possible for there to be worse delivery services than Amazon Logistics ( I wrote about finding an entire big bag of dumped Amazon packages in September.) but there is worse.  They are called LaserShip or affectionately known as LazyShip and LaserSh*t.

Before I get any further, enjoy this video someone did on LaserShip who delivers for all sorts of people including Sephora, Chewy, and Amazon:

Here is what New York Magazine said about them in 2017:

SEPT. 27, 2017
LaserShip, Amazon’s New Shipping Partner, Might Be the Most Hated Company on the Internet
By Dan Nosowitz New York Magazine

There are certain industries that inspire outsize amounts of rage when they screw up. Airlines are one. TV providers are another. But angry comment for angry comment, there may be no more rage-inducing business than package delivery. If you want to garner widespread customer fury, just deliver a package late or damaged and wait for the storm to roll in. LaserShip — an Uber-like service that delivers packages for Amazon, Walmart, and Sephora, among others — might just be the most hated company on the internet. Some comments, helpfully gathered by the criticism website LaserShit.com…LaserShip — and the ocean of dissatisfied customers it leaves in its wake — is an inevitable result of stratospheric growth. Reliable shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and the USPS aren’t able to deliver all of the same-day, next-day, and two-day packages ….That’s led to parasitic companies popping up to take advantage of Amazon’s need for cheap, fast package delivery. The poster child might just be LaserShip.

Twitter and many message boards, including posts on Amazon’s own forums, are full of complaints about LaserShip. Packages aren’t delivered. Packages are delivered late ….Packages are marked as delivered and not delivered. Packages are delivered to the wrong address. Packages are often just completely lost. (The message for that one is, “LaserShip is unable to confirm control of your package at this time.”) Sometimes, an error will show up on the tracking page: “Parcel damaged and will be discarded.” Customers who attempt to contact LaserShip report being totally unable to solve their problems; they are better off contacting ….whichever company they originally purchased their item from.

My experience started innocently enough. I needed pet food.  So I placed a Chewy.com order. On November 27.  Two day free delivery or free rush delivery (however they phrase it) and here we are on December 3rd…still waiting. (The website “pissed consumer” has over 1000 complaints about LaserShip.)

This is what my order looks like:

lazyship

When the order did not arrive by Friday, November 30, I started contacting Chewy.  First LaserShip told them there was a weather exception between Montgomeryville, PA and Chester County, PA. I debunked that myth for the lie that it was.

Then of course there is LaserShip on Twitter telling me to just email them. Ummm yeah, been doing THAT for a few days and NOT ONCE have I even received an acknowledgement that I contacted them. I even checked my spam folder.

Then I was supposed to get the delivery yesterday. After a phone call to LaserShip’s corporate offices in Vienna, Virginia (703 761-9030) and they subsequently transferred me to Montgomeryville, PA they changed their story yet again.  Supposedly my package was on a truck yesterday and the guy just never bothered to deliver.  And then the package wasn’t on the truck today and they did not know where it was and by the end of the conversation the story changed yet again.  My package was “somewhere” in the warehouse and would get delivered tomorrow, December 4th.

I do not believe them. I had to go out and buy other pet food.  I also let the pet food manufacturer know what was going on. You see, I only went back to Chewy to support them.

LaserShip doesn’t give a damn about me or my package and I know that.  I called them because sometimes you just have to. (You can also call LaserShip on 800-527-3764 or  804 -414-2590).

As consumers we are being  increasingly driven to online shopping every day, and what we lose is good customer service and companies that actually take pride in what they do. And these predatory shipping companies are also not paying employees well enough so they do not want to take pride in their work.  I have been told that by several sources when it comes to the drivers of Amazon Logistics out of the King of Prussia PA hub which services us around here, and well LaserShip is the same subcontracting business model, correct?

Problems with LaserShip are all over social media. It’s kind of crazy. They are really THAT bad.

Anyway, I just wish the companies we patronized didn’t use these cut rate shipping “solutions”. They just create more problems.