Problem with FedEx Ground Shipping?

I play hockey with a guy who works for FedEx, interesting from an insiders viewpoint. Although you and I see no difference between overnight delivery of an envelope and shipping a box using their ground service, they operate as two seperate companies. I tried to get a quote to ship some Apogee speakers and their website was down; I called customer service and they told me they get their info from the website so I'd have to wait until the site was up and running again. I waited two days and gave up. According to my buddy If you can afford to use the cheapest Fed EX service I suspect you'll be satisfied with the condition of your shipment and reliable delivery, as opposed to Fed EX Ground. As an alternative suggestion, find a transportation broker in your area. I found one who got my Apogees to me by truck...the speakers were loaded in the truck (strapped to a a pallet)and got to me in four days. $140 for 2000 miles, shipment fully insured (the shipment was 55" x 24" x 33" and weighed 160lbs). The nice thing about this arrangement is once it's on the truck it stays there til it gets to you, as opposed to being transferred through sorting stations (the infamous three-foot drop from conveyor belt to conveyor belt) and various planes/trucks along the way. Jeff

FedEX ground damaged my DeCapo speakers and I had to send them back to Katli Audio. The animal that handled them dropped them at least 5 ft. in the damage a thon.
Fred, the owner is terrific and refunded my money quickly and without question. FEDEX is never getting my business and Katli will.

My experiences thus far has been that of no damed goods in dozens of audio shipments from Fed EX Express. I've had lot's of dammage claims however from UPS (in over 100 packages shipped) while I've only recently started shipping fed ex ground, I've never had a dammaged item. However, from what's being said previously here, sounds like FEDEX express might be a different animal, and safer overall. However, I have noticed that claims are more difficult with
FED EX, and they're more reluctant to pay it seems. On the other hand, with COD's, you get paid quicker with FED EX, and UPS takes their sweet time!
I must say though, my preference overall is UPS shipping hands down!..even though they've broken a bunch of my expensive stuff!! Why you ask? Simple..they do brake stuff quite frequently, but they are quick to pay the claims!! I've actually received over $7K in claims from UPS in the past year!!! So, no loses really...just a little time and agravation. Oh well. STill UPS for me

Keep away from FedEx ground (normal FedEx is good).

My shipper told me FedEx ground is handled by RPS, which he has NOT had good results with.
I've never had a problem with UPS, over 50 packages shipped to and from.