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

[jcroy]

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.

This is the most disconcerting thing about how so much stuff of interest is becoming only available online, and not at any local offline bricks & mortar retail stores.

As alluded to in my earlier post on this thread, there will likely be a day when there isn't any choice anymore other than to order such items online. Either that or not buying anything at all.

 

[Mark Booth]

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.

My wife and I are retired. More often than not, we are home when packages get delivered. NONE of the drivers ever knock on the door. Not UPS, not FedEx, not USPS, not Amazon. They make ZERO attempt to actually hand the package to a person.

That is why we leave a note on occasions we are not going to be home. Notes that UPS drivers are experts at ignoring. Amazon drivers are good at ignoring them too. Only FedEx and USPS is consistent about reading notes on the door.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Even though it was 24 hours since last status update, UPS's system wouldn't let me file a claim. So, I called. Finally got some sort of action. Rep switched me to the claims dept. She took one look at tracking and said something was wrong. While I was talking to her this showed up on the tracking page:

She said it typically takes 6-8 business days for an investigation to be completed. But if the package is found, it will be manually selected to move it forward as quickly as possible. She didn't expect anything would happen until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest.

Oh, how I DESPISE UPS!

Mark

 

[John*Wells]

I read through the thread and I don’t like ups either. For one thing, they knock on your door door and if you aren’t there in 5 seconds they’re out. And if they take the item with them you’re out of luck. Second, I’ve had more than one Instance where my packages we’re supposed to be delivered by a certain time and they weren’t. 3 hours later I get a delay e mail

 

[Johnny Angell]

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

I went to Vista Square Elementary, Chula Vista Jr and then Chula Vista High. How the hell did I end up in Little Rock?

 

[David Norman]

I've found UPS MyChoice to be an excellent deal though it depends on where you live obviously. It can automatically upgrade most SurePost to UPS Ground (won't work with UPSMI) and I've started delivering most of my packaging The UPS Store which is only a mile away -- end up delivering 1-2 days early, inside, never get a "Missed You at Home", no packages on the porch for weather or pirates (not really an issue locally), and they deliver early in the morning instead of 6-8 pm like my residential delivery. I actually did so many $1/per promo enrollments I finatlly opted for full price this time and I don't feel bad about it.

They've even had a promotion for the Holiday season -- deliver 10 packages to the Access point and get $15 Target GC and 3-6 months of MyCHoice Premium extension.

I've done so many over the last few months the people at the store greet me by name and often see me pull into the parking lot and have my package in hand by the time I walk in -- that's either cool or very sad, I haven't quite figured it out.

 

[TJPC]

I saw a product advertised somewhere that was an anti-porch pirate device. The delivery men put the package in a large metal box that is bolted down. They then close the lid and lock a lock provided by the home owner.

 

[John Dirk]

UPS is also my least favorite carrier, but FedEx has also screwed me over plenty of times.

At this point I think they are both equally uncaring and incompetent entities. Perhaps a 3rd competitor would help?

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.

Agreed. Where I live shipping is rarely an issue but I pay for that because there are trucks, trucks, and trucks everywhere. I have an Amazon distribution center maybe 4 miles from my house. The traffic gets horrendous at times but I can also laugh whenever I'm offered Prime shipping. My stuff always arrives in a timely manner without it.

 

[Mark Booth]

UPS's automated system finally realized that my package *can't* be delivered today and updated the expected delivery date to the next business day, which is of course Monday. When I got the email I clicked over to tracking to see if there had actually been any movement of the package.

Nope! No package scans since Wednesday at 11:07pm.

In other news... The iPad that I'm waiting on is Apple's 7th generation basic iPad with 128GB of memory, wifi + cellular (unlocked) in Space Gray. MSRP for this iPad is $559.00. My Black Friday purchase price from Best Buy was $459.99. I was going to trade my old iPad to Amazon for a $75 credit, which would have pushed the net price (before tax) for the Best Buy iPad down to $384.99.

Thanks to my previous employer's EPP with Apple (which retirees are still allowed to participate in), I can buy the same 7th generation iPad directly from the Apple Store for $548. I checked and Apple will give me $100 trade-in for my old iPad. That pushes the net price (before tax) for that iPad to $448.

That's only a $63 difference. Well, a little bit more than that because I'd have to pay a bit more tax for the more expensive iPad.

So, I'm sitting here wondering if it's worth roughly $70 to tell Best Buy and UPS to go screw themselves. After all, I did get a $100 Best Buy gift card out of the hassle too (which I will spend on 4K Blu-rays this month).

If I order the iPad from Apple online for in-store pickup at the closest Apple Store (15 minutes away), I could pick it up today. I'd have it and be done with it. It wouldn't matter if the Best Buy one shows up next week, next month or not at all. I'd have my new iPad.

Decisions, decisions...

The other side of that coin is that I already have an iPad. It's getting long in tooth and the battery doesn't last a full day, but I still have something to use in the meantime.

