I absolutely DESPISE the United Parcel Service! (1 Viewer)

[Mark Booth]

I've voiced my dislike for United Parcel Service in this forum before. I avoid using UPS as much as I can. Their drivers are too stupid to read a sign posted on the front door that has written on it in large block letters in black felt pen "UPS DRIVER..." Packages get left in plain view (visible from the street), despite the sign at eye level on the outside of the door telling them to put the package in the backyard. Plus, UPS delivered packages always arrive in worse physical condition than other delivery services! It's like they have some chimpanzees trained to hit the packages with baseball bats as they proceed down sorting conveyer belts.

I ordered new iPads from Best Buy for me and the Mrs. on Black Friday. My heart sank when I received notice from Best Buy telling me that they both shipped via UPS and, worse, they shipped separately.

Cathy's iPad shipped on Dec 2, originating out of Los Angeles. It was shipped UPS Surepost, which means it's supposed to get handed off to the Post Office for final delivery. UPS Ground shipping time from Los Angeles to San Diego is 1 day. UPS was estimating delivery on Dec 6!!?? I figured that was due to the handoff too USPS. However, since about 8am yesterday (Dec 4), Best Buy's site showed Cathy's iPad as "out for delivery". It did not show up. It looks like it will be delivered today and NOT by USPS. I guess UPS figured out they were taking too damn long and are delivering it themselves. Here's what the UPS tracking for Cathy's iPad looks like:

My iPad is more complicated for UPS. It shipped out of Chico, CA. UPS Ground is supposed to take 2 days from Chico to San Diego. When I received the original shipping notice UPS estimated it would be delivered on Dec 4. But that email was followed by another telling me that my package was delayed due to operating conditions (snow?). Since Monday, I've received a total of 6 emails from UPS regarding the status of my package. One email stating it was delayed followed, later, by another email telling it would be delivered early. Then the cycle repeated. As of 8am this morning, UPS tracking showed it would be delivered today but also showed it was still in Vernon, CA. At 8:58am I got the notice telling me it was delayed (again). Here's the UPS tracking for my iPad:

Chico to Sacramento to Sylmar to Vernon to...

After the 8:58am email I received another from UPS at 9:33am telling me that the package that was scheduled for delivery on Dec 6 might be delayed again (presumably, until Monday, Dec 9).

What a load of horseshit! A WEEK to move a package 600 miles within California?!

On Best Buy's website the model of iPad I ordered for myself isn't available for immediate pickup in stores. However, Best Buy shows that that model can be picked up at my local store tomorrow. So, I have a call in to Best Buy customer service to try to arrange that. I'm going near the Best Buy store tomorrow anyway. I'll pick up the one at the store and return the one that shows up via UPS (if it EVER shows up).

I say I have a call in to Best Buy customer service... When I called, the automated system told me that the wait time to talk to a rep was 71 minutes!!!!! Thankfully, I was able to leave a callback number (and not wait on hold the whole time).

THE ABOVE IS WHY AMAZON IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD!

I would have ordered from Amazon in the first place but they were not matching the Black Friday pricing (at least, not when I ordered). My wife's iPad was $80 off the normal price and my iPad was $110 off the normal price. Shipping was free.

Mark

 

[Dave Upton]

UPS is also my least favorite carrier, but FedEx has also screwed me over plenty of times. Truly, one of the worst things about modern shopping is that the logistics companies who actually deliver the packages are often totally unconcerned about damage in transit or delays. Amazon usually hits their dates, and many people are even willing to pay a bit more for that reliability.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Remember the film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective? Carrey poses as an HDS driver, and he just boots his delivery package down the street (not sure if this was an intentional dig at UPS by the screenwriter)

 

[Mark Booth]

Best Buy online customer service couldn't do squat. She said there was no way that she could match the Black Friday pricing on a replacement. I asked to speak to a supervisor and she told me that a wait for a supervisor would be 1-2 hours.

I hung up the phone.

We decided to go get lunch at the new In-N-Out and there is a Best Buy across the street. I went in BB to speak to a manager. I explained the situation and showed him the UPS tracking information. I asked if he could match the Black Friday price and order the iPad for delivery to the store. He said there was no way he could match the BF pricing. He also said that the earliest he could get one of the same models in-store was Dec 20. Yes, the Best Buy website was in error about how quickly it could be delivered to the local store (the error has already been corrected since my visit to the store).

I bowed my head and muttered to myself it was a waste of time to drive to the store. Then he said, "No, it wasn't!" He asked me to wait a couple of minutes and when he returned he had a Best Buy gift card in his hand. He gave it to me, thanked me for being a Best Buy customer, asked me to spend it at his store instead of at Best Buy online, and wished me a Merry Christmas. The gift card amount is $100.

