Be circumspect about your choice of shipping company

Dear Editor,
I have always been one of those who strongly encourage industry and investment across our economic sectors, whether banking, animal husbandry or otherwise, as a means of increasing output, lowering costs, and increasing efficiency, with greater benefits for customers.
One of the sectors which remain severely challenged in this area, and could do with an immensely greater number and more efficient players, is the shipping sub-sector, which attempts to offer cheap and convenient shipping of small items for customers who can’t find what they need in Guyana. It has always been a real challenge to deal with the issues customers have in using them, and my general disposition with respect to the headaches they present has been to overlook their inefficiencies and sleight-of-hand pricing practices, and just be glad to have received my item.
My last and most recent frustration with the so-called shipping agent FreightLink Express, a self-styled logistics service provider, has been greatly exacerbated; to the point where, in the apparent absence of any regulatory authority to which consumers can turn, I feel that I should advise the general public so that they should be wary and more inquiring about whatever shipping service they consider.
My biggest and most frustrating issue with FreightLink is that Fedex delivered a package to their Miami warehouse on Friday, July 14, 2023 at 4:05pm (Tracking Number: 781022730190 – Item was shown as delivered on Saturday, July 15, 2023), and even after numerous emails advising about this item, on a day like today, fully ten days after being delivered to their warehouse, they still can’t find the item in their system, and they can’t confirm that they have received the item.
Additionally, a few other packages delivered over the week-end of July 15-16 were unable to make it on either of their Monday or Wednesday flights last week, while packages delivered after mine on either Monday or Tuesday last week likely made it into the country, and were probably available for pickup last Friday. I am still waiting for the five or six packages delivered from July 15-16, which they said should be available this Thursday.
FreightLink’s counter staff initially informed and tried to engage me about some packages shipped to me other than that I sent to them when I visited them last week (I had to ask them to stick to the items I was inquiring about), and experienced difficulties talking about their warehouse staff in Miami, seriously raising doubts about the kind and scale of operation they are running over the US.
Because they don’t work on weekends (remember, this is a shipping company, quite strange for a company wanting to offer better and more efficient service to its customers), items arriving over the weekend are left with the nearby Post Office, and they do not go to clear these items with the Post Office, but instead wait for the Post Office to deliver the items whenever they are good and ready to do so.
Finally, with the exception of one other shipping company, FreightLink was quick to inform me that my shipping costs were based on the weight of items, but still included volume in their computation, in addition to charges excluding normal duties and VAT, which they themselves weren’t willing to spell out at the counter.
Persons should therefore seriously consider their alternatives, and/or get recommendations from friends or family when thinking about bringing in small items from abroad. The last thing they want is to have their package misplaced or belayed through negligence, as it seems in this case, in addition to deliberately vague shipping charges and staff who don’t know what is going on at their warehouses abroad, and as it relates to simple emails between customers and the company itself, because each customer service person apparently has their own email, without access to general email sent by customers.
Would I use FreightLink again? Never.

Yours faithfully,
Craig Sylvester