FedEx delivers cheque -- by hand
last night with an envelope full of cash as a refund following a telephone call from The Royal Gazette .
The company's Caribbean region headquarters based in Miami, Florida, launched a review this week of the running of its Bermuda office after the newspaper highlighted complaints from customers about poor service.
On Wednesday, a company official in Miami promised photographer Bruno Zupp that FedEx's Bermuda office manager Roger Moniz would give him a cheque yesterday for the $476 he had spent five months trying to reclaim.
Mr. Zupp was furious but not surprised when Mr. Moniz failed to show up with the money.
Last night, The Royal Gazette called FedEx spokeswoman in Miami Jennifer McGowan to find out why Mr. Zupp had not received his money.
Ms McGowan said she did not know why Mr. Zupp, a partner in Spurling and Zupp, was still without his cheque but promised he would be refunded today.
However, Mr. Zupp later received a telephone call at his home in St. George's, from another FedEx official in Miami saying Mr. Moniz would be at his door in five minutes.
At 7.45 p.m. Mr Moniz arrived at Mr. Zupp's house in Speaker's Drive with an envelope containing $476 in cash.
Mr. Zupp said: "Five minutes before he arrived, I got a call from Miami saying Roger would be here. All the cheques are cut in Miami so Roger had to whip up the cash from this end.
"He was very apologetic and talked about the difficulty they have been having with staff and that they do twice the business of all the other couriers combined.
"The lady in Miami had said to me: `I made a commitment to you and I'm going to see it through'. They were obviously bending over backwards and I appreciated that.
"But if it wasn't for The Royal Gazette story, I would never have got the money. You should take the credit for it.
"Before Roger left, I said I hoped he would do for all the others that had been mistreated what he had done for us and he said he would be doing whatever he could. I just hope he lives up to that.
"I didn't want to sound as if I was lecturing him, but I said: `If you do nothing else, at least instil in your employees that the customer comes first because your business depends on it. It all depends on how your staff treat the public.''' Earlier, Ms McGowan had said it was still too early to say whether officials from Miami will travel to the Island to carry out the review of the Bermuda operation.