I forgot how much I despise UPS (Useless Package Stompers) minor rant

The BBQ Pit
1

I had placed an order two days ago with an online merchant I have done business with in the past, a business based in Connecticut, the order came with free UPS ground shipping, and according to the ship time estimator, the package should arrive the next business day, I had missed the cutoff time when I had placed the order, so the package was going to ship yesterday

The package is going from Connecticut to Maine, even with ground shipping, it should arrive the next day

It’s now 11:30 PM the next day, and no sign of the package, even though the tracking system shows it arrived in Wells Maine (a half hour from me) at 5:24 A.M. and was put on the truck (in Wells Maine) at 8:06 A.M.

Still no smegging package!, frak, I could have gotten in my sodding car and DRIVEN DOWN TO THE MERCHANT get the package and drive back home and STILL arrive back before the moron in the Brown Truck gets here…

So, I call UPS, and talk to a phone rep who tells me that the tracking info on the website is not actually telling the whole story, what I’ve been watching is the predictive tracking of the package, IOW, the software is saying “under best case scenario, the package should be here”, but there has been no actual physical scan of the package, IOW, they don’t even know if it’s on the frelling truck in the first place!, the sodding website is lying…

…you can’t buy this kind of incompetence…

And this hasn’t been my first bad experience with “Big Brown”, they have been reliably unreliable, every time I think “I’ll give them another chance” they disappoint me, but then again, it’s my stupidity to think that this time would be different…

I can understand shipping delays, stuff happens, packages get lost, this is just a one pound package anyway, but what I can’t tolerate is lying and/or disinformation, if the package is going to be delayed, then SAY it’s going to be delayed, I can understand that, I may not be happy, but at least it won’t annoy me and I’ll know what to expect

<sigh> oh well, I get what I pay for, and it’s not a particularly important package anyway, just another technician toy …

So, “what can Brown do for me?”, apparently, NOTHING!, no, I tell a lie, they can annoy me with their incompetence and lying…

2

Huh. That’s unusual. In my experience with UPS, the status changes to “Attempted to deliver” at the moment you’re watching the UPS truck sail down the street without even slowing down.

3

So, according to latest “tracking” data, the package only made it to Chelmsford, Ma yesterday, absolutely pathetic, it has supposedly departed Chelmsford at 12:43 AM today

I’ll believe it when I see it

Still, the fact remains that Battery Junction (the Conn. retailer) is a mere three hour drive away, I could have driven down to their brick-and-mortar store, purchased the flashlight I ordered, and driven back in less time than it takes to get a supposed “one day” UPS ground shipment…

Pathetic, absolutely pathetic…

4

Is it possible that you don’t have the whole story yet? For example, I had a package delayed due to a shipper’s processing error that prevented it from reaching me as expected, but this info wasn’t made available until after the delivery. Weather can be another factor; or maybe the truck had an accident. Maybe the shipper mislabeled it.

I don’t think you have enough facts to make a judgement so soon.

5

UPS used to ship everything to a central location, where it was sorted and then shipped back out. This means that if something is supposed to be transported from Connecticut to Massachusetts, that it goes to the hub FIRST, then it gets shipped to MA. I don’t know if it still has this method, but that’s the way they used to do it. Which means that a package can get sent hundreds of miles away before being sent to its destination. Now, usually this works out pretty well. But not always.

And it’s not just UPS that does this, either.

6

On one memorable occasion, their tracker indicated that my overnight package had been delivered 90 minutes ago. I called, got some song and dance, and then the package was delivered a half hour later.

The bullshit definitely pissed me off more than it being late.

7

UPS is very good to me. I work from home and get a lot of packages and they always arrive in a timely manner.

FedEx is OK, but it is not uncommon for them to leave a packing in my driveway.

8

Experiences with UPS, at least at the delivery level, seem to depend heavily on where you live and who your local drivers are.

Where we are in San Diego, we get all our packages on time, and the local driver/s always deliver it right to our front door, inside the security part of our condo building. I don’t even know how they get in; i assume they must have a key or a code for the keypad out front.

Our USPS guy, on the other hand, is very unreliable. He will often not only fail to deliver a package, but will also neglect to put the little notification card in the mailbox. The only way we know to go to the post office and pick it up is that one of us will suddenly realize, a few days later, “Hey, that package should have arrived by now.”

