FedEx won’t ship porn

FedEx Canada says it refuses to ship adult material, such as pornographic DVDs, claiming that there’s no way to know if the material is illegal or not.

On Dec 1, Todd Klinck, co-owner of Goodhandy’s on Church St in Toronto, attempted to courier a package from the FedEx Kinko’s location on University Ave. The destination: to Pierre Fitch, a Montreal-based pornstar, who left the DVDs at Klinck’s place and needed them back quickly.

“I have sent porn in Canada and internationally using FedEx many, many, many times. I’ve also used Canada Post and many other methods without any problems,” Klinck says.

But this time, he encountered trouble.

There were 14 DVDs in a bag ready to be packaged up to ship, he says. He asked the person behind the counter which box would be best to use. Klinck says he was asked to take the DVDs out of the bag for inspection, but since the contents were gay porn DVDs, Klinck chose instead to tilt the bag so the FedEx employee could see inside.

“I told him they’re adult films. I’m not going to pull them all out in the store,” says Klinck. “I was just being practical. I’m not pulling out porn in the store. There could be kids around…. At that point he got really awkward.”

That’s when the manager got involved.

“They said they wouldn’t ship it. They were nice about it, but said they couldn’t ship it,” he says.

Klinck doesn’t understand the problem. The destination was within Canada, Fitch is a FedEx account holder, and all the films are completely legal.

“I’m not even sending this stuff across the border, even though that’s not illegal either,” says Klinck. “I’m sending it to the person who produced it. I don’t understand. This is just discrimination.”

Klinck was told FedEx has a new policy under which they open all packages unless it’s from an account holder.

“I told him that it was a little absurd,” says Klinck. “So they open every box and repackage them? How can they continue to guarantee fast overnight delivery? Besides, I told them Pierre Fitch is an account holder.”

That didn’t change anything, Klinck was told.

“So I said, ‘You’re telling me if you hadn’t seen it I could have sent it?’” Klinck asks. “I asked to speak to the manager.”

The manager backed up his staff member. That’s the rule, company policy.

Spotting a drop box at the door, Klinck simply grabbed a box, packaged the DVDs himself and popped it in the box.

“I said, ‘Can’t I just drop it in the drop box?’” Klinck says. “The guy said, ‘Uhh, yeah, I guess you can.”

On Dec 3, Klinck told Xtra that Fitch received the package. But Klinck remains confused about the company’s policies.

“FedEx is telling me they don’t ship adult material, period,” he says. “When they called the depot they were told ‘no adult material.’ That’s the part that’s new to me. I didn’t know that was an issue.”

Peter Diamantakos, operations manager at the FedEx Lakeshore depot, where packages sent from Toronto go before being sent to their destinations, tells Xtra that packages attached to an account holder are not inspected. But, he adds, FedEx does have a policy that no adult material can be shipped.

“Packages going to international destinations, anything on cash, cheque or credit card, is being inspected,” he says.

But Klinck’s package was destined for Quebec.

“So that should be fine,” he says. “It should have been good to go. It’s definitely not our policy to look through every box.”

After making a call to clarify the policy, Diamantakos told Xtra that adult material couldn’t be sent as personal shipments. He did not know how long FedEx has had this policy.

“It’s just to control what’s going through,” he says. “That’s just our policy. We don’t know exactly what’s in that material. If someone comes in with a box and says they are sending pornographic material, there’s some [material] that is just not acceptable.”

Diamantakos says there’s no way to know if the pornography being sent is legal or illegal.

“Child pornography is illegal [for example],” he says. “We don’t view the videos.”

Xtra also called 1-800-GO-FEDEX and spoke to customer service representative Sasha (he refused to provide a last name), who also confirmed that the company will not ship any adult material of any kind.

“It’s on the list of prohibited items,” he says. Other items on the list include drugs, weapons, waste, insects, firearms, alcohol, cigarettes and gambling devices.”