To UPS and FedEX....

[LadyAndreca]

You can always tell when the normal mailman is on vacation, because we'll start getting mail for random apartments in our complex. We'll walk them over to the right building if we can figure it out, but sometimes the only solution is to catch the guy the next day and say "sorry, not us".

[Dips]

I worked for UPS for six and a half years, so I learned a few things about the system. So, some of their behavior makes sense to me, even if it is pathetically stupid.<snip>

Thank you very much for taking the time to post that. Those are good suggestions and should be helpful to most folks. Except SCs, of course. No matter what you tell them to help them, they'll complain.

[Chromatix]

I've got a package in transit with UPS now. Only because I ordered something from stateside and that was the only delivery option listed. But oh boy...

Friday: it's seen in Austin.

Saturday: Louisville.

Sunday: It leaves Louisville.

Monday: Köln, Stockholm, Vantaa, Helsinki. Oh look, they want me to pay duty and tax on it. (I hate import duties and consumption taxes, but debate on that is for Fratching.)

So I get on the phone and try to figure out how much and how to pay. After the usual hilarity with reading out long strings of numbers and letters to several different departments, I pay by e-banking and get the receipt e-mailed off. Good, that should mean it's only delayed by one day.

And then I notice that the tracking information has updated to say "Delivered" - while I was still on the phone getting the payment information, and in fact still in the office. Apparently someone called Vottonen signed for it.



It gets worse. When I get home, I check the name-board by the building door. No Vottonens there, and he isn't our janitor or building-manager either. There is nothing by my flat's door either.

So I call UPS again, demanding to know WTF is going on. They say they'll investigate, but they need to talk to the driver who delivered it, and he's gone home for the day - expect a phone call before noon. They could have just written down the address it was delivered to...

Noon the next day (today) rolls around - no call.

But now the tracking information has changed again. The "Delivered" entry is still there, but now it says "Import scan", "Tax paid - released for delivery", both for early this morning.



How on earth are they able to scan it, if it's already been delivered?

More phone calls, more reading out long strings of numbers. Apparently it *wasn't* delivered to anywhere yesterday, it was very definitely in the clearance office. But it isn't there any more, it's in a van and will be delivered today. There are vague mentions of "it's a new computer system, it isn't working properly yet".

Oh, and it might even be delivered as soon as "in a few minutes".

Great, so I can wait for it. Good thing I have some things I can do away from the office.

I'm still waiting...

[AccountingDrone]

I've got a package in transit with UPS now. Only because I ordered something from stateside and that was the only delivery option listed. But oh boy...

Oh my .. next time you want something from the US, ask one of us to see if we can get it delivered here and mail it to you ... sometimes when I send stuff to friends in England and Germany if I send it as a gift, it gets there better than as a commercial order.

[Chromatix]

Well the good news is that I did finally get the callback from UPS. They determined that it had, in fact, not been "delivered" to anyone, and that it must have been a mis-scan somewhere.

And they promised it would be delivered by 4pm today. Which is, let me see, precisely two minutes ago. I even gave them the code to the back door to make sure the driver could get in.

ETA: 6pm and *still* no package.

Tracking says a delivery attempt was made shortly after 4pm - and says "Receiver's location was closed". No phone call, apparently no attempt to use the keycode I gave them.

At this late hour, I only get the Swedish line, who apparently don't have sufficiently detailed info about Finnish operations to help me. They suggest I call again early tomorrow morning.

AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!

And as an aside, I was also waiting for a washing machine to be delivered today. They actually did turn up at the arranged time - but they discovered the machine was damaged when they started unpacking it. So they'll be back some other day with a fresh one.

So that was a particularly fruitless day.

[Andara Bledin]

Fair enough ^_^ My only qualm is, I've called the local UPS center about holding stuff for me -- they refuse to do so until a delivery attempt has already been made an dthe truck has come back (yes, even if I call BEFORE they get the package)...

You claim to be the customer, but they have no proof that you even live at that address. So they have to go to the address and leave a call tag that you take in with you so that they have reasonable proof that you are who you say you are. After all, how would you like it if some person who happened to overhear you talking about the expensive piece of equipment you were expecting to be delivered the next day got picked up by some scammer who called to have it held so they could grab it?

