Once again, I’ve been reminded why United Parcel Service are a bunch of complete morons.
If you recall, they once decided my house was “too rural” for Saturday delivery, despite the fact that we’re 4 miles from a sizable town and perhaps a mile from a major state highway. This compounded by what was likely my worst ever customer service experience ever, has basically lost me forever as a customer. I will never willingly use their services.
So what happened recently to bring this all back?
Every year my mother arranges to send us a christmas wreath for our home. It is something of a family tradition. She used to source them from a family-run business in the unpronounceable-to-all-but-Washingtonians town of Puyallup. Unfortunately, like our neighborhood tree-farm they closed up shop a few years ago. Since then my mom has sourced her wreaths from various commercial outfits. This year however, no wreath ever arrived. I thought that perhaps she had forgotten.
Until yesterday, January 2nd, 2009, when I came home from work I found our 2008 Christmas Wreath sitting in a box on the front porch! Thank you UPS. Once again, you have dazzled me with your incompetence.
But of course I’d neglected to take down the wreath from the year before… though it is looking a bit… dead.
When was the wreath originally sent?
12/15
Brown did something similar to me. Ordered a few gifts online on the 18th with Next Day Delivery. Shipped on the 19th with a delivery date of the 22nd. Two of the four packages arrived (all from the same vendor), with the other two being denied because of “adverse weather conditions”. I live on a state highway up the hill from an interstate. I called and they swore that they were on the truck on Tuesday. Nope nada. Again rejected for adverse weather conditions. By Christmas eve the roads were bare and wet where I live and again no delivery.
Finally got received the package yesterday as well.
Meanwhile all my deliveries I expected with FedEx arrived on time w/o issue. After being blown off by UPS twice, I tipped the FedEx guy a $20 on Christmas Eve.
Washington was hit hard with nasty weather? I saw several news stories showing the airport closed, buses sliding down streets,etc. Just think about the backlog that puts on all delivery networks like UPS and FedEX. I assume UPS/FDX were impacted at SEATAC as well. My family in Wa had several packages delivered several days late by FedEx as well.
UPS operates out of Boeing Field, which is near my office. Never much snow there.
I’d give them the “weather bye” except that FedEx was able to make their deliveries during the same time period. The roads in our region (other than our driveway) remained clear through much of the time period. They could have brought it to the Arlington UPS office and called us. Tey could have left it on our mailbox at the end of our driveway. My main beef with UPS is that they give up WAY too easy.
Package delivery isn’t the only thing they are incapable of in 24 hours…
My email to UPS on 12/29/2008 9:29 AM :
I have three overdue packages for which no delivery attempts were made. I would like to know when they will be delivered. The customer service department has not returned any of my phone calls.
I understand that the snow storm made delivery difficult, however, the roads have been completely bare here for over a week and I have not seen anything. They were originally scheduled to arrive between 12/22/08 and 12/23/08 including two cases of “overnight delivery”. I would like a full update of their status. Thank you.
UPS Customer Dis-Service Department on 1/2/2009 1:44PM :
Thank you for your e-mail. I have checked the status of your shipment in our tracking system. Unfortunately, our records indicate that your shipment was temporarily delayed on 12/22/08 due to emergency conditions during transit. This delay was outside of our control.
The local package centers are working diligently to process all volume and will do everything possible to have all packages delivered as soon as possible given the current conditions. However, I encourage you to continue tracking this shipment online to obtain the current status.
For the most up-to-date tracking information, please visit our web site using the following link:
http://www.ups.com/tracking/tracking.html
Please note, all packages impacted by the severe weather are expected to be delivered by Friday, January 2.
I sincerely apologize for the delay in delivery of your shipment.
Please contact us if you need any additional assistance.
Kellie Long
UPS Customer Service
Chuck, this shipment was doomed from the start. But it was on time, sorta.
I’m not trying to be the devil’s advocate here but UPS is just a shipping company. They are really no better or worse than any of the others. My question would be why was it sent ground the week before Christmas if you wanted it there before Christmas? There is no delivery guarantee on ground service. Nine working days for ground shipment from IL to WA is acceptable. If you look at UPS’s Holiday Calendar this is nine working days. This parcel should have been shipped at the minimum 3 Day Select or better yet Second Day Air. Basically you got what you paid for.