Decisions, decisions...

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Probably the best way to get the Best Buy iPad moving is to go buy one from the Apple Store. The moment I've paid for a replacement I'm sure the Best Buy one will start working its way to me. Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Mark

 

[David Norman]

Probably the best way to get the Best Buy iPad moving is to go buy one from the Apple Store. The moment I've paid for a replacement I'm sure the Best Buy one will start working its way to me. Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Mark

True story -- one of the orders I made on BF from BBY was a 13 item order with most of those cheap TV sets (DC and Walking Dead) plus a few BD. Shipped Friday, Accepted by UPS in Louisville -- great. Since then Ive gotten about 10 packages from Target, DD, BBY, Amazon all ordered same time or later, and many sent from the same Louisville/Shepherdsville warehouse and routed through the same UPS facility. The 13 item item order sat there and never left -- every time that's happened from any service it's never moved and eventually declared lost/replaced or cancelled.

Chatted with BBY yesterday to see if they could check with UPS or reship -- they claimed that they could only reship and had no say with UPS missing packages. Fine, buit they could only reship 5 of the items and would refund the other 8 since they were no long available to ship (all instore or on BBY.com but obviously no longer BF prices). Fine -- if that's really the only option and esp since it was 5 of the TV sets which were the main items. Re-ship orders, 4 or the 5 shipped last night, refund emails received.

Lo and behold, this morning the tracking on the original package 'Departed Louisville at 3am via UPS Ground" Expected Delivery TBD. I'm assuming it's coming toward me and not back to the warehouse across the street.

Now I'm likely to end up with 5 doubles of TV sets (5 at 9.99 and 5 $0.00) and 8 items that have been refunded already ASSUMING the package actually exists and isn't crushed to a pancake. It's going to be fun trying to get BBY to fix this since all the prices have now changed in their systme.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I saw a product advertised somewhere that was an anti-porch pirate device. The delivery men put the package in a large metal box that is bolted down. They then close the lid and lock as lock provided by the home owner.

That sounds like a great idea if the delivery services would use it. There was a guy selling a package that would emit a puff of smoke and loud noise when picked up.

 

[The Drifter]

This is the most disconcerting thing about how so much stuff of interest is becoming only available online, and not at any local offline bricks & mortar retail stores.

As alluded to in my earlier post on this thread, there will likely be a day when there isn't any choice anymore other than to order such items online. Either that or not buying anything at all.

Agree completely. The unfortunate trend is that many specialty stores that sold electronics have either closed, or on their way out. Sure, online ordering is great & convenient for some things - but there are still products that I like to see before I purchase them, i.e. large electronics, perishable food, and clothes/shoes.

 

[Mike Frezon]

The appearance of Mark's thread is rather serendipitous for me.

I currently have FIVE packages that are being delivered to me via UPS that are late.

Those packages range from one that was out on a truck for delivery the last two days...to another that was out on a truck for delivery a full week ago (November 30th) and still hasn't been delivered.

Now...I understand that this follows the aftermath of Black Friday. Plus, we had a HUGE snowstorm on late Sunday into Monday (which dropped 24" of snow). I can understand if packages weren't delivered by UPS on Monday. But my own tracking information shows the packages were loaded onto delivery trucks for several days this past week and just weren't delivered: due to "severe weather or a natural disaster." And, frankly, the weather the last several days has been absolutely fine.

So, I called UPS tonight. First, I had to navigate the usual computerized phone tree nonsense. I was eventually told that I would be put through to a customer service rep but that it may take 25 minutes or more. An hour and 15-minutes later a lovely woman (located in the Philippines) took down the tracking number for all five packages and listened to my description of the weather situation here and eventually escalated my complaint so that a supervisor would call me first thing tomorrow (Saturday) morning. She noted that at the end of each night, the driver scanned the packages with the "severe weather/natural disaster" notation. She actually told me she thought it was likely that the driver is responsible for the holdup and that the management at the local facility needs to get on top of things.

I have nothing but good things to say for the very nice woman who "got" my frustration about the situation. What a breath of fresh air (even though I was on hold listening to what amounted to some horrible '70s porn music for 75+ minutes) to have a reasonable conversation with a reasonable person in this kind of situation. And I will be very interested to hear what the supervisor will have to say in the morning.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The cynic in me says that the supervisor will cover for the driver, because you’re not really the customer, Amazon (or whoever the shipper was) is, and they do such volume with those guys that they’re not gonna lose a contract over whats a minuscule percentage of the overall business deal.

