FedEx review: General

This is a general critique of all the FedEx Corporation stores. The services have become increasingly deficient and defective in the following ways:

they have ERADICATED the hard-drive technology allowing use of CD-ROMs on their computers. Now you can only use flashdrives for viewing any stored information. When I inquired the reason, the staff stated "progress" and that the CDs were "obsolescent technology". So apparently is customer options!

they have ERADICATED the time-suspension function on their computer system for holding your place online for ten minutes when you need to add money to your card so that you don't lose your place on the internet and have to start looking all over again to find it! NOW you DO! You must LOG OUT when you need to add money, thus getting ripped-off for the EXTRA time you now PAY FedEx per minute finding it again! Even though the computer usage fee is only $.40 a minute, that is still almost TWICE what it used to be when costing only a quarter!

they have ERADICATED the INSERT card method of payment processing and replaced it with the SWIPE method at the computers and photocopiers... which not only ALLOWS them to rip you off by not showing how much you have spent UNLESS you can get a printout receipt (which sometimes DOESN'T work), but it causes other "glitches". One time when I was having technical problems at a DC area store and went to go to a Silver Springs, Maryland store, I had a five dollar balance remaining on the card I brought with me to use at the other store. By the time I got there and put the card in the machine it showed ZERO! HOW did FIVE dollars simply VANISH off the card?! Unless they "ZIPPED" it off electronically somehow! Not only that, bt when I put $1 on the card and made ONE color photocopy print for $.65, the machine then told me I didn't "have enough money on the card for continued use"! Apparently it couldn't compute, because $1.00-.65 leaves a balance of $.35... ENOUGH for TWO black/white photocopies at $.15 each!

I have been informed by staff they are ERADICATING the convenient card dispenser/loader kiosks! The store in Bethesda, Maryland already DOESN'T have one. You have to not only rely on the counter clerks to tell you what your balance remaining on the card is BUT you have to pay THEM now to "load it" for you. VERY INconvenient if they are busy. IF THAT will be he ONLY way then customers better start printing out ALL their transaction receipts from photocopier and computer use.

The staff AND management at the two DC stores on Seventh Street NW have gotten WORSE. One of them used to have at least ONE employee knowledgeable about the computer system. The last time I dealt with him about it even he "played dumb" and pretended he didn't know how to do a screenshot saver operation. A recent time I went there and tried to do it again, the staff (AND manager) "informed" me that the function had been ERADICATED from the FedEx computer system due to a "reset". So I had to get a refund for WASTING money to find that out. I then went to the store up the street, where the manager told me the SAME thing. I had to run all the way out to the Silver Springs store in Maryland to find out HOW it was done and that they had LIED to me in the DC stores! Most recently when I went to that first store on a Saturday, they had only ONE clerk at the counter to serve customers there and help those at the computers and printers. This store used to have TWO. Of the two photocopiers and computers, one of each wasn't working! When I got on the other computer and found what I wanted and saved it to print out, the printer WASN'T working! I "burned" the ten bucks WASTING time WAITING for the clerk to come help me find out the reason the ONE printer (they used to have TWO but believe it or not they have LESS business than they used to) wasn't functioning because she was alone and busy with another customer. And BECAUSE it wasn't working, I COULDN'T print out the receipt showing how much I had spent on it! BUT I always KEEP my kiosk receipts of how much I loaded on the card. So I brought the card and receipt to her to get a refund and she told me I had to WAIT until Monday for the manager to do it!

And the WORST thing about FedEx is there is NO email customer service address to send your complaints to for a PERSONAL response! It's all "virtual" now.