If you want to have it held at the center, either have the vendor call to make that arrangement, or just have it shipped there in the first place.

Oh my .. next time you want something from the US, ask one of us to see if we can get it delivered here and mail it to you ... sometimes when I send stuff to friends in England and Germany if I send it as a gift, it gets there better than as a commercial order.

Just a note, but customs fraud is not a cheap fine. And can get you banned from mailing stuff out of the country at all. Also, things marked "gift" have a higher rate of non-delivery; if a crook is going to snatch a package, they'd prefer snatching one that the recipient might not be expecting.

But I do agree that if you are having something shipped from the US to another country, you do not want to use UPS. If only because their brokerage fees are outrageous.

^-.-^

[Wenchie]

You claim to be the customer, but they have no proof that you even live at that address. So they have to go to the address and leave a call tag that you take in with you so that they have reasonable proof that you are who you say you are. After all, how would you like it if some person who happened to overhear you talking about the expensive piece of equipment you were expecting to be delivered the next day got picked up by some scammer who called to have it held so they could grab it?

Every time I've gone to pick up something from UPS, I've had to show ID with name & address before they would release the package. So this shouldn't be an issue. If you call them and ask them to hold it, and you can prove your identity and address with a photo id, they should be able to give you the package.

If all you have for proof of identity is a call tag... well, someone could've stolen that off your door (I've had those disappear from my door before) so that shouldn't be reasonable proof of identity.

[EricKei]

The Bard beat me to it ^_^

I'm not saying that the way these guys run things is typical of UPS, btw, just the way it seems to be done *here*. Then again, I'm accustomed to thigns being done....oddly...'round these parts.

[Andara Bledin]

Every time I've gone to pick up something from UPS, I've had to show ID with name & address before they would release the package. So this shouldn't be an issue.

That's true, but if someone is ready to steal a package, it's not a huge stretch to think they might be willing to get a fake ID to do it with. It's not like the UPS people do more than just glance at them.

Either way, UPS does it to cover their asses. While it's decidedly irritating to be on the other end of it, I can't really blame them for it.

^-.-^

[Chromatix]

Well the good news is that, after calling the head office and making absolutely sure that they were going to tell the driver my phone number and the keycode for the back door, he did in fact show up and deliver the package.

In fact, he called beforehand to make sure I would be in, and said he'd be there by 2pm. He actually showed up at about 2:15pm...

Now I only have to deal with not having a washiing machine.

[petite]

I had a similar experience to this. Except it occurred with another company that is EXACTLY like UPS, just... not UPS. Their name is a different 3-letter combination: DHL.

Basically, I had ordered a shirt from a website. So, one Monday I had come home from work and I found the lovely "Sorry we missed you!" sign on my door. Apparently they had tried to deliver the shirt. The note said that they would come to my house again for the following two days to try to deliver the package. I had the next two days off work, so although I knew I was going to be home, I decided to sign the note indicating that the delivery guy could just leave the package at my door if I wasn't there to accept it, and I stuck the note on my door, as instructed. I did this as a precautionary measure, in case I happened to be in the shower or something when the guy came.

So, the next day, I was home basically all day, except when I left for about half an hour to go to this store just down the street. Of course, the guy didn't come to my house at any point before or after I had left, so I assumed he had come while I was gone. But, the package hadn't been left at my doorstep, so I guess not... whatever, they still had one more day to deliver it so I wasn't too worried.

Day after that (Wednesday), I was home ALL day, and guess what? No delivery! I worked both Thursday and Friday, and when I got home on Friday night, there was a message on my answering machine saying that they had tried to deliver the package 3 times, so now I would have to go pick it up. Wait... what?

So I called the customer service number and explained the situation. I asked if I had done anything wrong, because although I had been home on the days they were supposed to deliver it, I had also left the note on the door stating that they could just leave the package there. But alas, no package. The girl on the phone said no, I hadn't done anything wrong, but I'd still have to pick the package up. The only problem was, there would be no way for me to get to their building while they were still open on any given day, so I asked if I could reschedule the delivery. The girl said sure, but it would be a $5 fee to do so. Luckily, by some magical twist of fate, I had a prepaid credit card on hand (I'm 18 and don't have an actual credit card yet) and used it to pay the $5. I didn't even care that I was paying for what seemed to be THEIR mistake... it's $5, I'd rather cut my small loss and be done with it.

