Friday, October 06, 2006

UPS sucks

Today, I am in a more rabid mood than on most days. I was expecting a package with a replacement drive to be delivered yesterday. I made the mistake of saving a dollar by selecting UPS as my shipping agent.

The first problem occured when the driver did not find my address. Instead of giving me a call, he just concluded the address doesn't exist and went on his merry way. I found out about this when I arrived back home from an important meeting I had to attend and checked the UPS tracking website.

I immediately called UPS and was told by a friendly phone operator that they had now confirmed with me that I was actually living at my address and would reattempt delivery the next day. Ok, not good, but not too bad.

The next morning I notice that the tracking website (a) doesn't show my package as out for delivery but also (b) has a comment about them sending me a postcard to verify my address that was added after I confirmed my address and rescheduled delivery the previous day.

I call UPS (9am) and get a friendly operative who checks my package, explains about the postcard. I tell him about the phone conversation of the previous day and how I had the delivery rescheduled for today. He checks again and claims that my package will be delivered on the present day between 9 and 5.

At noon, no updates are visible on the tracking website. I call UPS again. I get a friendly operator who confirms that as far as she can tell, the package is on its way to me, and I should just call back later if it doesn't arrive.

At 4.30, I am getting anxious. I call UPS, and a friendly operator tells me that the package has in fact not been out for delivery all day but is sitting at the local UPS facility for me to retrieve - they need to verify my address.

I am now no longer surprised that UPS can ship a dollar cheaper than other companies, their telephone operator workforce is by my statistical sampling 3/4 incompetent. I don't blame the UPS driver who didn't find/didn't look very hard for my place on the day before - even though DHL and FEDEX drivers have never had trouble delivering, it's not blindingly obvious where I live.

So I make my way through real bad rushhour traffic to the UPS location in downtown Seattle. They are hard to find, several backalleys without any signs pointing the right direction. On my way, I drive by DHLs offices right next to 99 and wish I had chosen them as my courier.

One last comparison: when I returned a defective power supply via DHL recently, the courier was at my door 3 minutes after I had scheduled pickup with the phone operator. You've got to admire an organization that can execute like that.

Summary - I will not ever consider shipping anything vial UPS again. If I can, DHL and FEDEX will get all the business I can throw their way.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

UPS are a bunch of idiots who try to avoid paying for damage claims at all costs. They will lie repeatedly to you while pretending to work on your behalf. Even worse are the UPS Stores, which are franchised outlets that rarely pay any insurance claims for lost or damaged parcels, even the ones they parcel themselves, and here's more insight into the scam that UPS is. They will not insure your item unless THEY PACKAGE IT, and the packaging costs are completely ridiculous. Then when you item is damaged, I say wuse the term 'when' becuse UPS has an extremely bad track record for damaged items, they do their best to avoid all responsibility in paying out the insurance claim for your damaged or lost item by playing the 'Delay Game', which is stalling the claim with plenty of excuses while the clock ticks down. The quote 'We're doing all we can sir..." is a bunch of BS. Use Federal Express or DHL, we've never had a single damaged item in the 4 years we've been using both these companies. You have to file papers at your own expense to take UPS to court for fraud before they decide to start paying out your insurance claim. Avoid dealing with any Asian persons connected to UPS, particularly the UPS Store franchise owners because they are the ultimate scam artists and I don't give a damn if someone whines and says that this statement is racist. It isn't racist, it's a FACT. People who think UPS is a reliable service should drop by my other blog and see the pcitures of just some of the damaged items that UPS damaged and tried to avoid any responsibilty in paying out the insurance for items that they had packaged and shipped.

Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 8:02:00 AM PDT  

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