Federal Express will carry out a review of the running of its Bermuda operation following complaints by customers, highlighted in The Royal Gazette .

The courier giant's regional office for the Caribbean, based in Miami, Florida, will find out if procedures need to be improved in the company's Bermuda office.

The inquiry was ordered after The Royal Gazette revealed last Friday that Bermudian photographer Bruno Zupp cancelled his account with FedEx after spending five months trying to get the company to provide him with paperwork to claim a $476 refund from Customs.

Mr. Zupp, a partner in Spurling and Zupp, eventually gave up and wrote off the money after FedEx's office in Hamilton failed to supply him with the document despite his repeated calls and letters.

Mr. Zupp said yesterday that he was prepared to sue FedEx for compensation unless he received a refund.

Jennifer McGowan, a FedEx spokeswoman in Miami, said the company was also looking into the case of another FedEx customer, John Whiting, highlighted in The Royal Gazette .

Mr. Whiting claimed in October that the company had given him the "runaround'' when he tried to reclaim excess Customs duty. Mr. Whiting said last week he had not heard from the company since October and had still not received a refund.

Miss McGowan said yesterday she did not have any details about Mr. Whiting's case, but would look into it.

She said FedEx's Caribbean regional office would conduct a thorough inquiry into the running of the Bermuda office to see if any procedures needed to be changed.

She said it was "too early'' to say whether head office officials would travel to the Island to conduct the investigation or whether it will be carried out from Miami.

Miss McGowan said: "It took a little bit of time and we may have made a couple of mistakes along the way and we hope that doesn't happen again.

"We are sorry that it has come to this, but we are learning from it and that is why we are looking into it.'' When asked if she thought the company had been performing satisfactorily in Bermuda, she said: "We have. We couldn't find the paperwork (for Mr. Zupp) and that's an internal situation we're trying to fix and put procedures in place to make sure it doesn't happen again.'' Referring to the inquiry the company had ordered into its Bermuda operation, Miss McGowan said: "There is absolutely no doubt that our head office is looking into it, and if there are any discrepancies or quirks in the process, we are making sure everything is done to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"Our customer service agents are now speaking to Mr. Zupp and hopefully to Mr. Whiting and to any other customers that may be dissatisfied.

"Our regional office for the Caribbean will look into it with our country manager and we'll go deeper down to the bottom of it to see why this happened.

"We will look at what was the process, take it step by step, and if we dropped the ball, why did we drop the ball? And can we fix it so that hopefully it doesn't happen again? "We're talking to Mr. Zupp personally and we will fix the situation. We'll do what we have to do to make sure we resolve this quickly and painlessly.

"There are processes in place that allow us to check and re-check and talk to service agents and account executives to find out what's going on.

"It's too early to say what will happen, but we will put into place anything that needs to be put into place to ensure our customers get the 100 percent satisfaction that they expect from us.'' Mr. Zupp claimed last week that a manager at rival courier firm DHL, with whom he now has an account, had claimed 40 to 50 people had transferred from FedEX in recent months because of poor service.

But a DHL spokesman in Hamilton said: "We can confirm that accounts do move between courier companies from time to time, but we have not received between 40 to 50 accounts from FedEx in the past few months.''