Magically, after I paid the fee, the package was waiting for me when I got home the next day. Ughhh. Now every time I see a DHL truck, I cringe.

[MadMike]

I had a similar experience to this. Except it occurred with another company that is EXACTLY like UPS, just... not UPS. Their name is a different 3-letter combination: DHL.

I never even heard of DHL until a few years ago, and after my experience I never wanted to hear of them again, along with Circuit City and Acer. Nothing like getting screwed by three different companies at the same time.

We bought my son an Acer Laptop (I didn't know any better at the time) from Circuit City (a once great company that went straight to hell.) The salesperson talked us into getting the extended warranty, and told us that if anything went wrong with it to bring it back to the store and they'd exchange it "no questions asked."

A few weeks later, the thing started shutting down randomly, so we brought it back to the store. Not only were there "questions asked", there was a lot of foot-dragging and stonewalling, which is the reason why I will never buy another extended warranty from anyone. But that's a subject for another thread.

They told us we'd have to deal directly with Acer, as it was still under the original warranty. Funny how we were not told that when we bought the thing. I guess they were just going to say whatever they needed to sell their stupid warranty. So we called Acer, and then sent us a box to pack the laptop in and send it to the company thru DHL. It was picked up, sent to Acer who apparently glanced at the laptop for a nanosecond, decided they "couldn't recreate the problem", and sent it back to us.

I got home from work a few days later, and found a note from DHL saying they tried to deliver the package but no one was home. I called them to ask if they could deliver it after 4:00 pm when someone would be home, and they said it wouldn't be a problem. They assured me it would be delivered the next day.

The next day, I got home and asked my wife it had been delivered. She said it had not, and there was no note on the door. Figuring they simply hadn't delivered it yet, I waited. And waited. And waited. I finally called them, and they told me they had tried to deliver it at 10:30 that morning.

I was getting quite annoyed at this point. I made sure not to take it out on the person taking the call, as I'm sure she had nothing to do with it, but I'm sure that tone was in my voice. She assured me that it would be delivered the next day at the time I had requested.

I wasn't surprised when I came home the next day and found it still hadn't been delivered. I didn't even wait this time, I called over there to find out what happened. Once again, they had tried to deliver it that morning, when everyone was at work. I was really starting to get pissed at this point. They said they could try again tomorrow, or I could drive over there and pick it up myself. Their building was a good 20 minutes away, but I was tired of them screwing around, so I went over there to pick it up.

When I got there, it took them awhile to even find the thing. I was afraid they'd lost it, but eventually they brought it out. On the front of the package was a huge bright pink sticker that said "Deliver after 16:00." Un-fucking-believable!

[EricKei]

Just as a side note...DHL went international-delivery-only a few months back. Not really sure why, tho.

[petite]

Argh. Not that I take pleasure in others' misery, but I feel slightly less crazy knowing I'm not the only one that DHL has managed to elude with their tactics.

It's too bad that some companies don't forewarn you that you may need to use DHL if you buy their product. It's a shame they suck so much, because I know I won't be buying anything else off that website, purely because I don't want to go through that hassle again.

That is really bothersome though, you either have to haul your ass down to their building OR pay to fix their incompetence. Awesome!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Just a note, but customs fraud is not a cheap fine. And can get you banned from mailing stuff out of the country at all. Also, things marked "gift" have a higher rate of non-delivery; if a crook is going to snatch a package, they'd prefer snatching one that the recipient might not be expecting.

But I do agree that if you are having something shipped from the US to another country, you do not want to use UPS. If only because their brokerage fees are outrageous.

^-.-^

To add on to that, packages marked as "gift" probably would be more likely to be opened and inspected by customs officials. And if they see anything like an invoice inside, that kinda gives you away.

I dealt with this on ebay a few times. Somebody from outside the U.S. would place a bid or ask me "Can you mark this as a gift?"

No, because it's not a gift. "But other people did that for me blahblahblahblingblingblingblah."

No. And welcome to my blocked bidders list.

Eventually I just stopped making my stuff available to people outside the U.S. I didn't get very many international bidders anyway.