Rapid Fulfillment Services

In November 2020, I negotiated with Rapid Fulfillment as a company to store, ship, handle and package their product. With that contract, Rapid Fulfillment provided a rate quote for FedEx charges. I paid each invoice remitted in a timely manner from November 2020-May 2021. On May 25, 2023, Rapid Fulfillment informed me that FedEx had increased their prices and as a result, during the look-back period, all the way to November 2020, I now owed an additional $20,025.58. This is a substantial amount to add to a customer’s bill retroactively. Furthermore, each year in September, FedEx announces rate changes for the following year. That means that rates for November-December of 2020 were announced in September 2019 and rates for 2021 were announced in September 2020. As a company that provides shipping and handling services for a living, it is your obligation to know when these rate changes are released and to give your clients at least thirty (30) days’ notice, which with over three (3) months constructive notice from FedEx, should have been accomplished easily. Any difference in the rate charged to me during that period is thus due to Rapid Fulfillment’s negligence and should be a cost borne by them, not me. In addition to the retroactive billing, during this time there were several orders that I was forced to refund due to damage during shipping. I was informed by Rapid

Fulfillment, first that the insurance claim was denied because the claim was made after thirty (30) days, and then later that the insurance claim was denied because of insufficient packaging. Under the contract with Rapid Fulfillment, it is the duty of Rapid Fulfillment to

“Provide safe, effective and efficient packaging of the product” and to “report all claims for damage”. If Rapid Fulfillment failed to file a timely insurance claim or that claim was rejected due to insufficient packaging, that liability is Rapid’s and the $4,669.08 should have been paid to me by Rapid Fulfillment. I was told that this amount would be remitted to them by Rapid, yet they never received the checks, nor was there a credit given on their account. In addition to the unpaid insurance claims, Rapid made a series of mistakes from [protected] in

Sending customers, the wrong product, amounting to thousands of dollars in additional cost to me. Rapid Fulfillment should be liable to me for these costs experienced due to their negligence, not to mention the future lost sales, due to poor reviews of reliability and order accuracy. This hurt me immeasurably, with a financial cost ranging from $10,000 upwards (as the reputational damage is hard to quantify). In September-November of 2021, Rapid Fulfillment submitted inaccurate stock reports to me, causing them to be short on inventory and not be able to fulfill customer orders. The cost to me in lost sales was at least $2,500. Upwards (as the reputational damage is hard to quantify).

In September-November of 2021, Rapid Fulfillment submitted inaccurate stock reports to me, causing them to be short on inventory and not be able to fulfill customer orders. The cost to me in lost sales was at least $2,500.

In March 2022 and again in April 2022, Rapid Fulfillment put my account on

Hold, until invoices of over $70k were remitted immediately. During this time, I lost many orders, with customers choosing to cancel, rather than continue to wait on the product. Rapid Fulfillment stated that there were open invoices totaling $72,562.78, with $34,424.18 of unapplied payments, for a total balance due of $38,138.60. I remitted payments on these invoices in the amount of $44,028.90, overpaying by $5,890.30. I should not have had to remit $943.94 of the $38,138.60 invoices that Rapid Fulfillment claimed they owed. Rapid Fulfillment should have been liable for the undercharged shipping fees of $20,025.58, insurance claims totaling $4669.08 and the $12,500 in lost business and reputational damage, as each was due to Rapid’s own negligence.

In May 2022, Rapid Fulfillment again placed my account on hold, due to the

Unpaid balance on the account. Both this hold and the prior are triggered by non-payment clauses in the contract, but in fact as outlined above, I should have owed Rapid Fulfillment around $1,000, rather than the $38,138.60 charged. Yet as their account was on hold and Rapid Fulfillment was threatening to destroy all my product, I paid these invoices, overpaying by $43,084.96. The month’s that my product was held hostage, while they scrambled to ship their product from Rapid Fulfillment cost me approximately $110,000 in lost sales and an additional cost of $25,000 in shipping charges and $21,000 in oversize storage fees, as they did not have time to negotiate a contract. I immediately seek reimbursement for the $43,084.96 that was overcharged to me, as well as the $46,000 in costs to remove the products elsewhere. Furthermore, we seek the lost profit on the $110,000 in lost sales caused by Rapid’s negligence, of $35,000. I have attempted to negotiate reasonably with Rapid Fulfillment to resolve these issues to no avail. We make immediate demand for payment from Rapid Fulfillment and ask that you make an offer of payment to resolve the $124,084.96 in overcharges and damages that Rapid Fulfillment owes to me.