Also, I learned that "due to operating conditions" for UPS means: Due to the fact that we have too much business for the number of employees, trucks, trains and planes we have. Quite literally, UPS was overwhelmed with so much Black Friday shipping that they couldn't handle it all. Some packages are having to just sit in place for a few days. UPS Ground shipping is the lowest priority in these situations.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Nearly 5pm on the west coast and my UPS package still hasn't left Vernon, CA. It needs to move to UPS's Chula Vista distribution center before it can be delivered. It needs to get there before about 6am tomorrow morning or it won't be delivered until Monday.

Now taking odds on whether it gets delivered tomorrow or not...

Mark

 

[JohnRice]

My input might not match the feeding frenzy going on here, but I have a suspicion that, in a way, this isn't entirely UPS' fault, but more Best Buy's. I own a business that relies on shipping thousands of packages per year. The service we get from UPS, and USPS (yeah) is impressive. I had a claim earlier this year, which is the first one we've had in at least five years. What was the claim for? A 3 Day Express shipment was one day late. We are fortunate to be centrally located (Colorado) and the shipping center in Denver was recently "upgraded" in some way, which has reduced the handling for everything we send. Basically, it leaves Denver (Commerce City) and stays on that truck to the nearest distribution center to the destination. Ground shipments arrive to nearly anywhere in the country in three days or less. We're fortunate in that sense, but it's not like there were problems before the upgrade. Most shipments just arrive faster and with less handling.

So, I have a theory. I have the impression that Best Buy has such a low rate contract with UPS, that their shipments are given extremely low priority, in exchange for savings to them. That's the only explanation I can come up with, because these examples are completely unheard of in my experience.

 

[RICK BOND]

I don't like UPS either ! Dumb drivers that deliver late and can't read signs on my front door ! I told Amazon I don't want them to deliver to me anymore. Lousy company.

 

[David Norman]

This seems to be such a local or regional division. Open a thread about DHL, Fedex or USPS and you get tons of "I agree" and almost as many "Not in my neighborhood, I love 'them' but hate the other guy." USPS I find it often comes down to the individual carrier if they have a long term assigned route -- I've had 2 basic carriers in 28 years so you get to know them pretty well.

Also in my previous work I used to see a lot of these people and their families in my workplace so they knew me both directions. Some of the current employees I've literally known since they were babies or your kids.

Maybe this helps to be in a semi rural area -- most of the drivers and Folks at the local branches are great. I had a UPS person let me into their command center recently to track down a package that said it was delivered (but not to me). They tracked the GPS data and found the package delivered 6 houses over. Found out it just happened to be to a neighbor who was out of town for the week (the daughter had come over and taken the packages off the porch and put them in the living room) otherwise they'd just have brought the package over and given it to me. I had a similar event last year with USPS, but anytime I've had a missing/delayed package they've gone out of their way to get the Postmaster to put out a BOLO and half the time they end up finding the item.

Beat up packages don't seem any worse with one than the other. There's isn't a local FedEx or DHL office (closest is 45 minutes), but I don't get a lot from them anyway

 

[jcroy]

(On a more general rant).

Excluding stuff like food, housing, etc .... just about all of the type of stuff I buy seems to have largely disappeared from offline retailers. Back in the day, I spent a lot of time and cash at bookstores, record stores, BB, etc ...

Nowadays most of that same stuff seems to only really be available online. (Excluding semi-random objects which pop up at thrift shops). With repeated damaged parcels, defective discs, really late or lost deliveries, etc .... over the years, I've been gradually reconsidering my stance and moving away from actual dvd/bluray discs, paper books, etc ... For example, I don't buy fiction books anymore in paper form. Easier to just read the ebook versions.

Too many headaches for stuff which ends up being only used once or twice.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Nearly 5pm on the west coast and my UPS package still hasn't left Vernon, CA. It needs to move to UPS's Chula Vista distribution center before it can be delivered. It needs to get there before about 6am tomorrow morning or it won't be delivered until Monday.

Now taking odds on whether it gets delivered tomorrow or not...

Mark

Just generally speaking where are you in the San Diego area? My wife and I are San Diego area natives. I grew up in Chula Vista and our last home was Escondido before moving to Arkansas.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I suspect David is correct in that all carriers have issues to varying degrees which come out better or worse region by region, and maybe even city to city.

