Holiday shocker: Hundreds of FedEx packages were dumped in a ravine

No one who has had wine delivered by FedEx should be surprised, but FedEx sure seemed to be

Blog regulars know this story all too well – a wine shipment never arrives at their home, and FedEx (or UPS) claims to know nothing about what happened.

So you can imagine my lack of surprised when I saw this on Thursday: A FedEx driver had dumped hundreds of packages into a ravine in Alabama. Local police, who are investigating, told the New York Times that the driver had done it at least six times, though they aren’t sure if the driver wanted to steal the items or if dumping them was easier than delivering them.

But not to worry: “The security of our customers’ shipments is a top priority and we are committed to treating our customers’ packages with the utmost care,” a FedEx spokesman told the Times.

Yeah, and I’m drinking $150, 98-point, 15.2% Napa cabernet sauvignon for dinner tonight.

The problem is not that FedEx or UPS packages go missing. Of course they do, as the Times story noted – a stunning number, almost 2 million a year by one estimate. And, of course, there was the obligatory reference to porch pirates.

The problem, as has been demonstrated on the blog as well as in the piece I wrote for Pix.wine, is that the delivery services don’t care. And each knows that there’s little any of us can do about their lack of interest, since the two companies control the private delivery business in the U.S.

The question to ask (and which, sadly, the Times reporter did not): How could the driver dump packages at least six times and not have FedEx notice? I’ve been told that delivery packages are scanned at least three times: When they arrive at the facility where they will be loaded on the truck, when they’re loaded on the truck, and when they’re delivered. And the truck is also scanned when it returns to the facility to make sure nothing is left on it by mistake.

One would think, with all that cyber-tracking, that FedEx would have noticed something was amiss after the second or third time the driver didn’t deliver the packages. But what’s the point? Then they’d have to do something about it.