I love the postal service, and generally think it does a great job, especially for the price, but our carrier is not very committed to doing it right.

9

In my neighborhood UPS is awesome, USPS is mediocre, and FedEx sucks. I had an email conversation with an Amazon rep about whether I could set a preference for a carrier, understanding that some vendors wouldn’t have more than one option. They said they didn’t allow that and never would.

Other companies I buy from do let me specify UPS over any other carrier, and so I buy from them over Amazon when I can. I don’t get why Amazon thinks that making the ultimate delivery of your goods an annoying crapshoot (when it could be a reliable pleasure) isn’t a major part of the customer experience, and something that they have the chance to optimize.

10

IIRC, that procedure was first implemented by Fedex when it started up as an overnight delivery service exclusively (as Federal Express), and everything went to Memphis first by plane, then out by plane. Then, as things evolved, Fedex added other hubs and UPS, which was mostly just slow packages over truck routes, copied Fedex and added swifter services. Now they all do it all ways using similar concepts.

One of the most intriguing shipping new ideas is for Fedex or UPS to do the pickup and major routing, then turn the package over to USPS for the final delivery, since USPS goes to all mailboxes all the time. Obviously that method is economical, or it wouldn’t be so popular.

11

Smegging? Frelling?

Are those like Mormon curse words?

12

I had a friend ship a vase from Dearborn to Orlando. He had it packed with lots of peanuts. He even bought insurance. They crushed the side of the box, chamfering a whole quadrant. They declared poor packing to be the problem and refused to pay. He fought them for months and finally just ran out of energy. So he is out a vase, out insurance fees, and his sister in law is pissed.

13

…but now I know what chamfer means, so some good came of it.

14

I had ordered some wine from woot.com a couple of weeks ago. It is quite clearly stated, on the website, that someone over 21 (that would be me!) has to be there to sign for the package, which I completely understand.

So last Tuesday, around Noon my phone rang, and it was a recorded message from UPS saying that a package delivery was scheduled for my address for that very afternoon, but someone over 21 had to be available to sign for the package. Problem? The package had been delivered two hours earlier. :smack:

15

Nerd curse words. One’s from Red Dwarf and the other’s from Farscape. They both mean “fucking” as far as I know.

16

This is my latest issue with UPS. Their stores. Part of my job is repairing computers in the field and then shipping the bad parts back to the warrenty center. Occasionally I will forget to bring a roll of packing tape with me - my fault and no big deal, but then I am forced to pay $2 to have the store employee tape the box, and they won’t let me just pick up the roll of tape and do it myself, because the company has a policy against customers packaging within the store (although I’m sure they’ll make an exception if you just bought an overpriced cardboard box from them).

In retrospect, Fedex stores not only seal for free, but often throw some extra tape on there if they think the package might need it…

17

I think I know what your problem might be.

18

That’s about my experience as well, except my driver coasts down the street, stealthily gets out and leaves the package like a brown ninja and scuttles away.

I know the outfit now called FedEx Ground used to be RPS. Twenty years ago, RPS was a coalition of franchises, so it was not unheard of for a local franchise to be just awful. Now that they’re part of the global FedEx enterprise, they’re just peachy, even if they usually make deliveries with station wagons or rented Penske trucks. That said, I don’t think UPS has ever been a franchised operation, but it sure sounds like the OP’s local UPS shop is a bunch of bad eggs.

Around here, the UPS tracking is accurate and fast - more than once, I’ve hit refresh on the tracking page when I hear the truck start up after the driver leaves a package on the porch, and it’s already flipped to say “Delivered.”

19

If the package doesn’t get delivered on time, I think you should be able to get your shipping charges back. See: http://www.ups.com/content/pr/en/resources/service/terms/ground.html That’s assuming UPS is at fault. Either way you’d have to contact the shipper because they have to file the claim and refund the shipping.

20

Just try it. My friend with the chipped vase was passed along by the people who answered the phone. It was clear they had no intention of honoring the insurance claim. He sent photos showing the box damage and the vase damage. They ignored him. He spent months calling and fighting them and got nowhere. He is retired and was determined to spend all the time it required to get satisfaction. After 6 months, he finally gave up.