FedEx Office Print & Ship Center — Local services in Cambridge

I had two completely unwarranted and hostile interactions with staff today, at a place where I normally have zero issues - hence the two stars.

I came in to print and scan some color documents. When I tried to print, the printer complained about being held up on resources - I asked a lady for assistance, and immediately she gets flustered. She asks me what size I'd been trying to print, and, when I replied standard A4 size, she immediately raised her voice and told me it wouldn't print anything that wasn't 11.5"' x 8.5" inches (which is A4 size*!). My rejoinder to that effect falls on deaf ears - she aggressively and loudly repeats herself, telling me again it wouldn't print anything that wasn't that size, haranguing me for a good minute, before finally coming over and finally taking a look. She fiddles with the settings for a bit, and the problem goes away.

In fairness, I later Googled this and discovered A4 is in fact very slightly larger than standard 11.5" x 8.5" - but the two are used interchangeably in parlance. It doesn't justify the raised tone or the assumption that I was the problem.

My second hostile interaction came shortly thereafter. I needed to sign some of the printed documents in black, so I used a pen and discovered it was blue. All the other pens looked alike, so I figured they must all be blue. The only other person on shift at the counter appeared to be helping a customer, so I pace about and wait silently as the pair gab about citizenship and rights (???) - I surmised the customer must in fact have been a friend. Finally, after about ten minutes, the two pause to let me ask if they happened to have a black pen. The counter guy asserted the ones available to me were all black, I told him I tried one and it was blue. His friend loaned me a black pen while he's busy looking for one, so I thanked him and went off and signed my things.

While I'm busy signing my documents, the counter guy apparently decides to take proving his pens are all black as a personal challenge. He approaches me from behind and says "Just to make sure we're on the same planet," and demonstrates a black pen. I figure it's just a courtesy followup to close the loop (it's entirely reasonable I might have picked the one blue pen from the lot by sheer luck or made a mistake, and he was trying to tell me that I could have just used the other ones), say great, thank you, and resume signing. A few minutes later, he comes back holding two trays of pens (all the pens in the store!) and asks me which one I used, prefacing it again with "just so that you don't question my sanity". Briefly disconcerted, I mention I used one from closest to the print stations and that I really don't care, I'm just trying to sign some documents, at which point he begins lecturing me about reality. He claims I was lying to him and pulling the wool over his eyes, escalating the situation for no reason with overt aggressiveness. When I try to placate him and say "I'm with you," he nastily says "Good, just making sure we're on the same planet."

He then returns to his counter, and proceeds to make a long tirade about how I was trying to gaslight him about pens to his coworker.

Completely and utterly unprofessional. I intend to make a complaint...

Do not come here for poster printing

I had a terrible experience here (details below) and when I informed employees that I would leave a 1 star rating for their condescending and rude attitudes, Tristen said: “Go ahead, we get them all the time”

After checking the previous reviews, it is in fact clear that they consistently get bad reviews for employees being rude.

Details: I had ordered a conference poster for a meeting at Wellesley. I was worried about the poster printing correctly, so I called ahead, walked the poster into the store with a flash drive, and got a proof of a corner of the poster. My poster was an Illustrator file, and I was assured at all steps that they could print it. They print posters all the time. While picking it up, an employee named Matt said that my poster printed very well. When I unrolled the poster at the conference, however, it was clear that 3 figures did not print. There were giant blank spaces, which anyone with eyes could have noticed. I guess giant black spaces qualify as “printing well” at this FedEx.

Today, I called the store and spoke with the manager, Jean(?), about what happened. I wanted to understand what happened, and whether it was a consistent problem at this FedEx. She said that the printer was down for a while, so maybe that was it; but regardless, they would issue a refund. When I arrived at the store, the manager was not present, but Matt, who I dealt with earlier, and Tristen, who I had not seen before were. When I explained what happened, Matt said that there was an issue with my Illustrator file, which he converted to a PDF. He didn’t mentioned this beforehand. He then kept repeating himself and seemed resistant to the refund that his manager promised me on the phone. I demanded to speak with another employee, who turned out to be Tristen. Tristen then told me verbatim: “This 100% was not my coworker’s fault”. Whose fault is it then? I clearly went through exhaustive measures to get a properly printed poster. I ended up getting my refund but with orders of magnitude more attitude than necessary.

I’ll be sure to inform grad students and post docs not to come here for conference posters, but I also would not recommend this location to any who has to print anything. Go...

Very terrible service:

I had a package which need to be delivered to California as soon as possible, so I chose their express next day delivery and send my package to their office on time. However, the fedex staff who would pick up express packages everyday somehow forgot to pick my package and the package was still their the next day (when it was supposed to be delivered in California).

So after realizing this happenning, I picked up the package myself, canceled the package and found another way to ship it. However, after a month they charged my credit card for this canceled shipment! It was their fault to not deliver the package on time and I had canceled the shipment at their local office, but they still charged me.

After I realize this issue I tried to contact their customer service, but this is another terrible experience. First their customer service is answered by a robot, but it refused to transfer me to a real person unless I provide a fedex account number which I don't have (I just walked in to do the shipment). Then I called the local office and the guy at the local office answered my phone call , but when I said I want a refund they told me that they could only transfer me to a customer service staff and only them can help me on this issue. When they transfered me and I finally talked with a customer service staff, she told me that because I made the transaction in the local office, the guys in the local office are the only ones who can help me do the refund.

Prior to this issue Fedex is one company which I trusted, but not now. If you would like to use their express next day delivery, take into account of the possibility that your package will be left over in their office, you will be charged twice, and no one can help you do the refund.

p.s. If you want to talk to a real-person customer service, you can call a local office and ask them to transfer you. You can indeed reach a real person in this way but I not sure if this would make any difference in solving...