I dealt with a lot of that during the holiday season when I was in retail years ago. Store would get busier, they’d hire holiday temps that got two days of training (which simply could never match the two weeks of training a non-seasonal employee would get), and the temps often didn’t do as well, often not their fault, and there wasn’t much that could be done. Management wanted more bodies on the floor but didn’t want to do the work themselves or pay already trained staff to work overtime, and the additional volume of business far outweighed the additional complaints, so that was that. Incidentally, that company doesn’t exist anymore. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I believe one of them is this: if you’re only measuring your problems based on complaint volume, you’re missing the big picture, because most people won’t bother to complain - they’ll just do something else or go somewhere else and tell their friends why and you’ll never even notice that one bad experience you never got a complaint about turned into them and ten of their friends never patronizing your business again. UPS is giant right now but all this stuff has a way of adding up over time.

 

[David Norman]

The appearance of Mark's thread is rather serendipitous for me.

I currently have FIVE packages that are being delivered to me via UPS that are late.

Those packages range from one that was out on a truck for delivery the last two days...to another that was out on a truck for delivery a full week ago (November 30th) and still hasn't been delivered.

The national office isn't likely to help much. I'd strongly suggest going in person (if possible) to the local distribution hub (for me that's actual where the trucks load and unload as well). Mine's only 3 miles away and the guy who runs the office used to deliver packages on my street so I've always gotten excellent response from them finding delayed packages even if the package is in another state. I've tried National CS a couple times with no help, but so far every time I'm gone to the local Center it's been very productive

This is different than the UPS Store and on my map is labelled UPS Customer Center.

 

[Mike Frezon]

The national office isn't likely to help much.

Bingo.

No call this morning. No packages today. Each package shows, though, that they are out for delivery. Although for most of them, that has been the case each day for the past several days.

What the hell?!?

The local office was closed today--maybe that's why I got no phone call?!?

But if these five packages (from four different vendors) don't arrive tonight...you can bet that I will likely go--as David suggested--directly to the local office Monday morning. It is 5pm ET right now. All of the tracking says they will be delivered by "end of day" today. A couple of the Amazon packages cite specific times (8pm/9pm).

 

[Edwin-S]

People calling UPS drivers dumb is what gets me. Did anyone ever think it may be against Company policy for their Drivers to deliver anywhere but the front door, regardless of messages being left for them?

The company may not allow their Drivers to go around to the back of the house as a matter of policy.

I don't know when the practice of leaving packages unattended at houses, where it is obvious that no one is home, got started but it has and always will be a dumb idea.

 

[Mark Booth]

People calling UPS drivers dumb is what gets me. Did anyone ever think it may be against Company policy for their Drivers to deliver anywhere but the front door, regardless of messages being left for them?

We have surveillance cameras covering just about every square inch of the exterior of our home, including the front door. More than once I've watched on the surveillance playback when a UPS driver walked to the front door, read the note hanging on the door, and then proceeded to ignore the note.

The note simply requests that they walk 20 more feet (on a paved sidewalk with NO gates or other obstacles) to place the item so it is out of view from the street.

Some of the UPS drivers ignore the note and plop the package down on the doorstep where it is 100% visible from the street.

Leaving packages so they are visible from the street can lead to this:

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-XTPp8DQ/0/e00c0190/1280/i-XTPp8DQ-1280.mp4

Yes, that is our house. Not UPS that time but it demonstrates my point. There's not a note on the door because we didn't know that particular package was coming.

The thief was in the silver car when it went up the street. If you watch the time stamp on the video, you'll notice that there is a 2 minute 49 second gap/jump between when the mail carrier walked away and the thieve's car turned onto our street. The thieves were obviously following the mail carrier's route but staying far enough behind that they wouldn't be seen by the carrier. If the package hadn't been visible from the street the thieves wouldn't have even known there was a package to steal. They were following the route and looking at porches for packages.

There's also a gap/jump in the time stamp after the thieve's car disappears up the street just before the thief comes into view. They saw the package, continued up the street a bit, and the woman got out of the car.

Watch how the thieves worked together to keep my neighbor across the street from seeing what they were doing. The driver positioned the car BETWEEN the woman and my neighbor to block my neighbor from seeing the package in her hand. She was heading for the driver's door UNTIL she saw my neighbor look away and then she scurried to the other side of the car to get in and make the getaway.

That is the only package we've ever had stolen because, as mentioned, I usually leave notes and packages don't get left in plain view (usually).

Oh, and since someone will ask anyway... No, the thief was never caught (to my knowledge). I supplied the surveillance video to the sheriff's investigator and to the postal inspector. The company that sent the package was (after about 5 months) reimbursed by the post office. The company had already sent us a replacement (which we paid for) and the company refunded our money (for the second item) when the post office reimbursed them. I never heard back from either the sheriff's dept or postal service.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Back to pathetic UPS...

When I woke up this morning the UPS tracking showed that my package had finally moved from Vernon, CA to Chula Vista, CA with delivery scheduled for Monday. About 12:15pm I received an email from UPS telling me that my package delivery was rescheduled for today. That was a pleasant surprise because UPS Ground packages are not typically delivered on weekends. I checked the tracking page again and found this:

It is now past 5:00pm, no package. Maybe it will show up before I go to bed at midnight?

I'm not holding my breath.

Mark