A Mild Pit against United Parcel Service

The BBQ Pit
1

The nice UPS guy comes to my door and hands me a package. I thank him, and all’s well…

Except…

The package was addressed to my Post Office Box.

UPS accepted the package from the sender, looked me up in some directory or other, and found my home address that way. Then they came to my home address to deliver the package.

Um…

I don’t like this. I have a P.O. Box for two reasons: security and privacy. My home isn’t in the best neighborhood in the world, and if I hadn’t been home, and the delivery guy had left the package on my doorstep, it likely would have been ripped off.

And…suppose I’d been ordering sex toys or something, and my dear sainted white-haired mother had received it and opened it! I have a P.O. Box for a REASON!

UPS should have told the sender, “Sorry, we can’t accept that package into our system, because we cannot deliver it as addressed.” Instead, they took it, solved the riddle of how to get it to me, and did so.

Good for them for ingenuity; good detective work. But bad corporate policy. I wish they wouldn’t do that.

I contacted them, and got some fluff from a customer service rep. It took three emails before they even seemed to comprehend the point I was trying to make.

(In long ago days, when I lived out in the countryside, miles from town, they used to deliver my packages to my uncle, who lived in town. Same last name. NOT the right thing to do. I don’t know if they commit that sin any more.)

Not a fan of UPS…

2

At work, I watch UPS pitch things out of the door of the truck until there is a large avalanche of boxes going down the steps of the truck to the street and I am really leery of using their service with anything the least bit fragile. I do not see FedEx of USPS do this.

I dunno about this “tracking you down” stuff based on a PO Box. That’s a bit creepy.

3

And just to add to it, they dinged the sender $11 for the service…this I can tell you as someone that sends stuff out via UPS (daily pick up). Depending on who you ordered from on their TOS/shipping policy you may get charged that $11 (Google “UPS $11” without the quotes to see how many stores do that). When we get an order online with a PO Box, I call/email the sender and ask for a real address, if they won’t give me one I either won’t ship it or I have to charge extra since I’ll have to send a driver to the post office. If you’re just worried about the neighborhood I can tell UPS to get a signature (which would require someone to be at the house), but we would pass that cost to you.

Also, yes, they will correct a PO Box to a real address I’ve had them do that when my employees don’t catch the address as being a PO Box and ship it anyways. :smack:, but like I said, they’ll ding us for $11. But I wouldn’t call it creepy, I can go to whitepages.com and type in the name to get an address. They probably have something with a better database then that. It’s not like it’s personal, it’s just a way to get a package to you.

4

UPS is sucktastic. The worst major package delivery service in North America, by far. I will gladly pay double their fee to use FedEx or any other delivery service. I’ll even specify to use USPS for a delivery, even tho it takes days or weeks longer. Fuck UPS. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

5

True… Heck, I’m “in the book.” And from their point of view, sure, it makes sense. I just wish they had the ethics to refuse the package in the first place… But if they’re getting $$$, I guess I can’t blame them for that, either…

I always try to ask for USPS. Nice, safe, private P.O. Box. I get all my pr0n there! :smiley:

I’m also biased… My papa used to be a postmaster…

6

Just to play devil’s advocate…what you’re calling unethical, they’re calling good customer service. They were paid to get a package to you and they got it there, even with a bad address. Your beef is with the merchant, they should have caught it before entering the PO Box into the UPS software. I know I’ve missed it once :smack: and another time one of my employees didn’t realize it was a no-no :smack:. My website is supposed to catch PO Boxes if you select UPS, I know one has still made it through, whether or not others have been blocked, I’m not sure. I should probably test that out with my dummy account.

7

What kinds of problems do you encounter?

We send about 5,000 pkgs per day and we had fewer problems with UPS than FedEx.

8

Fedex will let me redirect an incoming package to a local Fedex Office (aka Kinkos) location for free. UPS charges five bucks to redirect a package to a UPS Store location (although it’s free to redirect it to the UPS depot). For that reason, I prefer Fedex.

