FedEx is up to no good. I got my corporate Amex bill and noticed that there were two shipments listed– one for $25 and one for $55. I’d used FedEx to ship my SPOT watch (< 1lb) back for repair and to seen a book to a friend in Long Beach. Sure enough, the shipment dates and tracking numbers matched. When I called FedEx to ask them WTF, the explanation was simple:
FedEx: We’ve been encouraging our customers to use our shipping materials. When you ship a package with nonstandard packaging, we automatically dim weight it.
Me: What does that mean?
FedEx: We take the package dimensions and calculate a standardized weight, then bill you for that.
Me: (incoherent spluttering) Why didn’t anyone tell me this?
FedEx: You should have noticed the change in your latest Service Guide.
Me:
(more spluttering) I didn’t GET a service guide this year!
They were kind enough to remove the overcharge for those two packages, but there are two more enroute right now that’ll have to be re-rated once I get the bill. In the meantime, FedEx’s perverse website has decided that two addresses which look the same to humans aren’t really the same, so it won’t let me log in to order some more of the Holy FedEx Boxes that I have to use in order to not be grossly overcharged. Grrrrr.
If you use FedEx for shipping, check your bills very, very carefully.
Paul's Down-Home Page 
Fedex is a horrible company. It will slip in charges for service that you never purchase among the list of shipping servises you purchase from them. When they were contacted, they mentioned it was an error and removed the charge. However, who can have all the time to go through the list each time?
Since I set up the acvcount, I have been billed for shipping my supplier sent to me with shipping prepaid. Fedex want additional payment from me. When we told them it was prepaid, they claimed our supplier had made an error on filling out the services requested. What they did not know was that we also own the offshore supplier and our shipping procedure is computerised and all print out on Fedex shippings are standard. Why Fedex asked for certain fee sometimes and not the next exact same shipping? Beats me but they send us collection notice when we dispute those additional charges. This is a company to avoid.
I sent 12 FedEx ground packages within the last few days.
Small boxes of 0.5 lb, were invoiced for 2.2 lb each.
Boxes of 20 lb were invoiced 29 lb…etc.
None of the 12 packages were invoiced for the correct weight. Outrageous!
Is UPS more reliable?
Good question. FedEx is normally pretty good at billing *if you put the correct weight and dimensions on your airbill*. I haven’t shipped much with UPS. I do know that the USPS has a more elastic policy, since they charge according to weight ranges (e.g. 2lb 0 oz to 2lb 15 oz is the same price).