For me in Astoria (Queens, New York City), UPS is generally the most reliable of the major carriers while FedEx I have the most problems with. But UPS being good for me and FedEx not is probably more the result of luck in having a better/more attentive delivery team. When FedEx gets overwhelmed here, they just leave door tags and claim no one was home (probably saves a bunch of time if you can leave ten door tags in one apartment building instead of pressing ten buzzers as they should), even if the package didn’t need a signature or if someone is here. With UPS, I see them delivering later in the day than other carriers, presumably to make their deliveries. So that may just be a regional management strategy.

Basically my experience has been that they can all suck and all do great depending on where you live and who’s in charge locally.

I have noticed that regardless of carrier, Amazon doesn’t seem to care if your stuff arrives late in the way they used to.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I don't have a problem with UPS, but I effing hate UPS Mail Innovations.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Who knew that adding an extra day or two to delivery time along with substandard tracking was an innovation?

 

[Mark Booth]

Just generally speaking where are you in the San Diego area? My wife and I are San Diego area natives. I grew up in Chula Vista and our last home was Escondido before moving to Arkansas.

East County, due East of downtown San Diego.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Just generally speaking where are you in the San Diego area? My wife and I are San Diego area natives. I grew up in Chula Vista and our last home was Escondido before moving to Arkansas.

BTW, Johnny, I also grew up in Chula Vista. I attended Hilltop Elementary, Loma Verde Elementary, Palomar Elementary, Castle Park Jr and Sr. High Schools.

Mark

 

[MatthewA]

I've had more problems with FedEx after their losing a very important ownership document related to my car after having delivered it to the wrong house to begin with.

 

[Dave Upton]

My input might not match the feeding frenzy going on here, but I have a suspicion that, in a way, this isn't entirely UPS' fault, but more Best Buy's. I own a business that relies on shipping thousands of packages per year. The service we get from UPS, and USPS (yeah) is impressive. I had a claim earlier this year, which is the first one we've had in at least five years. What was the claim for? A 3 Day Express shipment was one day late. We are fortunate to be centrally located (Colorado) and the shipping center in Denver was recently "upgraded" in some way, which has reduced the handling for everything we send. Basically, it leaves Denver (Commerce City) and stays on that truck to the nearest distribution center to the destination. Ground shipments arrive to nearly anywhere in the country in three days or less. We're fortunate in that sense, but it's not like there were problems before the upgrade. Most shipments just arrive faster and with less handling.

So, I have a theory. I have the impression that Best Buy has such a low rate contract with UPS, that their shipments are given extremely low priority, in exchange for savings to them. That's the only explanation I can come up with, because these examples are completely unheard of in my experience.

It's certainly BB's fault for using smartpost, which is a terrible service altogether, largely due to the UPS->USPS handoff. I'm just consistently amazed at how frequently UPS manages to damage packages in transit.

 

[Mark Booth]

For the record, it was my wife's iPad that was supposed to go through Surepost. Ultimately, UPS didn't transfer her iPad to the post office and UPS delivered her iPad yesterday. My iPad was never supposed to go through Surepost.

UPS tracking for my iPad doesn't show any movement since yesterday morning's update. At this moment in time, the expected delivery date at the top of the tracking page is still today, Dec 6. However, right below that date there is a brand new button... "File a Claim". The button wasn't there yesterday (or any day before). I clicked the button and it allows me to file a claim for a lost package. But it also says I have to wait 24 hours since the most recent status update in tracking. The most recent status update was 8:58am yesterday. So, presumably, I can file a claim for lost package at 8:59am today.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for a callback from Best Buy customer service after calling corporate HQ this morning. I don't expect the customer service conversation to lead anywhere. They'll look at tracking and tell me it's just delayed.

I wish there was a way I could use the Best Buy gift card to buy an iPad at the Apple Store.

Mark

 

[JohnRice]

It's certainly BB's fault for using smartpost, which is a terrible service altogether, largely due to the UPS->USPS handoff. I'm just consistently amazed at how frequently UPS manages to damage packages in transit.

I receiver SurePost all the time, and I've never had a problem. It's UPS Ground plus a day, every time. And stuff arrives in fine shape. I have one arriving today. We'll see how it is.

 

[The Drifter]

To the OP, sorry to hear about this. In the past, I had a lot of issues with delivery companies mis-delivering packages. This doesn't happen as often these days. However, I completely agree with you that packages shouldn't be left at the front door (if at at all possible), and instead left off to the side, where they can't easily be seen by passerby.

Most of us out there work full-time, so we typically aren't home when companies are delivering these items - so, I agree that they should be careful when dropping off items & do what they can to at least minimize the possibility of their being stolen.

I do order online somewhat, but my concern with delivery companies like UPS will be increased if I order expensive electronics online, like I may have to do at some point soon - now that so many brick & mortar stores are closing.