9

This is an interesting point, and worthy of continued discussion. It’s quite plausible that the OP (or any of a merchant’s customers) may wish to keep his home address information out of any merchant’s hands for reasons of his own.

Trinopus, have you made contact with the merchant to try to find out why they didn’t just send the product via USPS, instead of handing UPS a parcel with ta P.O. box on it (unless I’m mistaken only the USPS can deliver to a P.O. box)?

10

A while back, I was looking at the sky and wondering if I should paint my barn. The UPS guy showed up to give me a package so I asked him if it was going to rain. UPS guy said that it wouldn’t rain. I painted my barn and then the clouds opened.

When I saw him next, I confronted him about it and he pointed at his tag and said “Oops”

11

UPS leaves packages on my doorstep that require a signature.

They cannot contact their drivers.

They do not track packages in real time.

Once, all of those things added up to almost costing me a backpacking trip. I had shipped my backpack and some gear with them (this was 16 year ago, and was the 3rd run-in with UPS in a 2 month period). They had failed to deliver it to the right address on the day it was scheduled; they left a sticky note on the door of a neighbor’s house. Then they failed to hold the item at their local office, so it went out on a truck the next day. Meanwhile, I’m at the local office trying to pick it up. They cannot contact their driver once he leaves for his delivery rounds, so I was forced to drive home. After waiting for two hours, we went down the street, where we found another sticky note on the neighbor’s door. So we had to drive around the area until we spotted a UPS truck, then stalk him until he pulled over. Then he didn’t want to deliver my package to me, despite my having ID to prove that not only was I the recipient, I was also the sender. The only thing that saved me was my cel phone: I called his local office and got his boss on the phone. I had dealt with him at 8:00am in person, and he told the driver to give me my damn package. Thus I was able to go backpacking (we left that night at midnight to be at the trailhead by sunrise).

If I hadn’t gotten my package, I wouldn’t have been able to go backpacking. An $800 plane ticket and months of preparation were almost destroyed because of UPS.

If they could have contacted the driver, like FedEx, they could have told him to try and re-deliver because I was “home” (it was a friend’s house) and they could have made sure he knew he had the wrong address. If they could track in real time, like FedEx, they would have known whether or not he had been to my friend’s house yet, thus relieving me from waiting for two hours for nothing.

I won’t voluntarily use UPS, but sometimes a merchant I purchase from will only use them, and often I get home late at night to find a rare LP or CD sitting on my doorstep, despite the fact that it was shipped as “signature required”. So far I’ve been lucky and haven’t lost anything, but I prefer not to rely on luck. FedEx does a lot to take luck out of the equation.

12

UPS recently left a “missed delivery” note. When I called, they said that the number, and the number from the previous day’s note, weren’t in the system. When I insisted they try the delivery address, they were able to find a (separate) tracking number. So far, so good, right?

The notes promised delivery by 2 pm the next day. A few hours late: no big deal, right?

Then there was postage due. Some nominal mystery charge (<$2) and a whopping (~$20) “brokerage fee”. I had to pay it to get the package. Calling again, UPS could not explain what brokerage they provided, just kept repeating that it was a brokerage fee. Finally, it turned out that the less-than-$2 was customs, and they’d “brokered” by fronting me the money, for which they were charging 10 times the amount.

Plus, the package had clearly been mishandled, and the well-packed china was broken.

Of course I called the merchant, who was super. They were incensed about the customs fees, because they had already paid them—UPS was double-dipping (and, it turned out, refused to reimburse the company or acknowledge its responsibility for the damages, which were obviously not caused by the shipper).

The merchant refunded all of my money, including the extra charge from UPS, because they were just awesome. UPS never gets another dime from me.

13

A $5.00 extra charge would suck…but I’d have accepted it as a compromise. And, if it’s free, I’d be happy to go and pick the package up at a UPS depot. I’d even accept driving the fifteen miles or so.

