First yes FedEx does ship snakes for authorized shippers. You are shipping under reptile express account which in turn makes you certified. Yes FedEx is stupid lol. What you ran into is not common but it does happen. They don't know their own company rules. It should have been one call and fixed though. If reptile express is saying you are shipping a lizard when they knowingly know it to be a snake then shame on them. That kind of stuff is what gets the whole reptile community in trouble. SYR gives you an additional tag to put on your package to try to help avoid this problem. I have no idea if reptile express does that also or not.