WTF? As I've stated earlier I do work for "one of these companies" -- Which happens to be FedEx Express. And I have no idea what Newegg is talking about. There is no change to our Express Saver service. They must be smoking something good over there.
It helps when you put LEGIBLE address numbers on a mailbox or something VISIBLE from the road. Thats 90% of the problems with "Bad" addresses.
As for a few things I've read in the thread about either company "sitting" on packages -- There is a commit date/time on these packages that, believe me, at least for FedEx, it better be delivered On-Time! Express saver is due the 3rd business day by 7:00pm (Residential) or 4:30 (Business) -- at least 98% of packages fall under this time commit. You're not going to get your packages before 10:30 (Priority Overnight commit time), thats a guarantee And most drivers (at least in my area) are finished around 4pm, so you'll get it before then, usually. It all depends on how the route in which you live is structured. You'll usually get your package at approximately the same time on different days. Not to shoot ourselves in the foot, but yes, you will get your packages in 3 days or less (depending at what time you ordered it - Newegg will ship things, say, very early on the 12th, with a ship date of the 11th on the package which means it has to be at your house on the 14th -- 2 days in your eyes) UPS Ground can take up to 7 days. Express Saver is our "slowest" way of sending a package. FedEx Ground, however, is another story.
Every station/district/region keeps an insane amount of statistics and quality metrics. Delivering packages late is a no-no. Yes, your package that is supposed to be delivered on the 8th may have arrived at your local station on the 7th but there is no guarantee that you'll get it on the 7th. While its in the couriers best interest to deliver that package on the 7th (since thats one less package for the next day), he doesnt HAVE to. Especially if he is already really heavy for that day.
As for delivering, as someone said -- to a neighbor -- yes, is FedEx policy, but youre not going to find many couriers who are already in a time crunch to: Ring your doorbell, wait a bit for you to show (or not), and then go to a neighbor and do the same thing (and not to mention 15 more seconds of extra crap he has to put in his tracker). As of last month, FedEx can now release Residential packages without a signature (much like UPS). The policy states they should still attempt to get a signature, but of course there will be couriers who just "drop and run" -- or as someone called it "ninja-style delivery".
And as for package damage, its really a 50/50 between how the retailer packaged their product and how the package travels through the system. Yes, some packages will get dinged up, but we dont purposefully try to do that (duh). You're box with your new motherboard may unfourtunately say hello to the corner of someones new 30lb case -- thats not going to turn out well If its really bad you can refuse shipment, or in the case of good retailers like NewEgg, you are able to send it back for replacement.
Hopefully this clears up a few things...