Korean Job Discussion Forums

Tiger Beer · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

The regular FedExpress Office is fine.

But DON'T use KINKOS/FEDEX.

I had several very important documents I tried to send immediately to arrive at the desination within 48 hours and paid a lot of money to do it. 30 hours later after dropping the package off, they CALL ME ON MY CELLPHONE THAT I HAVE ALL THE TIME and tell me that my documents require more money to be sent 'urgent express', so whenever I get a chance I should come on back to the Kinkos/FedEx to pay the additional fees. (This was 30 hours later after dropping it off!)

I immediately go back to Kinkos/FedEx and my document is still sitting right there in the office like it was when I dropped it off 30 hours ago the day before. They tell me it's going to cost an additional 20,000 to be sent 'urgent international express' as I requested.

I pay the fee, and ask him just to confirm, 'will it be sent out tonight?'. He looks at the clock and sees its 5:15pm. He tells me it will be sent out on Saturday night. (Today is Tuesday).

WHAT? You called me in to pay extra fees for urgent, and you will send it out Saturday Night? Yes, he insists as its the big holiday week here in Korea for the next three days, so nothing will happen until Saturday night.

I'm a big shocked and ask him about another office that can send it out tonight. He tells me he can take it down there himself later on. A non-employee tells me there is the main FedExpress Office just down the street, and I insist to the employee we can bring it there now before it closes. It's now 5:30pm, we run down the street and arrive around 5:45, and it turns out we just made it as it closes at 6pm. Fortunately, we JUST made it before it closed, and I was able to assure it was sent out tonight (on Tuesday night). The regular FedEx Office was even more shocked than I was that Kinkos seriously dropped the ball on this one.

DO NOT TAKE YOUR PACKAGE TO KINKOS/FedExpress!!

(This is my 3rd VERY NEGATIVE experience with KINKOS in KOREA, but this was one by far the biggest mess up of the three, and one of the other three was pretty messed up as well). I should mention I've ONLY been to KINKOS three times in Korea.

Roch · Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Location: Seoul

ryouga013 · Joined: 14 Sep 2007

Did they see the foreign name and freak out about calling you or something? I haven't had too many problems with various postal services, but I was a little annoyed that when i was going to send some documents through them they tried to charge me about $20 for non-expedited service arriving at the same time a normal letter using the USPS would... for about $2... no....

RACETRAITOR · Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Location: Seoul, South Korea

I helped a friend try to fax a resume to a university in another country. We went to Kinko's, and the guy there clearly didn't know what he was doing. We showed him the document, showed him the number, and showed him the country code for Myanmar on his guide. He put it through but failed to send it, then charged us for it. Later it was confirmed that the document was not sent.

Tiger Beer · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

davai! · Joined: 04 Dec 2005 Location: Kuwait

That sucks, dude. Sorry to hear that. Make sure to write to the HQ. They may refund your fee. I sent something via Fedex to England once and they delivered it late. They first blamed it on customs, but when they determined it was their fault, they cancelled my payment.

If that doesn't work, and you paid by credit card, you can challenge that charge. Good luck.

The Archivist · Joined: 20 Dec 2007

another example of the same thing at a korean kinko's/fedex: my friend in korea needed to send draft chapters of his m.a. thesis to his university in spain, they never arrived (never left?). when he found out from his advisor via 'why are you so far behind on your writing?' phone call, he then had to fax an entire chapter to spain not once but 3 time before it actually arrived on the other end. after that, we decided it was better to express post the remaining chapters through the mail.

OiGirl · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: Hoke-y-gun

Why is FedEX better than EMS from the post office? (Or supposed to be?)

Brendon Carr · Joined: 15 Nov 2007 Location: Seoul, Korea

Your first method of rapid dispatch should be the one that's nearly instant, and free -- a scan to PDF, zip, and e-mail. A 200dpi black-and-white (2-bit) scan of an A4 sheet of paper should be about 75Kb. Fast and free.

EricaSmile84 · Joined: 23 Jan 2008

Do you mean Kinkos-Fedex in Korea? I just used it the other day in the US. Crap.

littlemisssmiles · Joined: 27 Dec 2007

I tried to send some documents from Canada to Korea, and needed them sent ASAP. Kinkos told me it would be a minimum of $400, and wouldn't arrive until a week and a half later!!! Purolator was under $50 and took 2-3 days...I couldn't believe it!!

skintboy · Joined: 24 Dec 2007

I need to ship something overseas. Priority. Now I dont want to use Fedex. What are my other options here in Korea?
Thanks

Kimchieluver · Joined: 02 Mar 2005

Tiger Beer · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

My other KINKOS/FedEx story in Korea.

I was having my MA Thesis printed and bound, and decided I should do it professionally at Kinkos so the copies would be clean, in color when needed and on quality paper.

I have it explained to the cashier, I choose a high quality paper and opt for colored copies for certain pages where it needs it. I opt not to just run them off myself as Kinkos at least WAS known to have at least one quality printer to avoid scratches, smidges and such for more professional/quality work.

He takes my pages and runs them off on a shitty ass copier that has four or five scatch marks that copy over to every single page of all the documents.

Kinkos/FedEx - KOREA: Can't fax correctly, can't photocopy correctly, and can't send a package correctly.