No system is errorless and carrier mistakes happen frequently. Although carriers like FedEx® and UPS® are giant corporations, they aren’t immune to billing errors. Their systems don’t always operate accurately, resulting in numerous billing mistakes on FedEx® and UPS® invoices.
The article below outlines the five common carrier billing mistakes you should watch out for.
Incorrect residential surcharge
A residential surcharge is a delivery made to a home, including a business operating out of a home. For each residential delivery, an additional charge per shipment applies and can add an additional three to four dollars to each package.
You’ll notice this fee on your invoice if either the delivery address entered in the shipping system or the actual delivery address is deemed residential by the carrier. Shipping carriers list office blocks and residential zones but can get the classification wrong. When this happens, you end up paying more for a delivery when it’s incorrectly identified as a residence. These surcharges can be tricky to catch especially if you ship to both residential and commercial locations.
Read more: What is a residential surcharge?
Labels manifested but not used
All shippers at some point have created a shipping label without actually using it to ship a package. This becomes a problem because UPS® charges customers for all shipping labels created, including those that go unused. Failure to void unused shipping labels results in wasted dollars. You end up paying for packages never delivered.
Share A Refund continuously monitors for unused shipping labels with the manifest tracking service. This manifest tracking service works conjointly with the other services to lower total spend on shipping and secure refund credits available within both UPS and FedEx accounts.
Read more: How Share A Refund tracks shipping labels
Invalid address correction charges
If a carrier has to complete or correct an address to complete delivery, then a fee for that will appear on your invoice. Of course, there are valid address correction fees when the shipper left off a unit number in the address and impeded the carrier’s delivery process.
On the other hand, there are invalid address correction fees. An invalid address correction fee would be charged if the shipper typed building instead of unit. These fees are recoverable when such fees are incorrectly applied. Share A Refund parcel auditing looks for invalid address correction charges and secures your deserved refund. The address correction data can be used to update the shipper’s system to prevent repeating these errors in the future.
Inaccurate dimensional weight adjustments
With dimensional scanners more prevalent, carriers are paying more attention to the accuracy of measurements provided by shippers. Now, more than ever, shippers are experiencing an increase in billing adjustments and freight re-classifications.
Dimensional scanners don’t always capture measurements correctly. For example, audited dimensions on a 16 x 13 x 9 box that’s observed as 16.1 x 13 x 9 are automatically rounded up to 17 x 13 x 9. The adjusted calculation will map to a different rate in the UPS pricing agreement which will cost shippers money.
Packages delivered late
Every day packages are delivered late. If your shipment is even 60 seconds late, you could be eligible for a full refund. If late-shipment refunds haven’t appeared on your invoices, it’s because carriers make no effort to inform shippers of this cost-saving option. Shippers must take the initiative to file for a refund within the short 15-day window or miss out on the refund completely. Share A Refund uses industry-leading auditing software to rapidly find the late shipments that are eligible for a refund.
Are you experiencing any of the five common billing mistakes found on carrier invoices? Share A Refund’s industry-leading software identifies inaccuracies in carrier invoices and works diligently to secure your deserved savings.