You have my sympathy for your disappointment in the late package.
Anson Joe, Chuck wasn’t the one who sent the package, it was his mother. And UPS had it sitting at the facility in Arlington WA for more than a week before they got around to driving it out to Chuck’s place, according to the tracking history.
I had UPS difficulties this holiday season as well, without any plausible contribution from the weather here in sunny CA. Package sent UPS 2nd day Air to my home, by a shipper who uses computer printed labels that has successfully shipped all too much merchandise to me. I live in a nice quiet suburban neighborhood with 4 inch numbers on the mailbox that cannot be missed if you are driving with your lights on (a good idea at the time of the alleged first delivery attempt, as the sun had long gone!) but sure enough, the exception went up on the website at 7:52pm stating that “A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION.” Reading that, one might be fooled into thinking that UPS was actually doing something, but the only thing that UPS was doing was letting the driver go home and waiting for the recipient to call to find out what happened to that guaranteed delivery by 7pm. The UPS customer service agent knew from the tracking system what the address was, so getting the number correct wasn’t the issue. Of course, by that hour, they were all done delivering for the day, but the UPS CS person offered to send a message to the local UPS center directing them to deliver the package first thing in the morning, that the address was correct, where to look on the map if they couldn’t find the street, and to have a supervisor give me a call with an explanation of why it didn’t get delivered. Then at 9:11pm (same night) another notice goes up on the website, stating “THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE.” Uh, okay, so I’m supposed to believe that the driver swung by again to make an actual attempt to deliver the package, but couldn’t find anyone home. Hmm. Interesting. How to explain the lack of an Infonotice on the door, or the fact that I was sitting in my office adjacent to the front door and the driveway, where it is impossible to drive a delivery truck without my being aware of it? Another call to UPS. Same result — we’ll send a message over to the center and have them call you in the morning, by 9am. I called up the shipper in the morning when they reopened, verified that they did NOT send my package signature required, then called UPS again to see why none of the promised phone calls had happened, and why the package wasn’t left on my doorstep if no signature was required? “That’s up to the driver to assess if the neighborhood is safe, yada yada yada…” Okay, fine, there’s no way to argue with that, but what about those phone calls? “Well, we can send a message to…” I’ve heard this before, and I think I know how it ends, so I interrupt and ask for the phone number to call the local center instead of just the main UPS 800 number. “We don’t have a number you can call, sir.” So how does the rest of UPS communicate with these rogue agents? “We send them messages through the system, like I’m offering to do for you.” Yeah. Sure. Okay, can you connect me to a supervisor who can communicate with the manager of the facility? “No, but we can send them a message asking them to call you, and when they do, you can ask to have the issue escalated…” Um, yeah, I’m confident that that will work just peachy 🙂 Amazingly enough, I DO get a phone call from the local center about an hour later. Some supervisor type, says that the latest message that had been sent was the first they had heard of any of this! Naturally, I inquired as to what he thought had happened to the other messages that were allegedly sent (and the different agents were able to see them and quote sections back to me). He said that they probably got sent to the wrong place, that it happens all the time! Now, I’m thinking that the designer of the UPS message system probably doesn’t have the customer service rep typing in a numeric code for one of hundreds or thousands of local UPS facilities, but just has a button that sends the message to the facility handling the tracking number in question. Then again, this is UPS! I tried to get an estimate from him of how many messages he gets for other facilities (stands to reason, right?) but was mostly interested in getting my package delivered ASAP so didn’t press the point. He put me on hold, called up a driver on the radio, and came back to say that the driver would have it to me before his lunch break, and it was a different driver, and in broad daylight maybe they wouldn’t have any trouble finding the place. I did finally receive the package that day, but late enough that I couldn’t do all the work I needed to do and still ship it out that day to the final destination, so not only did I not get the 2nd day service I paid for, I had to pay for next day service (with another carrier!) to get the package to its destination on time. I did ask if UPS would give me next day service for the price of 2nd day to make amends, but while everyone was sorry, they didn’t see how they could do that.
Count me in the “thinks UPS is a bunch of morons” group…