Aye… The merchant was a third-party, selling via Amazon, and I wrote it up in my feedback for the transaction, and also sent them a direct email. They, too, sent a very generic “We’re sorry for any failure on our part to give full satisfaction” boilerplate response. Again, though, that’s fair enough: they know how I feel, and probably take it at least halfway seriously.

(Someone once told me that merchants believe in a kind of “ten for one” rule regarding complaints. If one guy writes to complain, there are probably ten others who feel the same way, who simply don’t bother to write.)

When shopping on Amazon, lots of my attempted purchases are, in fact, blocked by their computers, for exactly this reason. Some vendors simply don’t ship to P.O. Boxes. Cool! Their business! At least they’re up front about it!

Dr. Drake: Holy Muck! Double-billing the customs fees and at a nine hundred per cent mark-up? I’d be absolutely hopping mad! My pitting is completely mild compared to what you went through!

14

Both of those are wrong. I work about 5 minutes from where I live so when I’m expecting a package I keep the tracking page up and refresh it every 10 minutes or so. When it goes from “Out for delivery” to “Delivered” I know I can run home and grab it off my door step As for not contacting they’re drivers, I’m thinking that’s a ‘won’t’ not a ‘can’t’ thing. As a merchant, I’ve had them contacted. For example, if they just did a pickup but missed a package, I can call in and they can send a message to them to get them to swing back around. Also, we currently use “Smart Pick Up” which is based around UPS being able to contact their drivers. Like I said, I think it’s a ‘won’t’ thing. If they contacted the drivers every time an end user called in, the drivers would be out on the road twice as long.
Are you sure you’re not thinking of USPS.

15

Contacting UPS Driver (adding to Joey P’s point):
They didn’t used to be able to but they are now, they send and receive text messages on their handheld.
Brokerage Fees:
I don’t think some of you guys understand international shipping. Yes both UPS and FedEx have high brokerage fees if you don’t have a contract with them, and even if you do have a contract and are a high volume shipper, it still isn’t cheap. And it is not merely “fronting” the duty, they are interfacing with the other country’s customs office and handling all the details to get the good across the border.
Refused to Reimburse Customs Fees:
If UPS attempted to collect duty on a Delivered Duty Paid shipment, they are wrong and they don’t get to “not reimburse” them. But, this is not simple stuff and depends on whether that option is even available and how the interfaces between the company sending the item and UPS systems are setup, it’s entirely possible they didn’t flag it as DDP or put that on the commercial invoice.

16

While I’m sure you’re right, what they have done, and why, ought to be transparent to both the shipper and receiver. It should not be a mystery fee. In fact, I’d say that if both the weight and contents of the package are known, and they are (as in my case) both relatively low weight and low value, the duty ought to be predictable down to the penny.

17

Just wash them off when she’s done, no big deal.

18

Duty is predictable down to the penny. Did they miscalculate it? I don’t understand how that relates to your original complaint.

It sounds like you have the following complaints:

  1. They didn’t explain this stuff - fair enough
  2. You shouldn’t have to pay a fee to have items imported - Wrong, everyone has to pay a fee unless you act as the importer yourself and interface with customs, etc - that’s going to cost you a lot more than you spent on this transaction
  3. They miscalculated duty?
19

Not quite. The complaint for #2 is I should not have to pay a fee to have items imported THAT THE SHIPPER HAS ALREADY PAID.

Full disclosure: this was a gift, and the shipper charged my friends the cost of the item plus a packaging fee plus the duty to have the item sent to Canada. Where UPS did wrong is that for some reason, and it’s not clear because they won’t explain, they paid additional duty. I figure this is either because their record-keeping is sloppy (most likely) or the original fees were miscalculated (least likely). In any case, the shipping agent was truly shocked at the situation and said it had never happened with any of their previous shipments to Canada.

20

Ooooh, I want in on this. I hate hate hate UPS too!